One card only - cut signature conundrum

Last June Gawain sorted me out a huge stack of Tony Gwynn cards that blasted me past my target of 394 cards within about a month of starting the blog. A year later and he has ticked off another one of my collecting targets by surprising me with my first Tony Gwynn autographed card.

It's an offbeat card and as I started researching about it for this post, I discovered several layers of weirdness attached to it. Gawain wryly commented that meant extra content for the blog and I agreed, saying it truly was a gift that kept on giving.

Card Number 682: Leaf Best of Baseball Cut Signatures, 2011; unnumbered

This is an "authentic cut signature", except the signature hasn't been cut from a piece of card or anything. It's on a small plastic tile, about the thickness of a Scrabble piece, with rounded edges at the top. It's also in a sealed Beckett grading solid plastic box. This was the first conundrum - the card was sealed in and had been authenticated by Beckett, but it's condition was not graded. As Gawain said, why would you bother getting it authenticated and not get it graded?

Well it turns out this is how the card was shipped from the off. On Trading Card Database all the cards in the range are listed as "BGS Encapsulated". Packs of Leaf Best of Baseball consisted of just two cards in these heavy-duty plastic boxes. Each pack contained one each of a range of 'cut signatures' and a graded 'buyback card' of top players du jour rookie cards and vintage cards. The advertising poster for the set claimed there was a 1952 Mickey Mantle card in the set - one of the most sought after cards in the hobby.

Most of the cut signatures were on these plastic tiles. The cardback was devoid of explanations as well.

I went back to the wonderful crowdsourcing resource that is Trading Card Database and asked about these cards on the forums. Two members of the community replied and explained where they came from,

"Leaf purchased the tiles from some company that went out of business. The tiles were originally intended to be attached to the base of a small statue of the player that was in production." - BrewerAndy

"They were supposed to go on the base of a Hartland-type statue but the company went out of business before they could attach them." - trauty

So, that explains the autographed bits of plastic. 

Two more things I learned while researching this odd card. Firstly, I learned that the Leaf company producing trading cards today has no real links to the Leaf company of yore. Up until researching this post, I assumed Leaf had been absorbed by Panini along with DonRuss, Pinnacle and other brands. But apparently the Playoff Company, who were the previous owners of the DonRuss stable of brands before Panini, sold the Leaf name off separately. A company called Razor bought the name in 2010 and switched to trading as Leaf.

The second thing I learned was this was one of the first sets produced as Leaf by the company-formally-known-as-Razor, and it got them into trouble. Because the product included a lot of buybacks, Leaf used images of those cards on their advertising sheet. Many of those cards were Topps cards and as a result Topps sued them for copyright infringement. This was at the beginning of the Topps monopoly and they had already hounded Upper Deck out of the baseball card hobby after Upper Deck produced an unlicensed set the year before Leaf brought this set out. 

All this doesn't detract from the gratitude I feel to Gawain for helping me achieve a collecting goal. If anything, the odd origin of the auto and the corporate shenanigans around the set make the card even more interesting to me. The note from Gawain that came with the card just said "Enjoy!" and I have really enjoyed finding out the back story of this card.

And, ultimately, however odd, it is the first Tony Gwynn autograph in my collection!

Total: 682 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

Tuesday Twins - unexpected reprints

I received a parcel yesterday containing a job lot of Tony Gwynn cards I bought off eBay a few weeks back. When I bought it I knew it was a mix of new cards for the collection and several I already had, including quite a few base cards. Except, when the cards arrived and I could see the backs I realised that some of those base cards were inserts from later Topps sets. 

Card Number 623: Topps Cards Your Mom Threw Out insert, 2010; #CMT-43

Tony had 3 cards in this insert series.

The front is a straight-up reprint of Tony's card from 1994. The cardback explains why they chose this card.

I like this card as it refers to Tony's batting achievement in 1994. It's also nice to see a reprint that isn't of Tony's rookie card!

Card Number 624: Topps 60 Years of Topps insert, 2011; #60YOT-33

This is another reprint of an iconic card design. 

Basically this insert series reprinted a card from each year and this is the one they chose from the 1984 flagship set. The cardback explains about the Topps design for the year and mentions Tony's first batting title right at the end of the write up.

Again, I like this card because it's a reprint of a card that I feel I haven't seen a zillion times over. Admittedly it's a little bit self-indulgent to produce inserts celebrating yourself, but I'll let Topps off for that because this is a lovely card to have.

I know that after yesterday's post where I wrote about Topps's over-reliance on nostalgia, I'm being much more enthusiastic about these reprints than might be expected.  But there's nothing quite as exciting as realising that cards I'd mentally written off as a dupes turn out to be ones I can add to my collection!

Total: 624 cards

Kicking off my seventh century of cards

A couple of weeks back I had a message from Glenn, asking if I was interested in a relic card from 10 years ago. My collection is a bit thin from around that time, and I'm unlikely to turn down a relic card. 

Card Number 601: 60 Years of Topps Relics, 2011; #T60R-TG

Weirdly, this card arrived the same morning as my first 2021 card, which felt ironic as that card celebrated Topps's 70th anniversary and this card was issued to celebrate Topps's 60th anniversary.

It's hard to make out on the front, but this card was issued  commemorating the players in the National League with the most multiple-hit games since 1920. Tony was fourth on the list and the second one-club man after Stan Musial. There is a lot of arbitrariness to the selection of this statistic - why that particular statistic, and why only after 1920?

And for that matter, the front says this little swatch of white cloth is game-used memorabilia, but there is a disclaimer on the back that says "The relic on this card is not from any specific game, event or season." Make of that what you will.

Looking at my collection stats, this is the third card I've acquired from 2011 and the seventh material relic card. I haven't yet reached the point of feeling jaded by these little cloth patches and this card was interesting enough in terms of marking a niche statistic to make it worthy of kicking off my seventh century of Tony Gwynn cards!

Many thanks again to Glenn for sending me this card.

 

Total: 601 cards

Mini Monday

Back in 2011 Topps included Kimball Champions cards as inserts in their flagship products, based on cigarette cards produced by William Kimball & Co. in the 19th Century. Unlike Allen & Ginter and Gypsy Queen which are also tobacco brands revived by Topps, Kimball never made the jump to become a full set in its own right. 

This card arrived in the eBay lot that was misdelivered after I'd paid an 'administration fee' for the privilege of paying customs charges. I'm still a bit irked about that.

Card Number 554: Topps Kimball Champions, 2011; #KC-59

The front is illustrated rather than a photo. The bottom half of the picture makes it look like Tony is playing in a park somewhere.

The illustration is based on a photo of Tony taken in the early part of his career. The brown cap and jacket help to date the photo, as does his fine moustache.

All the cardbacks contained a checklist for the relevant section they were in. Cards 51-100 featured retired players and legends of the game. It's a dull cardback even by fake cigarette card standards. 

This is only the second card from 2011 that I've featured on the blog so far. 2011 was a comparatively lean year for Tony Gwynn cards - with just 182 cards listed on the Trading Card Database. 

Total: 554 cards

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