Modern Monday - Allen & Ginter shiny bubble

This could be a 'twin' card. It's a "hotbox parallel" card courtesy of Gawain.

Card Number 992: Topps Allen & Ginter [hotbox parallel], 2021; #53

The flatbed scan is remarkably dull.

The overhead scan is a bit brighter. The 'bubble' has an odd pearlescent finish that just doesn't scan very nicely.

I missed this detail when I blogged about the regular base version of this card, but this card is #53 in the set - which is a meaningful number because it was the number Tony wore in Spring Training in 1982 and thus became the number on his shirt in the photo on his Topps rookie card in 1983. 

I would like to think that is a deliberate numbering choice by Topps that would only be spotted by number-obsessed weirdo bloggers, like a little in-joke between us. But it could equally just be a random coincidence. 

The card numbering is the only interesting thing on the back of the as-dull-as-usual cardback. 

Total: 992 cards

Tuesday Twins - Shiny Leafs

I have started scanning the shiny cards that arrived in the parcel from France, using my overhead scanner. It's slow work because ideally I need daylight to scan the cards in, and I don't have much daylight left after finishing work. However, here are two shiny cards that got scanned last night.

Card Number 738: Leaf Limited, 1996; #53

Even with the overhead scanner the full shininess of the card isn't quite captured. This is lovely in hand. Unfortunately it also suffers from the common affliction of 90s shiny sports cards - there's a slight warp to it now, a quarter of a century later.

I like cards that have Tony's number (19) as their number in the set. But this comes close, with number 53, which is the number Tony wore in Spring Training with the Padres in 1982 and features on his Topps rookie card.

Apart from the set number, the back isn't particularly noteworthy although it does feature a stat I'd not seen before, about Tony's run of seasons posting over .350. That means he was hitting at a rate of more than 1 in 3 at bats, reaching base 7 times for every 20 times he went up to the plate. For all the hitting power in the current Padres line-up, they could really use some consistency like that.

Card Number 739: Leaf Limited Gold, 1996; #53

The gold parallel version of the Leaf Limited is incredibly shiny!

Leaf changed the colour on the cardback to gold as well. This is what I would call a proper parallel, with the card looking different front and back.

These high end cards may be rascals to scan, but they are lovely to look at. I have quite a pile of shiny cards to work through if I can catch some daylight hours over the next week. This may affect my blogging schedule but I promise I will post them all - and they will brighten up some gloomy winter days in the coming months!

Total: 739 cards

Foolish mistakes on April 1st

Nobody reads cardbacks. That's my explanation for why Topps can produce baseball cards with nonsense on the back. As today is April Fools Day, it feels relevant to feature some foolish mistakes.

Card Number 627: Topps Gypsy Queen, 2011; #28

This was the from the first Gypsy Queen set. The range is a decade old now. 

It's not a particularly exciting card design. And then turn it over and witness how lacksadaisical Topps can be with regard to fact-checking their cards.

My first reaction was "Eh?" Then I remembered Tony Gwynn Jr was playing for the Padres in 2010. Maybe some stat compiler mistook Tony Jr for his dad. Tony Jr did play 117 games for the Padres in 2010, and it was a winning season for the team (90-72; second in the division with a win percentage of .556). But the team didn't play an additional 73 games without him. Those figures on the card add up to 190 games, and the Padres only played 162 games that season.

For the record, the two seasons the Padres have played the most games were the World Series seasons of 1984 and 1998, where they played in 171 and 176 games respectively. Nowhere near the 190 total listed here. Maybe Topps added in Spring Training games.

So, to sum up, it looks like Topps confused Tony Sr and Jr on this card. The picture is clearly Tony Sr even though his son does look like him in a lot of photos. But physically, Tony Jr was very lean in his seasons with San Diego. Then to compound the error, Topps just chucked some random figures on a page that add up to more games than is physically possible to play. (By my calculation, the most games a team could play if they maxed out the post-season series would be 181.)

I know I am sometimes overly-critical of Topps, but these are just weird mistakes that the market leading company really shouldn't be making. 

There was a second Gypsy Queen card in my recent eBay purchase and it highlights something that is becoming more prevelant with Topps - the reuse of images. 

Card Number 628: Topps Gypsy Queen, 2014; #53

(Hey, #53 - that was Tony's first ever number with the Padres.)

Recognise that photo? Well, last week I blogged about a card from 2020 that used it.

It also appeared in sets in 2019. This is the Chrome version.

They've photoshopped it a bit on the Gypsy Queen release, but it's clearly the same photo. I have seen other collectors complain that Topps are using the same images for players again and again. I'm willing to give Topps a bit of leeway on this for players like Tony who played before the era of digital photography. I don't think there can be any excuse for continually reusing photos of any players who are active now. But there is a more limited bank of photos available for stars from the last century.

However, Topps might need to think carefully about how often they reuse images. 2014 to 2019 is an acceptable gap in use. But using this image in two insert series in consecutive years makes it much more obvious.

The cardback is fairly dull, but at least the factoid is about the right Tony Gwynn and the numbers are right. 

I was a bit surprised recently when I made an off-hand comment on Facebook about Gypsy Queen that there are a number of collectors who still really like it. Personally, I think it's feeling a bit tired, but it's still popular with the people who like to rip packs and build sets and as long as it sells I have a feeling Topps will keep producing it.

Total: 628 cards

One card only - headless Tony and #53

The previous three posts have all featured cards I received from Jason, who I initially chatted to when he showed off his collection of all 20 Tony Gwynn cards from Topps' Project 2020 endeavour. After he had sent me those three cards, Jason asked if I wanted to buy a spare Project 2020 card he had available. 

As I only had one Project 2020 card already, I quite happily said yes, and it arrived in the post yesterday. I haven't bothered including the outer sleeve as it's the same as the one I scanned previously. And this time I went straight to careful sticker-peeling and popped open the mag holder so I could put the card directly on the scanner.

Card Number 584: Topps Project 2020, 2020; #161

The card designs of all the Project 2020 cards took Tony's 1983 rookie card as it's base. Card #161 in the project was designed by Ermsy, and his take on the rookie card design was to remove Tony's head. I'm not really bothered by that because one of my frequent complaints about Tony's rookie card is that you can't see his face and his most prominent feature in the photo is his backside. I know other people love it, and that's fine. But I just don't.

The back of the card is plain, and has a blurb about the Project and about the artist. This isn't really a 'card' as it's printed on 3mm foamboard. I think it would be quite fun if Topps introduced these designs as insert series in future sets printed on actual cardboard.

This card had a print run of 5,543, which is quite a lot lower than the print run for the other card I own, which was designed by Efdot. That was #94 in the series at the absolute apex of the interest in Project 2020. If sales were plotted on a bell curve, this card by Ermsy was on the way back down! It's also the 33rd card released in 2020 in my collection.

Seeing this reworked image of Tony's rookie card reminded me of another thing that has bugged me about the card, and that is Tony's uniform number in the photo.

It has always been a mystery to me why he was shown wearing a number in the 50s, which looked like number 53. I have seen pictures from Tony's debut where he is quite clearly wearing number 19 - he was given that number and wore it consistently for his entire career. So that really made me wonder when this photo was taken.

I didn't find an easy answer on Google, and I went through a number of options. Maybe Topps had a photo of the wrong player - that has been known to happen. Except nobody wore 53 in 1982, and that's clearly a 1982 uniform, and none of Tony's team-mates looked like him. Another possibility was that it was a minor league picture, especially given the background. There was no way that was Jack Murphy Stadium; I've seen enough pictures to know it wasn't taken there.

I did read a story somewhere that Tony was involved in a Padres photoshoot while he was still a student at San Diego State, but I doubt he would have been running the bases in a random photoshoot and it seemed very unlikely Topps would use that. Plus that would have been in 1980 or 1981 and the uniform would have been slightly different.

Jason runs Dugout Classics in Scotland, billed as "The largest collection of vintage and throwback jerseys this side of the Atlantic", so I thought he might be the chap to ask about the number. He quickly sent me a link to a fascinating story about the restoration of this very jersey, which reveals the truth about this photo.

Tony was allocated #53 in Padres Spring Training in 1982 held at the Desert Sun Stadium in Yuma, Arizona. The guide for the Spring Training has Tony listed in a footnote - there is a picture here. This would be after Tony's successful 1981 season with Walla Walla and Amarillo, and before he went out to Hawaii to play for the Islanders. 

When he was brought up to the Major Leagues in July 1982, Tony was given the number 19 jersey. At some point Topps compiled their checklist for the 1983 season and would have noted San Diego's hot rookie and allocated him card #482. Then they needed a photo, and presumably the only one they had on file would have been this one from Spring Training.

I really want to thank Jason for offering me this card and also for helping me discover why Tony isn't wearing #19 on his rookie card. I had been pondering it for ages and now the mystery is solved!

Total: 584 cards

There are three packages in transit from North America as I write this. But unless one or more of them arrives tomorrow, there's going to be a little break in blogging!