Base Metals

Here's a 'back to base' post, as I have acquired a run of Tony's base cards from the Skybox range called 'Metal Universe'. These were once high end cards sold by the Fleer Skybox conglomerate. There are probably people who love these cards. I find Skybox cards are almost always off-kilter in some respect, usually odd word choices (like on this insert card!) and sometimes the overall concept is uncanny. 

Metal Universe cards are all super-shiny so I had to use my overhead scanner on them.

Card Number 903: Skybox Metal Universe, 1996; #235

How could you tell that this garish, shiny card with a weird image of Tony mashing milk out of a giant blue sponge ball was issued in the mid-90s? Apart from everything? This is compter-generated imagery from the 90s... on acid. 

The photo on the back is strangely old-fashioned. The unflattering comparison that came to my mind was Joey Tribbiani's explanation of "smell the fart acting". Tony looks mildly troubled by something. 

The interlocking gear teeth image at the bottom is part of the 'metal universe' theme. There are worse ways to waste space on the back of a baseball card. 

Card Number 904: Skybox Metal Universe, 1997; #219

I've over-exposed this scan slightly. But otherwise it just scans incoherently. Instead of making a dash for first base, Tony is running though a fantasy cave complex pursued by bats. I'd like to think the bats are because Tony was an extraordinary wielder of the baseball bat. But there could be a more mundane reason, like using up leftover graphics from a computer game.

There's a more natural photo on the back. The cardback design has a steampunk look. Props to them for giving Tony a number containing the number 19. (No bonus points though!)

Card Number 905: Skybox Metal Universe, 1998; #178

This is probably the nicest of the cards I'm showing in this post. The shiny front has Tony batting... on a sand dune... with the ocean in the background... and it looks very nice. Completely bizarre, but I'm always up for something a bit different. And this is a happy trigger for a digression.

Back in 2004, when I went on a road trip around California with my wife Cathy, we drove down Highway 1 all the way from San Francisco to San Diego, so photos of that Pacific coast bring back good memories. We went to Cardiff-by-the-Sea and sent postcards back to all our friends living in Cardiff. Because we like irony. 

Anyway, back to the card, and the cardback. Ho, boy! This would have looked five or six years out of date in 1998. That kind of graded background was from the beginning of the decade! And turquoise! That was the colour of 1993!

The stats boxes designed to look like a scoring chart are nicely done though. 

Card Number 906: Skybox Metal Universe, 1999; #47

A bonus scan this time to explain the difference the overhead scanner makes. First, here is the flatbed scan.

And here is the overhead scan. 

The rivet marks make this card look like it should be embossed. It's not embossed. Given their usual commitment to gimmicky stuff, this feels like a real missed opportunity for Skybox.

The rivets continue on to the back. It's an odd photo, with Tony looking frustrated. He looks like he is walking back to the dug out after a flyball was caught. I'd also ding this card a point for having unreadable stats information perpendicular to the card. 

And that's it for the Metal Universe. The range only lasted 4 years. There were cards released in 2000 with the brand name 'Metal', and that was the last hurrah for these shiny cards. The Metal cards in 2000 were also the end of cards being sold under the Skybox brand.

Total: 906 cards

Skybox wooden wordplay

I'm sure "wood" has the same euphemistic connotations in American English as it does in British English. In fact, I would imagine the other meaning is a transatlantic import back to the old continent. So, I can't believe the designers and writers at Skybox didn't know exactly what possible interpretation they were flirting with when they named this insert series.

Card Number 660: Skybox Metal Universe Boyz With the Wood insert, 1999; #8BW

OK, so they were probably going for a riff on the film title Boyz n the Hood that was released in 1991. But, this was eight years after that film and it really feels like every other punning name for an insert series had been taken so Skybox came up with this risque take.

And the 'cards' are weird too. I think this is the front.

Which makes this the back.

As far as I can work out, from the folding guidelines, this is meant to be manipulated into a second card by basically bending it into shape. I can't find an image on Google of one that has been constructed and the picture on Baseballcardpedia is actually of the Tony Gwynn card looking like this. According to that page, the odds of finding one of these cards was 1 in 18 packs.

This is from the same set as the MLPD unscannable insert card that was basically the reason why I asked for an overhead scanner for Christmas. However, unlike the MLPD card this doesn't have a cardback, which means no whacky write up this time. Baseballcardpedia blames the tendency towards weird comments on the back of the Skybox and Fleer cards of the time on an attempt to make cards more appealing to younger collectors. I totally agree with the wiki writer's summary that "The language used on cardbacks has not aged well." Although I doubt it was ever appropriate really. 

As with the Upper Deck bobblehead card, I'm going to want a second one of these so that I can bend it to get the second card for display in my binders. Maybe Skybox were onto something with this insert idea. It's just a shame they chose such a terrible name for it. 

And, annoyingly, this is yet another set where I have inserts but don't have the base card, so that's another one to try and find.

Total: 660 cards