Card Number 80: DonRuss Diamond Kings, 1989; #6
Diamond Kings were an insert series in DonRuss cards from the mid-80s onwards. They all feature drawn portraits of top stars in the game at the time. The illustrator of this card was Dick Perez, who drew the Diamond King portraits from 1982 - 1996. There is a gallery on his website.
I'm not a massive fan of these cards, but I can see how they were a bit different in the 1980s compared to what else was out there.
Tony appeared in several of the Diamond Kings sets. This is the only one of his I have from the classic run of DonRuss, so far. I have a few copies as it seems to always feature in joblots - probably because 1989 was one of the peak production years for DonRuss during the junk wax explosion.
On the back the write up predicts Tony's plaque will hang in Cooperstown one day. They were right about that, of course. I've seen it myself. This seems like a good place for a gratuitous photo of me with Tony's plaque in the Hall of Fame.
The cardback is also optimistic about an imminent rosy future for the Padres. In fact, it would be almost a decade before the club achieved any success.
Card Number 81: Topps Gypsy Queen, 2015; #164
Gawain from the Baseball Cards UK Facebook group sent me this card. Gypsy Queen is another Topps retro-looking product. I have got a few Padres cards in my collection but as a set it holds zero interest for me. This is from the 2015 series, which is the season after Tony passed away.
There is no mention of Tony's passing on the back of the card. It's a very plain cardback.
Card Number 82: DonRuss Diamond Kings, 2005; #434
This card was sent to me by Rodney. It's from the 'Legends' part of the set.
I really like this card. The illustrator is Dave Kramer. My only quibble was that he could have worked from a picture of Tony at any stage in his career and maybe captured him as a younger man.
The cardback includes a bio of the artist and also shows the number of Diamond Kings appearance for Tony Gwynn up to this point (9).
Card Number 83: Topps Gypsy Queen (mini), 2015; #164
In addition to their regular size cards, Topps reproduce all their cards in a 'mini' size. I say reproduce, they actually have more of Tony visible on this mini card than on the actual card because it includes his foot. I received this very recently from Matt J.
I feel that wall behind him ought to be recognisable as well. However, I'm not googling"ball park walls" to see if I can work out where it is.
The cardback has the same factoid. Topps sometimes play around with their Gypsy Queen cardbacks to produce unnecessary variations. But this is the regular cardback.
I hope you enjoyed these Diamond Kings and Gypsy Queens. If you want to see a more up-to-date Diamond Kings card (from 2018), then have a read of this post from last month.
Total: 83/394
My favorite Diamond Kings were the subset cards from 1982 to 1991. I've been thinking about going back and collecting all of the Oakland A's and San Diego Padres for years, but never did anything about it. After you shared that link to the Perez website, I sat and wrote down all of the card I'd need to go out and buy. I'm very excited to get this side project off of the ground.
ReplyDeleteThe later year cards are cool to. I like how they listed all of the years Gwynn was featured as a Diamond King on the 2005 card. I'll have to go see how many of those I actually own.