I have wanted to complete the trinity of Tony Gwynn's rookie cards for some time. I acquired both the Topps and DonRuss rookie cards several years before I started this blog and they featured in my second ever post.
Marc, one of my contacts from the Facebook collector's groups, messaged me offering me the Fleer rookie card. He was very clear to tell me that it had a dinged corner, and included an extreme close up photo of said corner.
(I really appreciated Marc's honesty about this. He had bought the card off someone who had sent him a photo that had the seller's thumb obscuring that corner with no mention of a ding - which the seller then blamed on the post service!)
As someone who doesn't mind cards that have obviously been loved, the ding was not a deal-breaker. I don't own a single graded card. Those sterile slabs of plastic do nothing for me and I doubt I will ever buy one. But I had an obvious gap where I had left a pocket in my binder of Fleer cards ready for the 1983 card to slot in.
When it arrived, the mark was barely perceptible. If you really look at it hard enough you will see it, but it's not noticeable when the card is sat in my Fleer binder along with all it's younger relatives.
Card Number 609: Fleer, 1983; #360
Brown and yellow uniform. Visible face. Swinging Friar logo. All bonus points! This is a perfect photo of a young, bushy-haired lad, getting ready to light up the major leagues.
There's a little portrait photo on the back, and a minor league record to boast about.
The factoid is about the franchise, rather than about Tony. He was still just a prospect in the Padres roster at this point and presumably nobody had compiled any interesting trivia tidbits about him yet. I say this as a Padres fan, but it's quite amusing that the first Padre batter ever to reach base safely did so on a fielding error. Yup. Seems 'bout right.
There was a recent article on Beckett about an 'Instant PC' of Tony Gwynn cards that included all three rookie cards.
In that article, Beckett ranked Tony's rookie cards in order of desirability as Topps, Fleer, DonRuss. I think Beckett are wrong. The only reason the Topps card commands a higher price is because of the obsession some collectors have with Topps.
If you look at these cards objectively, the Fleer card has the best photo, the DonRuss card has the better lay-out and the second-best photo. And the Topps card is saved by the cameo portrait head and shoulders photo in the circle. The one thing in it's favour is that Tony is wearing the 1982 uniform - even if he has his spring training number on the back of the jersey. (
More on that here.)
As a post-script, after I tweeted a photo of the rookie card I got asked if I had the O-Pee-Chee rookie card, which is a reprint of the Topps card. So it would appear there is a fourth rookie card to add to the trinity at some point.
(At which point it will be a ... quadrinity? I need to look that up.)Many thanks to Marc for making this blog post possible!
Total: 609 cards
