Joe Montana is the defining quarterback of the junk-wax era and the museum's biggest missing name once basketball and baseball are accounted for. Four Super Bowl championships (Jan 1982, Jan 1985, Jan 1989, Jan 1990), three Super Bowl MVPs, first-ballot HOF, and the standard-setter for the position for a generation. His true rookie is 1981 Topps #216, which predates the museum's era, but his peak sits entirely inside the window. Score put him on card #1 of their 1990 flagship set because he was the biggest name in the sport that year. This is the era's canonical Montana card.

Montana in the red 49ers helmet on a card that led off the entire set. You opened a 1990 Score box and the first card in your hand was Joe. The Score set had the best football photography of the era and the Montana image is peak-Joe: calm, dry, ready to throw the ball to Jerry Rice. Every kid who watched Super Bowl XXIII (the John Candy one, the goal-line drive) had a version of this card. It was the card you traded away last because Joe was Joe.

Score football launched in 1989 with the legendary Barry Sanders rookie card that anchors the museum at #30, and returned in 1990 with Joe Montana as card #1. The two-year run of 1989-1990 Score is one of the great flagship-set moments in the era, and putting Montana at #1 in the 1990 issue was Score's assertion that they had the best photography and the deepest star lineup in football cards. The card trades cheap ($1 to $2 raw) because Score, like every football issue of the era, was massively overproduced. Its value is cultural: Joe Montana at his peak, on card #1, in the year he won his fourth Super Bowl.

Base card #1 is canonical. Montana appears elsewhere in the 1990 Score set on subset and highlight cards. The 1990 Pro Set Passing Leader #8 is the alternative canonical 1990 Montana. Other era-flagship Montana cards worth naming: 1988 Topps #34, 1989 Score #297, 1990 Pro Set #295 base, 1991 Upper Deck #54. His true rookie (1981 Topps #216) is a separate collectible from before the museum's era.

Card #1 from the 1990 Score football set, front shows Joe Montana in the red San Francisco 49ers home uniform with the Score logo and card number 1 in the design. The back has the trademark Score card design with career stats and biographical text. Confirm the #1 designation on the back and the 1990 Score design. The 1990 Score design uses distinct color-block borders that separate it visually from 1989 Score or from 1990 Pro Set / Topps.