Tuesday Twins - seen in previous guises

The recent influx of cards into my collection has included quite a few parallel versions of cards that have featured already on the blog. Here are a few more from the various Upper Deck ranges. I've included links to where the other version was blogged.

Card Number 818: Upper Deck Collector's Choice Special Edition Silver Signature, 1995; #160

Base version was #354 on the blog.

Special Edition was Upper Deck's third release in its Collector's Choice Range, after Series 1 and Series 2. Like the rest of the cards in the range, parallel versions with silver foil and gold foil signatures were released. The gold foil signatures were a lot rarer. The 'Special Edition' logo (top right) was recolourised for this silver signature release. Ironically, the silver signature scans black!

The back has a photo that is definitely in the top ten photos of Tony on a cardback. You can almost hear him saying "Heeeyyyyy, you guys!"

If every parallel had a photo that good on it, I would have a lot more appreciation for parallels.

Card Number 819: Upper Deck UD Choice Starquest (Green), 1999; #SQ8

Base version was #129 here

Green shiny card! Lovely. 

UD Choice was Upper Deck's late 90s rebrand for Collector's Choice. It lasted for one year and was replaced the following year by the MVP range.

Every pack of UD Choice cards had one Starquest card in it. The base cards were blue. The green versions were inserted at a rate of 1 in 8 packets. There were also red versions inserted 1 in 23 packets and gold versions sequentially numbered to 100. 

The dull cardback is made up for by the shininess of the front. The sleeve logo of the Swinging Friar is quite prominent in the cropped version of the photo on the cardback. 

Card Number 820: Upper Deck Special F/X, 1998; #9

According to Baseballcardpedia, this set "partially-parallels 150 cards from the 1998 Upper Deck set". I blogged the regular version back in September (#745).

Aside from being shiny holofoil, this card doesn't have the little logo denoting 'Ken Griffey's Hot List' that is on the regular card. The presentation marks the first time the Padres played at Edison field in Anaheim. The Angels player presenting the award is Eddie Murray.

Apart from the set number, the back is exactly the same as the regular release.

Card Number 821: Upper Deck SP (die-cut), 1994; #130

Base version was #316 on the blog.

In addition to all 200 cards in the inaugural SP set being holofoil, there were die-cut parallels inserted at a rate of 1 in every pack. It's not the most imagintaive die-cut, with just a chunk taken out of the top of the card. This is an overhead scan. If you want to see how dark this would look on a flatbed scan, then that's what I used when I blogged the normal version of this card. 

SP went for the minimalist approach on the card back. The photo has been cropped so tightly the base path Tony is running on isn't visible. 

And that's the Tuesday Twins for today! 

Total: 821 cards

Questing for gemstones

A couple of Upper Deck cards from my recent eBay trove today. First up, another Starquest card to add to my sub-collection.

Card Number 602: Upper Deck Collector's Choice Starquest, 1998; #65

I present what is becoming the usual double-scan of a foil-heavy card. First the flatbed scan.

Then the overhead scan.

It's rare that a foil-tastic card like this has readable text on it when scanned on the flatbed, but this one does. I initially thought I had this Starquest card and was quite surprised when it arrived and I checked my collection and found I didn't have it.

On the back we have some uniquely curated stats relating to Tony's batting performance in specific scenarios. A bit of work has gone into this cardback factoid. I'd give it some bonus points but the hyphenation of short words triggers me slightly, so points would be dinged for that and that means the card comes out honours even.

There's only one year in the stats box, but that's OK. 1997 was the last year that Tony won a batting title - so it's perhaps not surprising he led the league in batting averages when runners were in scoring position and when the bases were loaded. His 119 RBI was a career high, by some margin. It was the only time he topped 100 ribbies, and 1997 accounted for just over ten per cent of the runs he batted in over his entire career.

And just because it's fun to see cards in context, here are the three Starquest cards from 1998.

Card Number 603: Upper Deck Gold Reserve 24 Karat Gems, 2000; #K14

That's not how you spell carat.

Another shiny card. Another brace of scans.

Gold Reserve was a set with 300 base cards that were versions of the regular Upper Deck flagship set, with the words 'Gold Reserve' printed on them. This caused me some considerable confusion back in June 2020.

However, the insert cards were different to the flagship set, so this card was only available in Gold Reserve. Although the players depicted were "24-Karat Gems", there were only 15 cards in the set. (This annoys me. It's a set called 24-Karat Gems - why not pick 24 players?)

The write up on the back is succinct, refreshingly free of hyperbole, and printed in one of the worst faux-handwriting fonts ever used on the back of a baseball card. 

Upper Deck have also stuck a #19 on the front and back of the card, with no context or explanation. It's on Tony's armband on the front, but otherwise it looks like they just decided to add it because they felt they had to add something. On the back it balances the tiny Padres logo, so I suppose that's something. 

Total: 603 cards

Star Quest!

"Starquest" feels like it should be a subset of a science fiction set, not a baseball card set. But then it wouldn't be on this blog would it?

Starquest was a subset of inserts produced by Upper Deck in their Collector's Choice range for two seasons towards the tail end of Tony's career. (The theme re-emerged in 2008).

Card Number 127: Upper Deck Collector's Choice, 1998; #SQ19
I find the "STARQUEST" lettering on the left hand side of the card really hard to read the way its organised here. I keep reading it as STEASR or TEAST.

Horrible lettering juxtaposition aside, the front is relatively unremarkable. This is actually a subset within a subset as it is listed as a Starquest Single, hence the word 'single' above the Starquest logo. In their quest to make collecting their cards as annoying as possible, Upper Deck released all these cards as versions saying 'double', 'triple' and 'Home Run' on, in varying degrees of rarity (I presume, based on the lack of pictures for the other versions on Trading Card Database, and because I have two copies of the "single" version).

Upper Deck persevered with the terrible lettering on the back. It's no better a second time around.

However, I do dig the fact that this is Starquest card number 19! That was Tony's number, and will never be worn by another Padre. I hope it wasn't a fluke of the numbering system and this was a deliberate choice by Upper Deck. It's a classy touch.

Although Tony wasn't much of a home run hitter, this card mentions that by the end of 1997 he was third in Padres franchise history. The 1998 season would be the one where he would end the year belting a home run in Yankee Stadium during the World Series.

As 1998 was a special season for the Padres, it feels fitting that Upper Deck released a second Starquest card featuring Tony that year.

Card Number 128: Upper Deck Collector's Choice, 1998; #SQ43
This is Tony's card from the regular Starquest set.

It says 'Special Delivery' on the back. I don't know what that refers to. The first 45 cards in the set were all 'Special Delivery'. The remaining 45 cards were split between 'Students of the Game', 'Super Powers', and 'Super Star Domain'. Tony had a card in the 'Students of the Game' section as well.

Overall it feels like this is a needlessly complicated set to try and complete. It's a nice photo of Tony with a big smile on the back.

Moving on to 1999, and Starquest was much simpler.

Card Number 129: Upper Deck UD Choice, 1999; #SQ8
Collector's Choice became UD Choice in 1999. There were only 30 cards instead of the 90 base set and additional multi-paralleled 30 cards released in 1998. The regular base was a very fetching shiny blue.

That low wall with the recognisable brickwork behind Tony features in a lot of photos of him. There was a low wall behind the plate at Jack Murphy Stadium, so maybe that's why it appears in so many photos.

The back of the card is relatively unfussy, but they could have placed the card number between two rays and they didn't need the bio data. They cropped and reused the front image on the back, which is something I associate more with Panini-era DonRuss cards.

Interesting factoid that Gwynn was the leading active player for career batting average when this card was printed. His overall batting average would drop .001 before he finally retired three seasons later.

There were three different parallels of this card produced, in green, red and gold. But compared to the previous season, that feels very restrained.

Total: 129/394