Lots of pics of Sportflics

In a previous post, I outlined the history of Sportflics, which became the Score and Pinnacle conglomerate. About 10 years after the first lenticular Sportflics cards were released, the brand was updated for the 90s as Sportflix, with an X. 

In the PWE from Tim, there were two of the original Sportflics cards from 1986. These do not scan very well, so I have tried to take some photos of them to capture the full Sportflics experience.

I'm also going to be a bit weird and show the cardbacks first.

Card Number 616: Sportflics, 1986; #13

At first I thought this was card #19 in the set, which would have earned it 10 bonus points. But it isn't They've just put '19' in a baseball to look like the card number. Bad Sportflics! No bonus points for you! Harrumph!

Here's the scan of the front.

There are three pictures revealed by moving the card. (Or holding the card still and moving your head!)

Tony at bat...

...Tony swinging...

...and a portrait photo.

Tony appeared on another card in the set.

Card Number 617: Sportflics, 1986; #140

The "Tri-Stars" had pictures of three different players. This leads to odd pictures of all three. Tony was on a card featuring players with high batting averages.

Notably, Al Oliver wore 0 (zero) on his uniform. 

The scan offers a bizarre mash up of all 3 faces.

Tony is youthful, with a shadow of Bill Buckner's eyebrows on his forehead.

On Bill's card you can really see his caterpillar eyebrows in all their glory. That's some 'tache too.

Al also has a 'tache, and escapes Bill's ghostly brows by virtue of having a cap on. You can just see Tony's cap logo behind the jay, like a bad airbrushing job on an old baseball card.

These are fun cards to hold and fiddle with to try and get photos of the images. 

Although these cards say 'First Series' on the back, no second series was issued that year. The company who developed them, Major League Marketing, launched the Score range in 1988. That first Score range included 'magic motion' trivia cards, which were lenticular. (According to BaseballCardPedia, these were included because at the time Topps had exclusive rights to sell packs of just baseball cards - this explains why Fleer included a logo sticker, and DonRuss included puzzle pieces in with their baseball cards!)

Thanks again to Tim for sending me these!

Total: 617 cards