Last week Glenn sent me a little envelope with a couple of oddities from 2013. That year is right in the lull caused by the Topps monopoly squeezing other card companies out of the baseball market at the end of the noughties, and the recent resurgence in baseball card popularity that started in about 2019. There aren't many Tony Gwynn cards from that period so I was surprised when Glenn sent me pictures of two cards I didn't yet have from the same year.
Card Number 914: Topps Archives 1969 mini-stickers, 2013; #69S-GBRS
The card number is weird. 69S stands for 1969 sticker, because they replicate the 1969 Topps card design. Tony is the G in GBRS. He shares this card-sized sticker sheet with Wade Boggs (B), Cal Ripken Jr (R) and Ryne Sandberg (S).
Tony easily has the best photo on the front. Wade looks annoyed. Cal looks sleepy. Ryne looks tense and confused.
The back is dull, even for a sticker back.
Card Number 915: Panini Cooperstown Colgan's Chips, 2013; #unnumbered
This is the first round 'card' in my collection. It's unnumbered, but there are 165 listed on Trading Card Database.
The photo of Tony isn't the most flattering. He looks to me like he is trying to suppress a laugh.
In 2013 Panini were feeling their way into the unlicensed card market, wary of triggering a lawsuit from the aggressively protective Topps, and also trying to hit on a formula for cards that people would want. This set was issued the year before Panini resurrected the DonRuss brand when they were also still trying to get the Prizm brand right. So this round card was part of a process where Panini threw a lot of things at the wall and hoped something would stick.
Despite being a retro-tastic tribute to gum cards issued a century before, these inserts were a one shot that they didn't try repeating in the following year's Cooperstown set.
The Cooperstown set of 2013 is noteworthy in that it had autographed inserts, including cards autographed by Tony. Those would have been some of the last cards that he signed before his untimely death. One day I might be lucky enough to add one to the collection.
A big thank you to Glenn for checking whether I had these weird cards. Much appreciated, Glenn!
Although the back is boring, I do like that sticker card and the decision by Topps to include him with Sandberg, Boggs, and Ripken since they were the top rookies from around the same time.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned Gwynn and his autographs in 2013. I actually tracked down his 2014 Topps Tier autograph which is a product that was released a little before his passing. I really wanted it because it's on-card... while a lot of his 2014 autographs tend to be sticker-graphs.
https://sanjosefuji.blogspot.com/2017/01/quality-over-quantity.html
The first time I saw that Topps sticker card I had to have it. I did no research on it I just bought it right then and there in eBay. Once I finally did more research I saw I could have gotten it about $10 cheeper. And that was the lesson I learned when coming back to the hobby. As for the Colgan Chip card I wad never a fan. It's round, black and white, and nothing special.
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