80s Wednesday - a couple of 80s oddballs

Here's a trip back almost four decades to when baseball cards started to proliferate in '88...

Card Number 966: Nestle, 1988; #40

I seriously doubt Nestle needs any introduction. They are one of the biggest food conglomerates in the world. The company has also been the target of a decades-long boycott due to the way it markets baby milk formula in the developing world. (I'm relieved to say that my acquisition of this card was not linked to the purchase of any Nestle products - although originally it would have been.)

The card itself is semi-licensed with a strange airbrushing job removing the Padres logo from Tony's cap. Unlike modern cards in the twilight zone of player licensing, this card includes the franchise name.

This card was produced by oddball card producer Michael Schechter Associates (also known as MSA) and printed in Canada. It has a comprehensive write up on the cardback compared to most oddballs. 

Card Number 967: KayBee Superstars of Baseball, 1988; #13

I've done a brief explanation of the KayBee Toys company on the blog before. I still love their little soldier in the logo. 

These cards were produced by Topps. When I came to wite this post I had a moment of deja vu. A quick look through my Topps folder and I realised why.

Topps re-used this photo in 2009 in their Legends of the Game insert series. The print is darker, but that is clearly the same photo.

A couple of years later, Topps used a cropped version of the photo for the Golden Greats insert card in 2012. (In fact, if you click on that link, you can see it was also used on a card from 2010 as well!)

It's unusual for the photo on an oddball card to reappear several years later, but I suppose this was in the Topps photo archive. It hadn't been used in an official Topps set and I doubt anyone at the company thought a random blogger would ever notice this.

Anyway, back to the card sold in Kay-Bee Toys and here's the back of the card sold in Kay-Bee Toys.

Although it has a photo on it, this doesn't have the impact of the Nestle card. June 1987 was a very hot month for Tony with an incredible average nearer to .500 than .400!

Total 967 cards