Rarest...most photomatched Ken Griffey Jr. Rookie bat!?!

[DTM5]

I recently acquired what I believe to be the rarest, most photomatched Ken Griffey Jr. rookie bat in exsistance? As far as I know, this is new to the hobby as well.

The bat has been certified by PSA/DNA GU9. I have photomatched the bat to two rookie cards (mother's cookies) along with several postcards all taken by famous sports photographer Barry Colla.

[GoCrazyFolks76]

Those grain patterns look like a match.

Have you tried to match up the tape pattern?

[joecoco]

Awesome bat! I remember having those cards as a kid. It is wonderful to see the actual bat. Got to love photomatching!

[JDF5244]

That's a beautiful bat....and, I remember the cards! Seeing that card brings back memories of me throwing bag upon bag of Mother's Cookies into my mom's grocery cart, mainly because I wanted the cards (and the cookies weren't bad either)! Those were the days......

[hurricaneditka66]

Great bat!

I am curious, did Griffey ever use a Cooper bat in his MLB career? I know his first homerun was with his classic black LS bat.

He used light colored bats (Cooper?) in the minors and in batting practice during his rookie season, but I've never seen actual game use of the lighter bats. I could EASILY be wrong, just an observation.

Also, would be cool if this was the bat he used during photo shoot for his 1989 Upper Deck RC card.... hard to tell from pics, though.

[BoneRubbedBat]

All of the Ken Griffey Jr. bats that I have seen from that era have the "Jr" after his name. Ken Griffey Sr. Cooper bats just have "Ken Griffey." He probably took some of his dad's bats for the photo ops.

[DTM5]

Ken Griffey Jr.'s earliest bats did not have "Jr" on them as the COA below explains, and yes he used this style and brand during his rookie year along with black LS and Rawlings's bats. Check out Griffey Jr. 1989 donruss baseballs best #192 rookie card. I have seen quite a few black LS and Rawlings's rookie bats at auction but never a taped cooper with no "Jr." which makes this bat even more rare in my opinion. Junior has a distinct tape application that is different than what Sr. used. which can easily be seen in photos as well. Sr. used a single spiral tape application.

[DTM5]

For some reason I am unable to download a picture of the COA it is saying too large of file?? Also, Jr.'s cooper bats were a C271 model Sr.'s were not this model number.

[KGoldin]

In august 1989 his name had JR on the bats..the coopers
https://goldinauctions.com/LotDetail...entoryid=22872

So this must be early part of the year. Is there much use? Can you see any ball marks?

[seanbaseball]

heres griffey using a cooper bat but it does appear to have Jr