Modern Monday - another class of Gold Label

I'm not consistent in how I write the headers for Gold Label cards. The "class" of the card is sometimes in brackets, sometimes not. But I doubt anyone cares too much. I feel people come to my blog to look at the cards rather than read what I'm calling them.

Card Number 1036: Topps Gold Label - class 2, 2021; #12

The class 1 and class 3 cards issued in 2021 are in this post from February, although actually one of those cards is a black parallel, so I think that means I'm missing the standard version...

All three classes of cards in the 2021 issue juxtaposed that ever-so-cool photo of young Tony with an action shot from his later years. In this one elder Tony is running the bases. I also like the juxtaposition of 'San Diego' on elder Tony's uniform and 'Padres' on younger Tony's jacket. (I want a jacket like that!)

The classes in Topps Gold Label, basically mean there are three sets to collect, all with the same numbering and cardbacks. So there isn't much to add to what I've previously said about this cardback. 

Total: 1036 cards

One card only - game-worn Gold Label

I'm not sure how it has been two and a half months since I last blogged. Anyway, I'm hoping to restart this soon. I have about 50 cards sitting to be blogged, some of them for several months. But today's card only arrived at the start of July from my friend Gawain.

Card Number 1025: Topps Gold Label, 2002; #GMR-TG

This 'Major League Moments' insert card has been printed in a dark purple tone, rather than this just being a dark scan.

Unlike modern cards with their little cloth swatches of unknown origin, this card specifies the date it was worn - 30 September, 1999.

On the back it explains why that date is meaningful. Tony got 7 hits from 8 at bats over two games in a double-header at the end of the season.

This card was released in 2002 and Tony had retired at the end of the 2001 season. However, news seemed to take a while to get through to Topps HQ. Tony had a card in the Topps flagship set in 2002, and this card may well have been lined up before they knew he had retired. 

Also, you may have spotted this is a "class 2 platinum" card. Gold Label cards are divided into all kinds of classes and subdivisions. I think the platinum ones were meant to be rarer.

Total: 1025 cards

Some older Gold Label cards

I selected today's cards with Fuji and YoRicha in  mind, because they said they liked the Gold Label cards that I posted at the beginning of the week. All these cards are slightly pearlescent so I used the overhead scanner on them. The results are a bit flakey, but at least the design is visible. 

Card Number 968: Topps Gold label, 1998; #14

Awkward photo juxtaposition ahoy!

Seriously, that photo arrangement makes it look like Tony is kneecapping his larger self.

These 'cards' are printed on quite thick plasticky card - much thicker than usual card stock. The material they are printed on contributes to the sheen on the card. It also warps slightly. 

The candid photo on the back should have a thought bubble saying "Huh!?" next to it. 

Right, okay, back on Tuesday I questioned what Topps was doing by discounting the 1994 season and the .394 batting average that everyone associates with Tony on their modern Gold Label cards. Back in 1998, Topps didn't have an issue with Tony hitting .394 in a season that was shortened by strike action. Here they have it as his career best batting average. They also explain how they calculated the 'average season' using 'at bats' rather than the number of games. That makes more sense and just adds to my suspicion that the company's employees knew what they were doing back in the late 90s compared to the people working there now. 

I have one of the books mentioned in the factoid - Tony Gwynn's Total Baseball Player. One day I hope to get hold of The Art of Hitting as well. 

Card Number 969: Topps Gold Label Class 1, 1999; #6

Topps introduced the class system to the range in 1999 and the shine on the cards was even more iridescent.

That fielding photo looks really familiar, but I don't think it was on a Topps card.

On the back there is another cameo portrait of Tony with a quizzical expression. 

The factoid about Tony's loyalty doesn't mention that apparently other top players were annoyed with him for staying with the Padres because it was dragging down the market value of all the other players. (Did that really happen? Now it's all part of the mythos.)

For those taking notes, the career best batting average on this card is .394. Also, a bonus point for this card having the class number on the back (by the team logo) - which makes it a lot easier for people like me trying to work out which cardback is which!

Card Number 970: Topps Gold Label Class 2, 1999; #6

One of the photos has been changed on the front, along with the team logo behind Tony.

The cardback is virtually identical apart from the class number.

Card Number 971: Topps Gold Label Class 2, 2000; #11

In this year's set the class is printed on the front of the card, etched into the foil.

That photo on the back is from the photoshoot that Topps used on some of their tribute cards in the 2000 flagship set, except this time, Tony isn't looking straight down the camera lens.

So a couple of things about this cardback. Firstly, the important career batting average high point stat is correct! Secondly, a factoid about walks! This is a really rare topic for factoids, because although Tony drew a fair few walks (as is obvious by the factoid!), generally he made contact at the plate. Except when opponents opted not to pitch at all! 

I always love learning something new from a card - so kudos to Topps for this!

Total: 971 cards

Tuesday Twins - more Gold Label parallels

Following on from yesterday's Gold Label cards from 2021, here are some more from the Topps range that perpetuates the class system.

Card Number 963: Topps Gold Label Class 1, 2019; #92

As with the more recent cards that I blogged yesterday, this card juxtaposes an older photo of Tony with a more recent one. In this case it's a photo from either 1985 or 1986 and a photo that's probably from 2001.

Like the cards from 2021, the cardback has Tony's 'average season' stats and states that Tony's season best batting average was .372. I still can't decide if this is an error by Topps or just someone behind the scenes being a pedantic dork and discounting the stats from 1994 because it wasn't a 162 game season. Whatever the reason, Topps has been printing this stat for a while. 

The factoid is a useful illustration of how well Tony hit in the clutch. He didn't often get to two strikes as he liked to swing at the first pitch if he could. But when he got to two strikes, it was very rare that he would get to three.

Card Number 963: Topps Gold Label Class 1 (black parallel), 2019; #92

Like yesterday, here is a black parallel to compare with the regular class 1 card.

The black parallel looks much more striking as a card, and also makes the 'class 1' lettering much more obvious in the scan.

I have a confession - the cardback I showed you previously could have been from either the regular or the parallel. I scanned them together and can't tell them apart. Here's a scan of both of them to show what I mean.

And, as a bonus, another card from the same set and same year...

Card Number 965: Topps Gold Label Class 2, 2019; #92

I really like the white Padres uniform with the yellow, orange and brown accents. That uniform is the one worn by the team in the 1984 World Series, and replaced almost immediately with the switch to pinstripes for the 1985 season. (Maybe it's because I'm a child of the seventies, but it feels to me that the move to pinstripes in the 1980s was a boring choice!)

The cardback is the same again, complete with the description of Tony's batting after two strikes as "preposterous", and a mention of Wade Boggs.

With baseball itself very much in the balance for 2022, I don't know if Gold Label is scheduled to appear again. I'm waiting to see if Topps persist with claiming Tony's best batting average is .372. If Topps do, then I might get in touch with them and ask what their reasoning is. 

Total: 965 cards

Modern Monday - smudgy Gold Labels

A couple more cards from last year, which arrived via Michael who is a member of the UK collectors group on Facebook.

Card Number 961: Topps Gold Label Class 1 (black parallel), 2021; #12

Topps separate their Gold Label sets into three classes of increasing scarcity. Each class has a variety of different colour parallels going on. Basically, this is one of those sets with multiple similar cards of any given player. This is class 1, so the most common, but the black parallel, so less common.

The juxtaposition of Tony as a young player rocking the old brown and orange Padres look from the early 80s, with older Tony in the pinstripes and blue makes for a nice effect on the card. It's also shiny, hence the slight dappling effect around the logo in the scan. The lettering on the silver foil is in black and there are black solid patches in the various corners. That's how to tell it's a black parallel. 

On the back there are some smudges as if the card has hit some printer ink. I don't think this happened in transit becase they arrived in a penny sleeve and in a toploader. I think the ink is from the printing process. 

The term "live-ball era" was a new one to me. A quick Google revealed it is referring to baseball after 1920 when a load of rule changes were introduced to make baseball more "lively". I've frequently said that comparing Tony to pre-war playes is a bit futile, because of how much the game has changed, but I like this stat that says you have to go back to 1931 to find another player who was as consistently good at hitting the ball and not striking out as Tony. It's yet another way to cut the statistical cake to show that Tony was the greatest hitter of his lifetime. 

Card Number 962: Topps Gold Label Class 3, 2021; #12

Topps change one of the photos on the front in each of the different classes of cards. Topps has also been considerate for once, and included the class number in the foil print on the front of the card so it's easy to tell which version of the card this is.

The cardback is pretty much the same. 

Just a word on that stats box because there is an unusual line in there for 'average season'. That's not a common stat on cardbacks, and makes for some impressive reading. I would not have guessed that Tony averaged over 200 hits a season. The asterisks denote it's based on a 162-game season, so I presume it doesn't count 1982 or 1983 when he spent some time in the minor leagues, or 1994 when the season was cut short by a strike. Removing 1994 from their calculations would also explain why Topps printed his career best average as .372 instead of .394.

Or, knowing Topps, they just got it wrong!

Total: 962 cards

Modern Monday - Gold Label

Topps revived their premium card range called Gold Label in 2016. It's a strange set, with three different 'classes' of card released for each player, with a different photo on each one, which turns a 100-card set into a 300-card set straightaway.

I acquired these cards from Graham M in the UK collectors Facebook group.

Card Number 510: Topps Gold Label (class 3), 2019; #92

In 2019 the class 1 card showed Tony running, the class 2 card showed him batting in a 1984 uniform, and the class 3 card looked like this:

The second photo of Tony (behind the gold band) was the same on all three classes of cards. In addition to the three different classes of card, there were also coloured parallels released.

The backs were consistent for all the classes of card.

That is an incredible factoid on the back, about Tony's success rate in a 'two strikes' scneario, and something I wasn't aware of before reading this cardback. So that's a plus point for this set.

Card Number 511: Topps Gold Label (class 1), 2020; #81

I think all the class 1 cards in the set showed players fielding. This photo is from very early in Tony's career before he started wearing Oakley wraparound sunglasses in the outfield.

The comparisons on the back really show how Tony was in a complete class of his own in the second half of the twentieth century. There literally was nobody better at getting hits than him. 

The class 2 cards showed Tony in a batting stance. 

Card Number 512: Topps Gold Label (class 3), 2020; #81

And the class 3 cards show him on the move between bases.

Although the 'classes' is a bit gimmicky, I'm not going to complain if Topps are going to dig into their photo archive and use uncommon photos for these cards. There aren't many cards with Tony wearing the early 80s brown Padres uniform, so it's a welcome addition to the collection.

The cardback is exactly the same. I'm only showing it for the sake of completeness!

Sets like this are one of the reasons why the number of Tony Gwynn cards has proliferated over recent years. The multiple parallels of these cards are all counted as released cards on Trading Card Database, pushing the number of available cards ever-upwards. Add in some low numbered memorabilia cards as well and it's all more cards for collectors to collect!

Total: 512 cards