I own some Classic Baseball cards for other players, but didn't have a Tony Gwynn one until the joblot that prompted me to launch 80s week. So this is a debut for a card company that hasn't featured on the blog yet.
It's also unusual because it actually comes from a board game. According to Baseballcardpedia, the Classic Baseball trivia game was produced by a company in Alabama called Game Time, and the game was sold in toy shops as well as through card dealers. Later Classic sets were released as supplemental sets for the game.
I have blogged about a number of cards that have a game element to them, but this is the first time I have blogged about a card that has been removed from an actual game.
Card Number 491: Classic Baseball, 1987; #26
The cardback includes some trivia questions to ask while playing the game. There's also a box for the card owner to collect the player's autograph.
And now on to another 'debut', this time a card released by Pacific... or so I thought.
Card Number 492: Pacific Cards & Comics Big League All Stars, 1989; #19
This card confused me. I initially thought it was an early release from the company that would become Pacific, but the Pacific Company was based in Lynnwood near Seattle, and this card says the publisher was in Los Angeles.
The Trading Card Database lists Pacific Cards & Comics separately to Pacific, who were also issuing sets around this time. The Pacific Legends sets released the same year have a company logo on them, which is another reason why I think this is a different 'Pacific'.
(There was a comic publishers called Pacific that operated out of San Diego in the early 1980s that had a chain of stores. I doubt this is linked to that company either as 1989 is a few years after the publishers went bust, but one of the shops might have carried on trading.)
Regardless of who produced them, these cards show what could be done without a license back in the day and they get 19 bonus points for giving Tony the 19th card in their 20 card set.
It's a really nice photo. It would have been even better if the photographer had waited a few seconds for the chap in the blue cap in the background to walk past.
The back is basic, with just a tiny reference to the manufacturer.
One of the eternal mysteries of card collecting is wondering how a joblot of cards got grouped together. How did this end up in with a bunch of Topps, Fleer, and DonRuss cards?
I simply have no information about how many of these cards were produced, or how they were distributed. Until I started researching this blog post I thought I would have been writing about the Pacific Trading Card Company (and there are lots of stories to tell, like how they might have accidentally outed Manny Ramirez for using a corked bat when they cut a bat up for some of their relic cards). Instead, I can show you a card that I am none the wiser about!
Total: 492 cards
A. I'd love to own two copies of the 1987 Classic set. One in a sealed board game and another for my collection.
ReplyDeleteB. Maybe Pacific Cards & Comics was a card shop or wholesaler back in the 80's and this was a set produced by them to hand out to their customers. It reminds me of the Broders that were prevalent during that era.
I've never seen either of these cards before. Very seldom have I seen any Classic cards from 1987 or even 1988.
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