2013 oddities courtesy of Glenn

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 photo of Tony seems to come from the photo-shoot that yielded pictures used on his Topps glossy all-star card in 1986 and the Baseball Champions Superstar sticker in the same year. The guy in the yellow shirt behind him seems to have a large number 18 on his back. That's not a contemporary Padres shirt as far as I can tell, so I have no idea who that guy is.

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.

This is from Panini's 'Cooperstown' range that they issued through an agreement with the Baseball Hall of Fame. It's the range that had a card that just featured Tony's spikes. 

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!

Total: 915 cards

Unlicensed doesn't mean unloved

Today's post is partly prompted by seeing some graded cards for sale and wondering who is sending cards that are routinely ignored off for grading.

Card Number 643: Panini Prizm, 2013; #176

Panini produce Prizm cards across a number of sports. In baseball where they don't have a licence, the cards end up looking like this, with every hint of a team logo airbrushed off the picture. 

This is the plain base version of these cards. Every base card is shiny, but the main attraction of packs of Prizm cards are multiple colour parallels and refractor-style "prizms" that are often numbered. These silver base cards are used to pad out the packs inbetween the rarer cards. They are basically filler. The sets all look very samey as well - compare this one with the cards from 2014 and 2015.

The back reuses the same airbrushed photo as the front.

The factoid on the back is about Tony's stand-out season in 1987, when he picked up his second batting title and stole lots of bases. 

Apart from the lack of licensing, there's nothing particularly objectionable about this card. But recently I saw a graded version of this base card on a popular auction site with a start price of $50. It was only graded a 9/10 as well. 

I've seen a few discussions about the backlog at the grading houses, and collectors blaming people submitting all kinds of low value cards for grading. I think that happens because the grading houses accept batches of cards for grading so people chuck in extra ones to round out the batch - which, ironically, would make a card like this "filler" twice over. Otherwise, I'm not sure what the thought process is behind sending this card in for grading. 

Although, if you are going to encase your cards in plastic, you may as well pick cards that nobody else will bother getting graded. One of the big measures in graded cards is the 'population', that is, the number of cards graded at a particular level. In the long run maybe this card will be "rarer" than some of the higher value licensed base rookie cards that are getting "slabbed" by lots of people as they come straight out of packs.

Of course, whether anyone will want this card in a graded sleeve so much that they would pay $50 for it is another question. I rather doubt they would. My (ungraded) copy was in a job lot of Tony Gwynn cards, padding out the lot. The previous ones I have acquired have also been part of lots. 

I don't know anybody who collects Panini Prizm baseball cards or is trying to put together a set. There doesn't seem to be much value attached to this filler card - until it's graded, at which point, a collector is essentially paying $50 for a plastic sleeve.

As for my collection, this card sits in a shiny row of three Prizm base cards from consective years in the Panini section of my binder. I won't be sending it off for grading any time soon.

Total: 643 cards

Champions! (My 300th blog post)

I like marking milestones on my blog. This is my 300th blog post since starting on 9th May last year. I thought I'd celebrate by blogging my first card with a picture of Tony as a basketball player.

Card Number 630: Upper Deck Goodwin's Champions, 2013; #101

Most photos I've seen of Tony playing college basketball he is wearing a white jersey. The blue top he's wearing in this photo doesn't seem to say Aztecs on it, so I don't know the provenance of this photo.

However, it's worth recounting that Tony attended university in San Diego on a basketball scholarship and wasn't allowed to play baseball in his first year. He still holds the San Diego State University record for assists. And when he graduated, Tony was drafted by both the Padres and the local NBA franchise, the San Diego Clippers (now the Los Angeles Clippers). Several people who contributed to the book He Left Hs Heart in San Diego opine that Tony preferred basketball as a sport to watch. He regularly watched the Indiana Pacers, as his family often spent a lot of time in Indianapolis in the winter.

None of this is mentioned on the cardback.

In the eight years since this card was printed, Tony has dropped to 20th on the all-time ranking for career hits. He was overtaken by Derek Jeter, who reached number 6 in the rankings before retiring, and Albert Pujols, who needs less than 100 hits this season to climb to 9th in the all time rankings.

One reason why Upper Deck printed this card with a photo of Tony posing with a basketball is because it was a neat way to get around the lack of licensing. A few years previously, Upper Deck reacted to Topps buying sole licensing rights to Major League Baseball by printing cards anyway. They thought they could do that with the rights granted by the Major League Baseball Players Association, but then Topps sued them for using MLB logos and team names.

One of the cards in the middle of this legal tussle would have been from the first Goodwin's Champions set released in 2009.

Card Number 631: Upper Deck Goodwin's Champions, 2009; #135

This retro card set is printed on old-fashioned card stock. This is very noticeable when the card is turned over.

The alignment of factoid and one-line stat box earn this card a bonus point. If a card mentions a particular year, it makes perfect sense to just show that year's stats. 

There are five lines of boilerplate legalese at the bottom of the card and the logos of two licensing organisations - the MLBPA and the Cooperstown Collection, which I think sells rights to retired players who have been inducted into the Hall of Fame. All that wasn't enough to protect Upper Deck from getting sued, however. They haven't released a baseball set since. The later Goodwin's Champion sets have included leading sportsmen and women from a range of sports, with a few baseball players included.

Total: 631 cards

Hometown Hero

Panini products generally get very little love from the collecting community, mainly because they don't have an official MLB license, so can't put team logos on their cards. However, as they have consistently shown with their 'zombie' DonRuss and Diamond Kings ranges, Panini can produce some nice cards. 

Hometown Heroes was a set released in 2013. It is a deliberately retro-feel set printed on thick card stock with an unfinished back.

Card Number 625: Panini Hometown Heroes, 2013; #73

The pennant and starry background make this card look very retro. If I had one criticism it would be that I don't see much point having a set logo including the year of the set if the photo then obscures part of it! Maybe the designer wanted to make sure all the bat was on the card.

The back is bright and colourful. I'd query the wording. Tony might have played all 2,440 games for San Diego, but he didn't play them all in San Diego.

In addition to the 300 base cards in the set, there were some insert series as well.

Card Number 626: Panini Hometown Heroes City Hall insert, 2013; #12

I like this a lot. True, Tony seems to have a bit of a snarl on his face, but overall the impact of this is striking. I'd easily have this on the wall as a poster. Bonus point for having the year in the set logo and having it visible.

The back is equally visually bold. The write up basically says the same thing as on the base card but worded slightly differently. 

Given that Panini put the year in the set name, I surmise they were hoping the set would take off and become an annual release. As it happens, this was a 'one and done' set and never reappeared again. The 'Hometown Heroes' brand has featured in some other Panini releases (National Trasures in 2017 and 2018, and in Chronicles in 2019), but not as a set.

I think that is a bit of a shame, although I can understand why this set failed to make an impact when it came out. Panini were still feeling their way into the baseball card market. They had launched Panini Prizm the previous year, which appealed to the magpies who like shiny parallels. They also tried a Pinnacle relaunch in 2013 that was another one and done. They swapped out the Pinnacle brand for DonRuss in 2014, which managed to stick the landing and is now a key range for them. 

As a retro brand, Hometown Heroes was going up against the licensed cards Topps were releasing in their Archives and Heritage ranges and their Allen & Ginter and Gypsy Queen sets, and the unlicensed retro cards in Upper Deck's Goodwin's Champions, so there was a lot of competition for a set like this. However, given the crisp design-work, I wish Panini had persevered with Hometown Heroes because these are two really nice cards that still look good eight years later.

Total: 626 cards

An anachronistic trip to 2013

This week is turning into a bit of a series of posts featuring Topps cards, so why not continue on that theme?

In 2013, Tony Gwynn had already had cancer treatment and surgery for the mouth cancer that would lead to his death in 2014 at the young age of 54. He was still coaching the San Diego State baseball team, but was finding it difficult to maintain his duties while so poorly. The account of his treatments in He Left His Heart in San Diego is a difficult read.

Trading Card Database lists 307 Tony Gwynn baseball cards released in 2013, which is a surprisingly high number considering it was 12 years after he retired, six years after his induction in the Hall of Fame, and was the year before he died.

Of course, most of the cards in the 307 listed on TCDb are short print memorabilia cards. He appeared in a few Panini sets as they started to experiment with baseball cards and used their licensing agreements with the Hall of Fame to issue some sets, including one card with a picture of Tony's running spikes on. 

Topps also released quite a few cards featuring Tony across their various sets, including these two.

Card Number 502: Topps Archives 2013; #83-TG

Topps reused the template from the All Star cards in their 1983 set for certain players.

It's a very nice looking card. It triggers my anachronism radar, though. Tony wasn't an All Star in 1983. He was an All Star in so many seasons, they could have given this card to a player who was actually an All Star that year. (I mean, I'm not complaining that this Tony Gwynn card exists, but, well, you know what I mean...)

The back is similarly anachronistic as it talks about the All Star game in San Diego in 1978, which was the year Tony started college in San Diego, six years before his first All Star Game appearance. 

The losing pitcher was Yankees player, Rich "Goose" Gossage, who would later play several seasons alongside Tony as a Padre. 

I have a pennant for that All-Star Game pinned to the wall in my upstairs home office. It's in the room I have been working in since March, when my work team all started working from home due to the pandemic, so I get to see it every day.

I found this pennant quite randomly in an Oxfam charity shop several years ago, along with a whole load of other Major League Baseball pennants of a similar vintage. I wish now I had bought all of them, but I only bought this one and the Padres team one that they had. (And yes, I know, I probably shouldn't have pinned it to the wall, but hindsight is 20:20.)

Card Number 503: Topps Gypsy Queen, 2013; #287

As I've been blogging about Tony Gwynn cards I've been thinking quite a lot about the use of old-time tobacco brand names. This one is another jarring one, considering Tony was undergoing treatment for cancer caused by chewing tobacco the year it was released.

The baroque borders make this card look nice, but I have to admit I find the Gypsy Queen sets all tend to blur into one.

The back has a unique write up, though. I wonder if Greg Maddux knows he was singled out for scrutiny in this way.

Total: 503 cards

Accessing the Archives

Topps Archives first appeared between 2001 and 2005. It was branded Archives for the first couple of years of release then rejigged as 'All Time Fan Favourites' for the next three years. The 'ATFF' cards used Topps templates with different photos in them, a habit that Topps has continued to this day. I've already blogged about Tony's ATFF card from 2005, which reused the Topps 2000 template and kept the year 2000 on the front.

Archives then went on hiatus and returned in 2012 featuring players in classic card designs. That's the range that has continued up to this year, and will probably carry on. Tony's Archives card from 2020 was featured in a Modern Monday post at the end of September.

Card Number 456: Topps Archives, 2003; #106

Bizarrely, Topps decided to use their template from 2001 for this card released in 2003. That's an even shorter gap between a set release and a template being reused in an Archives set than the one in 2005 that used the template from 2000. Annoyingly, I don't have the original 2001 base card it's based on - I have two parallels and this, so that's three cards in this template without owning the actual base card.

Batting donut bonus point! Given that Tony is in a game uniform, I think this must be a closely cropped photo of him 'on deck' waiting for his turn at the plate. 

I feel there must be some kind of story behind the image on his wrist. Perhaps someone can shed some light on it.

(Is that meant to be a drawing of him?)

The back is laid out like the back of a card from 2001, including the Topps 50th celebration logo. The green strip up the side explains that it's an Archives card.

Card Number 457: Topps Archives, 2012; #660 (original cardback version)

This is a straight up reprint of Tony's card from 1985.  

The back is a slightly different colour, because it's printed on a much better card stock. There's also a little bit of blurb underneath.

Here's the back of the original card from 1985 for comparison. 

There weren't 660 cards in the 2012 Archives set. There were 241 cards in the base set and then the reprint inserts were just given the same card number as the original cards. There were two #160 and two #164 as a result, for example, besides the base card with that number as well. 

Card Number 458: Topps Archives 2013; #190

Tony got a card in the 1990 template with a different picture on the front. He's dropping his bat having hit the ball.

For reference, here's Tony's card from 1990.

The 2012 card is a better print. The photos look at first glance like they could be from the same game. But if so, then  it's an early photo for a 1990 card, anyway. The black letters RAK on the sleeve were worn in honour of the late Padres owner Ray Kroc, and appeared on uniforms from 1984 to 1986. 

That begs the question, was the photo on Tony's card in 1990 actually from 4 years previously? Knowing how slapdash Topps were with their photography, it wouldn't surprise me. It looks like a different bat handle though, in the original card, so maybe they're not from the same time period.

This is the cardback from the Archives set. It has the same fonts as the card from 1990.

Topps could have given Tony the number 19 card. But number 190 is reasonably close.

Card Number 459: Topps Archives 2014; #105

Topps didn't worry about trying to get a photo from anywhere near the right era for Tony's Archives card in 2014. This is a picture from towards the end of his career, set into the 1986 template.

 

There's a lot of love out there for the 1986 template with it's bold lettering for the team names. Personally, it doesn't do much for me. I have a sentimental fondness for the 1987 design, and the 1984 and 1985 card designs are both lovely, so this is one I don't really look at too much.

In the stats box Topps only included Tony's stats up to 1998 - an arbitrary cut off point. Maybe they went for how it looked, not expecting anyone to read the back. But it annoys me and I'm going to ding a point off this card for it. (Because I can be arbitrary too!)

I hope you enjoyed this visit to the Archives.

Total: 459 cards

 

Back to Base: Allen & Ginter

Allen & Ginter World's Champions baseball cards have been issued by Topps for several years now. In addition to baseball players there are usually a number of random quirky cards included in the sets as well, along with "Rip" cards that contain another image under the photo and ask the holder if they will 'keep it or rip it?' and a variety of other inserts, mini cards, relics, autographs and so on.

The original Allen & Ginter was a tobacco company in the 19th Century. The link between baseball cards and tobacco companies predates the link with bubblegum, and a surprising number of very old tobacco brands have been resurrected by the card companies in this century. Upper Deck have their Goodwin's Champions, and Topps release their very high end "206" product and the Gypsy Queen range. 

I am ambivalent about the use of long-gone tobacco company names by card companies. While they aren't recognisable brands and the association with packets of cigarettes or tobacco are purely historical, there is an anachronism that tobacco advertising has disappeared from sports grounds within the last 30 years or so, and yet card companies are still preserving the link between tobacco and the sport, albeit in a very obscure way. (Cigarette advertising has sometimes inadvertently appeared on cards. There's a Marlboro ad in the background of a card from 1994, which was shortly before advertising was banned altogether.)

However, as a fan and chronicler of Tony Gwynn's career, I can't escape the fact his life was cut incredibly short because of chewing tobacco and I am supportive of efforts to ban tobacco entirely from the sport. So, that's another reason why I have mixed feelings about these particular card sets.

And, being honest, the cards themselves aren't particularly interesting to warrant the fuss that is made over them by some collectors. The insert series can sometimes be quite nice -  I really liked the Star Signs card featured on this blog in one of my first posts - but the sets tend to blend into each other and the cards all feel very samey. I have similar feelings towards Gypsy Queen and Panini Prizm cards. Still, at least they put the set years on the front so it's easy to tell them apart.

Card Number 385: Topps Allen & Ginter, 2013; #97

The enforced quirkiness of the Allen & Ginter brand is shown on the front where they just have the player's surname and don't mention the team. In the photo, Tony is wearing a batting practice jersey - Mitchell & Ness have produced a replica of this top complete with the number 19 on the back.

If the front is quirky, the back is similarly trying to be eccentric in its disdain for numerals, instead writing the key numbers out in full words. (Except for the card number.)

At least it's a different way of summarising and displaying career stats. For a known contact hitter, Tony was afforded very few walks in his career. That's probably because he wasn't a home run slugger like the all-time record holder Barry Bonds. But even Ted Williams, Tony's hitting hero, received over 2,000 walks in his career.

As I noted when I reviewed this year's Topps Archives card on Monday, they have decided to print Tony's weight at the end of his career, which seems rather mean-spirited. He didn't weigh 225lbs when he stole most of those 319 Stolen Bases!

Card Number 386: Topps Allen & Ginter, 2014; #223

This year the team name was on the front of the card. It's a photo of Tony in his batting stance - a classic pose for a hitting champion.

The back was very similar to the previous year's card, except it was printed in blue ink rather than black.

As the cardback is to all intents and purposes the same as the previous year, there is very little else to say about it.

Total: 386/394

Tuesday Twins - Chasing History

Today's similar cards come from two different Topps sets, which made one of them a pain to track down on Trading Card Database. I found it in the end though.

Card Number 124: Topps (Series 2), 2013; #CH-76
The Chasing History insert series ran over three Topps releases in 2013. The first 50 were in flagship Series 1. The second 50, including this card, were in flagship Series 2. This card commemorates Tony setting the record for hits in Padres history.

You can't see it very well in this scan, but the grey bits on the left hand side are edged in silver foil, adding to the attractiveness of the card.

The back is elegant and notes how Tony became the all-time record Padres hits leader way back in 1988!

Card Number 125: Topps Update, 2013; #CH-149
Topps continued the Chasing History series into their Update release, with another 50 cards. This card commemorates the 19 seasons that Tony recorded a batting average above .300.

The card template stays the same, but there's a change of photo and the little caption on the left has changed as well.

The back has the same template. It's still elegant. The blurb mentions how his record-breaking 16th season batting over .300 overtook a record set more than a century before by Cap Anson.

There is also a third Chasing History card about Tony's batting crowns. I've yet to acquire that card to turn these twins into triplets.

Total: 125/394

The Hall of Fame - and the Panini Card Company's loophole

I've decided to mix it up as my first run of posts have all been about Topps cards. Today I'm going to show some much more recent cards that have been released by Panini, in conjunction with the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

An ulterior motive for doing this is so that I can include this photo from outside the Hall of Fame when I visited Cooperstown in 2016.

I've blogged about visiting the Hall on my personal blog, but there are a couple of appropriate photos to include here.

I remember feeling quite emotional when I saw Tony's plaque in the Hall.

Tony was elected to the Hall of Fame the first year he was eligible, five years after he retired. He shared his induction with one other player, Cal Ripken Jr, with a record-breaking crowd of fans turning up to witness it.  The Padres posted a video last year of Tony getting the call from the head of the Museum in 2007 to welcome him to the Hall of Fame, and he is overcome with emotion. According to Tony's university team-mate, and longtime friend, Steve Sayles, Tony didn't think he would be a "first ballot selection"*.

Anyway, some baseball cards. Understanding the cards in this post means understanding a bit about licensing properties in modern card manufacture. Basically, Topps has an exclusive licence with Major League Baseball (MLB), so they are the only card manufacturer who can use the team logos and names. Panini's modern cards (which includes long-established brands like DonRuss, Score, Leaf and Pinnacle) are licensed from the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) so they show the player and usually give the city name, which isn't copyrighted. This works for San Diego or Boston, but isn't ideal for New York or Chicago where there are two baseball clubs.

Panini also airbrush the team names and logos off the players' shirts, helmets, caps and so on so they aren't infringing any copyright held by MLB. Some collectors don't value "no logo" / "logoless" cards as much, but sometimes the cards can be a bit creative.

Before Panini secured an agreement with the MLBPA they wanted to produce baseball cards. They found a licensing loophole and signed a contract with the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum and so could produce cards related to inductees in the Hall of Fame, which is where these cards come from. I don't know if the photos are from the Hall of Fame's massive images collection. If they were, this makes Panini's move even smarter.

Card Number 13: Panini Cooperstown Collection 2012, #110

I actually really like this card. I think the front design is aesthetically pleasing, while the back has a nice write up. I appreciate the description of Tony as a "baseball scientist". Although I query the use of the word "torrid" to describe his career batting average, and I'm not sure why they profiled his 1997 figures. But overall this is a solid card for a "no logo" print run.

Card Number 14: Panini Diamond Kings 2018, #P8

This is a much more recent card, from the 'Portraits' insert series in their 'Diamond Kings' product. 'Inserts' are special cards included in packs, usually at the rate of 1 or 2 per pack. There were only 15 'Portraits' produced in the series, all of players with similarly legendary status.

The card itself looks like a reproduction of an actual painting. The only slightly odd thing is the repetition of the portrait in the design on the back. By 2018, Panini had a contract with thd MLBPA, but this card carries the Hall of Fame logo on the back.

Card Number 15: Panini Diamond Kings 2018, #GS15

Another insert series in the same product - Panini Diamond Kings. This time it's the 'Gallery of Stars' and another attractive card where the image is repeated on the back. There were 18 cards in this insert series.

And finally in this post, the first in a small series I call "When is a Tony Gwynn card not really a Tony Gwynn card?"

Card Number 16: Panini Cooperstown Collection 2013, #7

That's right, when it's a card featuring his footwear and nothing else. The reverse of the card has a blurred photo of the Museum and Hall of Fame, which you may recognise from my photo at the top of the post.

In the grand tradition of odd factoids on the back of baseball cards, this one tells you all about Tony's basketball stats when he was playing for the Aztecs, the San Diego State University team, before a throwaway comment about swapping to baseball. There's also a nice bit about the Museum itself, including that it houses nearly 40,000 "three-dimensional items" by which I think it means things like game-used running spikes.

So, that was Panini's loophole for publishing cards when they didn't have a license. It provides a bit of variety in the collection at least.

Total: 16/394

*reference: He Left His Heart in San Diego, p.80