One card only - game-worn Gold Label

I'm not sure how it has been two and a half months since I last blogged. Anyway, I'm hoping to restart this soon. I have about 50 cards sitting to be blogged, some of them for several months. But today's card only arrived at the start of July from my friend Gawain.

Card Number 1025: Topps Gold Label, 2002; #GMR-TG

This 'Major League Moments' insert card has been printed in a dark purple tone, rather than this just being a dark scan.

Unlike modern cards with their little cloth swatches of unknown origin, this card specifies the date it was worn - 30 September, 1999.

On the back it explains why that date is meaningful. Tony got 7 hits from 8 at bats over two games in a double-header at the end of the season.

This card was released in 2002 and Tony had retired at the end of the 2001 season. However, news seemed to take a while to get through to Topps HQ. Tony had a card in the Topps flagship set in 2002, and this card may well have been lined up before they knew he had retired. 

Also, you may have spotted this is a "class 2 platinum" card. Gold Label cards are divided into all kinds of classes and subdivisions. I think the platinum ones were meant to be rarer.

Total: 1025 cards

One card only - American Pie

Topps American Pie was a short-lived range that featured a mix of subjects - baseball players, celebrities and cards denoting historical events. Topps still produce sets like this, notably their Allen & Ginter ranges. In 2002 the set only included retired players and as Tony was in his first year of retirement, he got a card. This is despite him having a card in the Topps flagship set that year!

Card Number 1008: Topps American Pie, 2002; #32

All the baseball players featured in the set were assigned a characteristic or quality. Tony got 'perseverence'. Topps used a photo that looked like it came from the photoshoot used for the "glossy" All Star card in 1986 because it has been harshly lit and Tony's skin is reflecting the light source.  

As cardbacks go, this is an understated design. Some people might even describe it as dull. 

It's a good little write-up though, and ties in to the theme of perseverence. 

Total: 1008 cards

Diamond Kings - from insert series to standalone set

I thought Panini had started releasing Diamond Kings as a range in itself in the years after the company acquired the rights to various DonRuss ranges. I've now discovered that DonRuss started doing it at the start of the millennium before being swallowed by the Panini empire.

However, the first card in today's post comes from the 90s, when the Diamond King cards were an insert series in the DonRuss flagship set.

Card Number 780: DonRuss, 1994; #DK-11

This is a very bold artwork with Diamond Kings emblazoned in red foil above it. The painting is by Dick Perez, who also painted Tony for the 1985, 1989 and 1996 Diamond Kings cards. It's to Dick's credit that his paintings looked quite different to each other. This is a very effective portrait.

The back is a little bit dull in comparison. It also gets dinged for gratuitous use of justified text. That's just one of my personal dislikes, but my justification for not liking justified text can be seen at the end of the second line where 'arthroscopic' is split over the two lines and the last two letters appear on the line below. 

For the record, Andres Galarraga won the batting title that year with .370. Tony's total of .358 would have won him the title in 1990, 1991 and 1992, so being runner up in 1993 showed how he was coming into form. He won four in a row from the following season. 

Card Number 781: DonRuss Diamond Kings, 2002; #145

In 2002, DonRuss released a 200-card Diamond Kings set. It was the first time Diamond Kings had been used as a standalone brand.

This is printed on a high quality, canvas-effect board. The way Tony's name is arranged it looks like 'Tony Gwynn of Padres', but the 'of' is actually OF, denoting his position as an 'outfielder'. 

DonRuss had moved on from commissioning art from Dick Perez. The cardback credits this to Mark Turnes. A Google search turns up several examples of his sports artwork, but he doesn't seem to have a website.

The cardback also has a handy line up of Tony's Diamond King appearances, which acts like a mini checklist. I will round out the set when I add his 2001 card to my collection!

Total: 781 cards

One card only - a hint of pinstripe

It's been a week since I last blogged, but I'm back! 

A couple of weeks ago I made an offer on a bundle of Tony Gwynn cards on eBay. It was the first time I'd used eBay's global shipping service which handled all the customs taxes on my behalf. In the end I ended up being charged about the same amount each for the cards, the postage and the import duties!

However, the parcel arrived safe and sound without the dreaded grey form of doom or being misdelivered to another street (as happened last November) and I got to open a joyful packet of cards from the late Nineties and early Noughties.

I decided to start with what would have once been the pick of the bunch - a relic card. I have a few plain swatches in my collection already, so it's nice to have one with a hint of a pinstripe down one side.

Card Number 585: Upper Deck People's Choice Game Jersey, 2002; #PJ-TG

(A card 'number' that sounds like a Star Wars droid!)

One thing I don't understand with these swatch cards is why they didn't apply a bit more thought to them. This would have looked a lot cooler if they had angled the pinstripe to run diagonally across the window it appears in, or at least line it up to the stripe is down the middle of the relic piece.

The same photo is used on the back, although it is decolourised. There is also a large blurb about how it is genuinely a piece of a shirt worn in a game.

There's a good reason why Upper Deck wanted to underline the authentic game-worn pedigree of the fabric. A couple of years earlier the Pacific trading card company was accused of buying uniforms off the rack in sportswear shops and cutting them up for relic cards. There are some incredible details about another mistake they made that outed a player for using a corked bat.

Upper Deck made their CEO, Richard P. McWilliam stake his name and reputation on the validity of that tiny square of fabric. However, they don't say which game(s) Tony wore it in, or show a picture of the actual shirt - unlike the direction DonRuss took showing the very bat they chopped up for a bat relic card.

I'm hoping to post regularly all week, this week. See you tomorrow!

Total: 585 cards

Pieces of history

Today's theme is history, with some personal history at the end of the post. 

Card Number 563: Upper Deck Piece of History, 2002; #82

"Piece of History" was a high end, relic-heavy 132-card set. This is the base card from the set and it's a very red card.

The century timeline on the card-front is essentially meaningless as there is no reference as to when in the century Tony was active. 

I think this is one of the chronologically earliest cards in my collection that repeated the same photo on the front and the back. 

Tony's career summary is intersected by a one line career stats box. I prefer stats boxes like this on cards issued after Tony retired, but I'm ambivalent about the positioning here.

And now the personal history. I've mentioned before how when I was a kid I went on a holiday to America with my family, where I bought my first baseball cards. I missed some school while on that holiday and the deal was that I had to keep a diary of my experiences and read it to classmates when I came back. 

I recently found that diary, which is mainly a list of things we did and what we ate. One entry covers something else - I think it is the first time I bought baseball cards, in which case I can date that to the 25th March 1987, in a 7-Eleven in Orlando, Florida.

"After Tea we went to a shop called 7eleven where we bought a cool box and some ice and cola to go in. We Bought some sweets and a packet of Baseball cards and a sack of Oranges." [sic]

This is probably the 7-Eleven that made such an impact on me that I've reminisced about it on this blog before.

The next day we went to the EPCOT Center in Walt Disney World. But I was more excited reading about buying baseball cards!

Total: 563 cards

Upper Deck Heroes of Baseball insert series part 2

The second half of the 10-card insert series I started showing yesterday. 

Card Number 408: Upper Deck Prospect Premieres Heroes of Baseball, 2002; #TG5

I always like cards that show Tony signing autographs!

Card Number 409: Upper Deck Prospect Premieres Heroes of Baseball, 2002; #TG6

Card Number 410: Upper Deck Prospect Premieres Heroes of Baseball, 2002; #TG7

(Sidebar - some of these photos have a background and some do not. There doesn't seem to be any guiding reason to why the cards either side of this one have the backgrounds left in and in this one it's been photoshopped out. It's a fielding photo. What could be in the background that they didn't want people to see?)

There's a good line there for my collection of ways Tony is described on the backs of baseball cards: "simply the best pure hitter of his generation."

Card Number 411: Upper Deck Prospect Premieres Heroes of Baseball, 2002; #TG8

That's a little factoid that I haven't seen represented before - 11 invitations in a row to play in the All-Star Game.

Card Number 412: Upper Deck Prospect Premieres Heroes of Baseball, 2002; #TG9

And a posed potrait photo to finish.

As I said after the first half of the set, this is a nice little series with some good photos and write ups. It fills a page in the binder and looks very attractive doing so.

Total: 412 cards

Upper Deck Heroes of Baseball insert series part 1

In 2002, Upper Deck released nine ten-card insert series of various 'Heroes of Baseball' in their Prospect Premieres set. The base set was all hitherto unknown rookies and prospects and included autographs and relics from players who Upper Deck predicted would be "future gems". The multiple insert series of heroes counter-balanced this parade of youngsters with players people would have actually known because they had all just retired, like Cal Ripken Jr, or were legendary figures, like Mickey Mantle and Tom Seaver.

Technically, there are only 9 cards in each set and a 'Header', which is the tenth card and messes up displaying the complete set in a 9 pocket card page. 

I got this small set from Gawain a while back but didn't get around to including it in my original 394 cards. So I'm going to show them now. They are all self-explanatory so commentary will be at a minimum.

Card Number 403: Upper Deck Prospect Premieres Heroes of Baseball,  2002; #HTG

This is the 'Header' card, which is why it isn't numbered.

The header card functions as a checklist.

Card Number 404: Upper Deck Prospect Premieres Heroes of Baseball, 2002; #TG1

Card Number 405: Upper Deck Prospect Premieres Heroes of Baseball, 2002; #TG2

Card Number 406: Upper Deck Prospect Premieres Heroes of Baseball, 2002; #TG3

Card Number 407: Upper Deck Prospect Premieres Heroes of Baseball, 2002; #TG4

This is a nice set and I like the way it picks out facets of Tony's career. My only negative criticism of the set is that it doesn't use photos from the year in question. Tony looked very different when he was stealing lots of bases in 1987 to when he was smacking his way to the .394 average in 1994. Using chronologically accurate photos would also mean seeing the lovely 1984 jerseys on card number TG4 as well, which I would have preferred.

The second half of the set will be on the blog tomorrow!

Total: 407 cards

The season after the sunset season

I'm not sure where I read about 'sunset seasons' - that's where a player signs on with a team for one final year at the end of their career. They usually have a few cards issued in the new team's uniform, and those are something a bit different to collect. I know I read a blog post about them a while back and the term stuck with me.

Tony Gwynn didn't have a 'sunset season' in that sense, because he stayed with the Padres the entire length of his career. However, his final season, in 2001, was restricted by injuries. He had to have fluid drained off his knee after most games - sometimes he would have the procedure on the 'plane home. 

He still appeared in 71 games, but he only made 112 plate appearances in that final season, with 33 hits. In comparison, he only played 36 games in 2000, but he made 140 plate appearances and recorded 41 hits, so had a better output from half as many games.

Tony's retirement was announced quite early in the 2001 season, on 28 June. However, that news seemed to take a long time to get processed by some of the card companies and he still appeared in a couple of sets in 2002. This was before card companies dropped retired players into their flagship sets as a matter of course, although it may have been a deliberate choice by the companies to honour a player of Tony's stature within the game.

Card Number 389: Fleer Ultra, 2002; #19

Fleer went with a photo of Tony making a very athletic looking leap on the front of their Ultra card in 2002. The foil panel with his name in doesn't scan very well.

Fleer definitely decided to make this card as a 'tribute' to Tony. They deliberately gave him the 19th card in the set, and they referenced 2001 being his final season on the cardback.

The stats box only showed the latter half of his 20 year career. As ever, I question the point of having a stats box that shows only part of a career. However, this card earns a lot of bonus points for being #19 in the set, which offsets the stats box issue.

Card Number 390: Topps, 2002; #99

One day I will do an actual tally of the number of Topps base cards that didn't show Tony's face. There are loads of them. This photo is taken from an angle, where but for the sleeve patch, it could easily be dropped onto an unlicensed card without infringing any copyrights.

Also, and this is a minor gripe compared to the choice of photo, but the blue ribbon with his name on curls up and over his foot. I realise it's the card template and would have been difficult to change, but it looks messy.

There is no reference to Tony retiring on the cardback, although there is a complete stats box.

The complete non-referencing of Tony's retirement and the inclusion of his stats like on any other player's card honestly make me wonder if Topps knew he had retired. 

Still, it's fun to look at these cards from the season after Tony's sunset season.

Total: 390/394

Monday Mixer, Topps Edition

Three cards to brighten your Monday, sort of continuing the faux vintage theme from the weekend.

Card Number 291: Topps 206, 2002; #47

This is from the same set as the mini relic in yesterday's post. The front has been made to look like it's been drawn through the application of a Photoshop filter.

Given Tony had just retired at the end of the previous season, this choice of picture is very apt. It's as if he is raising his cap to the fans and saying goodbye.

The cardback follows the same theme, describing Tony leaving the game.

Tony has dropped to 21st on the all time list for hits since this card was printed. He has been overtaken by Albert Pujols, Derek Jeter, and Adrian Beltre, but Topps's claim that he was 17th is mysterious. Everyone else on the list retired before Tony did, apart from Cal Ripken Jr who retired the same year. I think this is a mistake by Topps and they forgot that Cal Ripken Jr had more hits than him.

Card Number 292: Topps Turkey Red, 2005; #310

Nowadays Turkey Red is an insert series in Topps's flagship product, but back in 2005 it was its own set of 330 cards. 

The back has a tidy summary of Tony's career, probably the best one to be found on a Topps cardback. 

Card Number 293: Topps Stars, 1999; #48

And now let's take a trip back to the late 90s. From 1997 - 2001, Topps released Topps Stars sets. They were small sets, never more than 200 cards, and had lots of things like foil parallel versions. This, however, is an ordinary base card.

That front design looks almost as dull as a turn-of-the-century Fleer single-season set.

The back has a bit more character, including star ratings across a number of metrics.

Two stars for speed seems a bit harsh. Tony was 39 when this card came out and no longer a spring chicken. They have also ignored Tony's career batting average figure in favour of the higher numbers for slugging and on-base percentage. Slugging percentage is calculated by giving hits different values - home runs are four times as valuable as singles, because, obviously they always deliver at least one run. Anything above .450 for slugging is a decent return. Tony achieved his percentage the hard way, with a lot of hits, as he was never a prolific scorer of home runs. 

That's the Topps Edition of the Monday Mixer. I hope you enjoyed it. See you tomorrow for a Triple Tuesday!

Total: 293/394

Join the Fan Club

DonRuss Fan Club was an insert-heavy medium-sized set that was only released in 2002. Having said that, it offered collectors some nice cards, including two Tony Gwynn cards in the base set, despite him retiring at the end of 2001. Along the way it earned a few bonus points for itself as well.

Card Number 259: DonRuss Fan Club, 2002; #19

Bonus point in its favour - set name on the front! That's always helpful.

Nineteen more bonus points in its favour - this is card number 19 in the set!

(I have looked at a lot of baseball cards during the course of this blogging project and if I was going to start rating them, every #19 card would automatically earn 19 points!)

There was also a run of cards of players dubbed "Fan Club Favorites". Tony is still many Padres fans favourite ever player, so it probably didn't matter that DonRuss included him in this little subset even though he had retired.

Card Number 260: DonRuss Fan Club, 2002; #279

It's an odd photo, set within a really nice framing effect

Given that Tony's base card already had a massive stats box on the back, this cardback looks like a missed opportunity. This would have been the perfect space to write in something about why Tony was a "Fan Club Favorite". However, the framing of the cameo portrait while the rest of his photo is washed out isn't something I've seen before on a cardback. 

Total: 260/394

Tuesday Trio - Topps reprints

I could have called this blogpost "Why I've grown to hate Topps." For all that I moan about parallels, reprints are even more frustrating.

Card Number 216: Topps, 1997; #410
This is Tony's base card from 1997.

It's quite green. It's not very remarkable. Topps often crop their action photos too close and regularly seem to pick photos of players looking away from the camera.

The back has a big stats box and another photo of Tony running. It also mentions that if he managed another batting title that season it would tie the record for titles won in the National League. (He won it, of course!)

All in all this is a mundane baseball card. There's nothing particularly exciting about the 1997 series from Topps, and if you were going to pick cards of Tony's to reprint this would not be near the top of anyone's list.

Unless you're Topps.

Because only 5 years later they reprinted this card.

Card Number 217: Topps Archives, 2002; #19

Crucially they give it a big foil stamp on the front, saying what set it was from. Tony's name is in yellow print instead of gold foil. The back is a weird grey card stock and there is a strip up the edge. So it's clearly a different card.

I will say Topps got one thing right. This is card #19 in their set!

Then, as I was going through the large volume of cards I'd purchased from Gawain, I found another version of this card.

Card Number 218: Topps 60 Years of Topps (Original Back); #410
What alerted me to this being a different card was the silver foil on the front instead of gold.

It was a real troublesome card to track down on Trading Card Database. I looked all around the 1997 cards to see if it was a known error, or an opening day version. Unlike the 2002 card this cardback was the same glossy stock as the base card.

Then eventually I spotted the word "reprint" under the Topps logo.

If I had been more switched on I should have seen the Cooperstown Collection logo as well, alerting me to the Hall of Fame connection. Buried in the blurb at the bottom was the year, 2011, and then it was a case of going through all of Tony's cards from 2011, which wasn't too bad. He only had 182 cards released that year, and it was easy to skip through the short numbered relics and autograph cards to find the one I was looking for. (It was a slow year for Tony Gwynn cards; this is the only card from 2011 that I have in my collection so far. I have 7 from 2020 already!)

I can't figure why Topps liked this card so much they thought it was worth reprinting not once, but twice! There are so many other iconic Tony cards they could have chosen instead of one from the end of the Nineties, from a set that nobody raves about or is particularly interested in (as far as I know).

But that's Topps for you. They make odd choices sometimes. And it's up to collectors to look at the card in their hand and try to work out what the hell is going on!

Total: 218/394