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Friday, January 8, 2021

Serially printed Stars

This card was in an eBay purchase. It was only when it arrived that I discovered it was serially numbered.

Card Number 569: Topps Stars (Silver Parallel), 1998; #75

The difference between this and the regular card is that Tony's name is printed in silver instead of red. The silver parallels were issued sequentially numbered to 4,399. The regular, red-letter versions were also all sequentially numbered to 9,799. There were bronze parallels also numbered to 9,799 and gold parallels that were only numbered to 2,299, and the rarest of all, "Gold Rainbows" numbered at just 99 of each card. So basically, five cards with the names in different colours. 


I really like the use of actual stars in the background of this card. That's an idea for a future blog post - cards that feature stars.

The back has an unflattering picture of Tony. His weight went up considerably at one point in the 90s and he seems to be carrying quite a bit in this photo, unfortunately.  


This card has the sequential number 4,202. Nothing particularly springs to mind as significant about that number. 

The cardback also gives aspects of his game star ratings. Whenever this sort of rating system is applied, I always wonder what they are basing it on. I doubt there are objective standards of comparison for each of these. Clearly he was a five-star hitter. The others are all more subjective. 

Unfortunately, I don't have card #76 to answer the quiz question. So, does anyone know which player hit more than 20 home runs in a season and scored more home runs than times they struck out?

Total: 569 cards

2 comments:

  1. Thanks to COMC, the answer to the quiz question is... George Brett (24 home runs & only 22 strikeouts).

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