Milestones and Masterstrokes

In the grand tradition of Sesame Street, today's blog post is brought to you by the letter M.

Card Number 593: Topps Milestones, 1998; #MS6

A beautiful blue holofoil insert card from Topps.

There are a few similarities here with a Pinnacle card I blogged yesterday - same year, same blue holofoil and clouds design, and on the back a reference to how close Tony was to his 3000th hit.

Tony didn't get a ninth batting title and finished his career tied with Honus Wagner on 8 National League titles. 

Card Number 594: Leaf Studio Masterstrokes, 1996; #1

There were 8 cards in this insert series, printed on canvas effect card with the images put through the 'paint effect' feature of Photoshop.

Studio cards were released by the DonRuss company under just the name 'Studio' for a while, before being released as Leaf Studio for a couple of years, and then finally as DonRuss Studio. Tracking the use of the brand name shows how the company was positioning its premium brands. 

On the back there is another reference to Honus Wagner. In 1996, Tony was yet to catch him up.

At the bottom of the cardback is the serial numbering. This is number 701 out of 5,000. While that's only half the number of limited edition serial numbered Diamond Kings cards from the same year, it's still a high number of cards to consider a 'limited edition'.

The paintbrush and blob of blue paint confused me at first glance. I thought Tony was flipping away a bat. It's a nod to the idea of brush strokes on a masterpiece painting. It feels like by the mid-90s card companies were running out of words to use on insert series. Leaf chose Masterstrokes, even though that doesn't really mean anything to do with art or painting. 

Total: 594 cards