Feeling Invincible in 2022

I realise it has been several weeks since I last blogged some cards. I have had my evenings occupied with other things so have neglected this a little. However, here we are in 2022. I have added a few cards to the collection while the blog has been on hiatus, so the number of cards waiting to be blogged has increased. (And I feel the pressure!)

I hope to get back to blogging regularly before the month is out. Meanwhile, here are some "Invincible" cards because we want to feel positive about the new year and invincibility is just positivity set to maximum!

Card Number 901: Pacific Invincible, 1998; #139

I like these cards with their little acetate windows of clarity. This one is really shiny, so this is an overhead scan of the front. 

And a bilingual back! Because it's printed on acetate, the image of Tony is reversed out. 

Card Number 902: Pacific Invincible Reyes del Diamante, 2000; #25

A variant on the phrase 'Diamond King'. I'm surprised DonRuss let Pacific get away with that!

There were 30 Kings of the Diamond in this insert series, and a further 20 Diamond Aces who were all pitchers. Although they look like playing cards, they all have the same value so would be rubbish for actually playing card games. 

The back is done to look like a playing card. Apart from the tell-tale player name!

And that's the first post of 2022 done. I will be back blogging regularly soon!

Total: 902 cards

See through Skybox becomes foil Fleer

I'm not really sure where to file E-X cards. Trading Card Database lists them as both Fleer and Skybox ranges, which was the same company at the time. I think they just flipped a coin to see which company name got stuck on the cards in a given year.

Card Number 807: Skybox E-X2001, 1998; #13

I am dinging this acetate card a point for having a year in the set name that isn't the year it was released. Hunting it down on TCDb was a pain!

There were 100 cards in this set. The scanner has picked up all the blue in the silvery streak on the left. The right hand side is clear, but a bit yellow with age. This is the acetate version of the warping that happens to chromatised cards. 

The back is as odd as any other acetate card. Because of the see-through nature, Tony's disembodied hand looks a bit spooky.

There is limited space to fit in a stats box, so they have gone for one season's worth of stats.

Card Number 808: Skybox E-X Century, 1999; #4

1999, the year when everyone referenced the end of the century...

There were 120 acetate cards in this set. The clear bits on this card have also gone slightly yellow.  Fleer/Skybox used a similar font to the one used for Tony's name on this card on a few other ranges around about this time.

Again, because the back is see-through. the reversed out printed shape becomes an odd block. The one year stats line is bent on a curve to fit into the shape. 

Card Number 809: Fleer E-X, 2000; #4

Tony was number 4 in this set for the second year running although this was now a Fleer range, not branded as Skybox. Fleer stopped using acetate for their E-X range and went for foiled shininess instead. The ribbon effect of the X in the background is pretty.

On the back they made it look like an acetate card by flipping the image of Tony complete with a mirrored San Diego across his chest. 

Even though there was no need to put the stats line on a fancy curve, Fleer went and did it anyway.

Total: 809 cards

Modern Monday - High Tek

Remember Topps Tek? Topps kind of revisited that 90s madness with a six year run of sets called High Tek from 2014-2019. Like the original Tek sets, these 'cards' were printed on acetate. In 2019, there were 112 cards in the set and 9 parallel versions of each card.

Card Number 787: Topps High Tek, 2019; #105

The blue outlining on this is a relic of it being scanned on my flatbed scanner. This is not a blue parallel - in real life it looks like the image on Trading Card Database, with a shimmery foil effect where the blue lines are on this. (That image on TCDB was uploaded by Richard - Hi Richard! - who also sent me this card.)

The scannerific blue effect is also visible on the back. The blue parallel card images on TCDb don't have the blue effect on the back, which is why I can say for certain this isn't the blue parallel version. (That image on TCDB was also uploaded by Richard - Hi Richard! - as you might expect from a supercollector.)

There isn't much else on that cardback. 

I don't know how popular acetate cards are. Topps seems to have pulled back from producing them the past couple of years. One advantage they have is that they don't curl like a lot of shiny regular 'chrome' cards curl over time. They also stay in place on the scanner even if the scans come out a bit odd.

Total: 787 cards

One Card Only - Topps Tek

I occasionally mention the glut of parallels in the hobby currently. Okay, I mention it more than occasionally. But it's not a new phenomonon. Today's card is from perhaps the most overblown set ever produced in terms of the sheer number of parallels. 

It's well over the top. It's Topps Tek.

Card Number 736: Topps Tek (pattern 22), 1998; #23

There were 90 base cards in this card set which was printed on acetate, and each card was printed with 90 different 'patterns' on the acetate. That's 8,100 different cards, if anyone was committed enough to try and collect them all. But then there were also 'diffractor' versions of each pattern of each card as well - another 90 parallels of the 90s cards, and another 8,100 cards in the set! 

That set bloat might explain why there are only 1.1% of the images on Trading Card Database. This card wasn't pictured on there, so I have submitted it.

Compared to some of the other designs, this is a lot less snazzy. It's a ripple effect. 

Because it's acetate, they've flipped the image of Tony on the back to match the shape of his head and bat. We have yet another serious photo - hey, it's a card from 1998. That's what they did.

The cardback threw me a bit because it had milestones for Tony in 1999 and 2000. But this is definitely a card from 1998 - I have triple-checked! (Thank you, YoRicha, for uploading some pictures on to TCDb!) So I think those were Topps trying to predict when Tony would achieve the milestones. 

Tony reached 3000 hits in 1999, and hit his 500th double the same year. The target of 1,500 runs was aspirational, and Tony didn't manage to reach it in 2000, or at all. He finished his career on 1,383 at the end of the 2001 season. I guess two predictions from three isn't bad.

Getting a Topps Tek card for the collection had been one of my aims for a while. Collecting all 90 is very unlikely. 

Total: 736 cards

Tuesday Twins - Sample Seasons Crown

This card is exactly the same as the card I blogged about back in January (and 101 cards ago!), except that it's a sample giveaway.

Card Number 665: Fleer Ultra Season Crowns (Sample), 1996; #2

Although this is numbered as 2, it was one of just two cards in this insert series released in a promotional version. The other card was numbered 4.

The 'Promotional Sample' lettering is overprinted running from the bottom left to the top right on both sides. This means some of the lettering on the front is visible through the acetate on the back.

I'm counting this as a new card in the collection even though there is no other difference to the regular release. I presume this version was given out by the company. I'm just lucky they picked Tony's card as one of the two to use to promote the set.

Total: 665 cards

One Card Only - Clearly the king of swing

My mum is a big fan of Disney's The Jungle Book and so I had a certain tune running through my head while scanning this card.

Card Number 604: Fleer Ultra Swing Kings, 2000; #4SK

This is an acetate card, similar to the Fleer Ultra Seasons Crown cards from 1996. Clearly Fleer liked the idea of clear cards.

I am surprised that Swing Kings hasn't been used more often for insert series.

The back is amusing because the printing has to fit into Tony's outline. The little write-up is straight from the Weird Skybox Cardback Write-Ups catalogue. The person responsible for Fleer Ultra in 2000 didn't mind dipping into their sister-brand's style guide of addressing their comment to the player on the card. In an awkward way.

"You've already got 3,000 hits, Tony, so the next one should be a given, right? Because you never think that, it always is."

I understand what they mean. I don't understand why they chose to say it like that.

Anyway, back to the King of the Swingers, my mum had a significant birthday recently and we adopted her an orangutan at a nearby zoo in honour of King Louie from the Jungle Book. We also gave her a cuddly King Louie from the Disney Store. Here he is just before being shipped. (We added the party hat!)

On that totally unrelated personal note, I will say goodbye for today!

Total: 604 cards

One Card Only - clear Fleer

This is another card that arrived via eBay. 

Card Number 564: Fleer Ultra Season Crowns, 1996; #2

There were ten acetate cards in this insert series. I wasn't sure which was the best background to scan them on. Here it is scanned on white background.

And scanned on a black background...

The heraldic shield in the background is presumably something Fleer dreamt up for fun. I'm not aware of baseball bats and baseballs being used in actual coats of arms. But who knows, maybe one day they will. 

Having the coat of arms in the background renders an odd shape on the reverse of the card. The printing style also makes it hard to read.

There is another entry for my log of different ways Tony is described on the cardback - ""the game's premier "Batman"..."

Acetate cards are still quite unusual, and this is a fun inclusion in my collection.

Total: 564 cards

A dip in the Pacific

I remember the first time I really saw the Pacific Ocean. It was on a beach the other side of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco a couple of days after we landed in California for a big holiday. Later we drove down Highway 1 all the way to San Diego with the ocean on our right hand side. 

It was much later that I learned that there was a trading card company called Pacific too. Starting out targeting Spanish speakers, it quickly expanded during the heyday of the baseball card hobby in the 1990s, issuing lots of different sets. At one point Tony Gwynn was doing lots of promotional work for the company. As a result, he ended up being on lots of sample cards (as outlined in this blog post by Fuji) and also featured in several sets, often multiple times. 

Today's dip in the Pacific takes us back to 1997, with three cards featuring Tony.

Card Number 358: Pacific, 1997; #424

This set is listed on Trading Card Database as Pacific Crown Collection, but as far as I can work out, that was just the full name of Pacific's flagship card range.

The front also has a big free advert for AT&T, looking a bit like the Death Star from Star Wars.

There's a lot of gold on the front, the entire top sixth of the card is foil. Pacific were very big on shiny foil cards for a couple of years, and rivaled Pinnacle for gaudiness. 

The back is bilingual, with the Spanish coming first and an English translation in smaller font. 

There's a nice addition to the list of descriptions I'm compiling on the back: "imagen deportivo de San Diego / San Diego sports icon". Having two languages on the cardback means there isn't much room for a stats box, so they include just the stats from the previous year and career totals. There is space for a portrait photo, in a frame that I think is unique on a baseball card.

Card Number 359: Pacific Prism Invincible, 1997; #144

Long before Panini Prizm cards, there were Pacific Prism cards. The 150 base cards in this set all had an acetate window featuring the player's portrait. The design of the card is peak 1990s.

The back is bilingual. As I've mentioned previously when I reviewed one of these cards in my first ever Monday Mixer, the acetate window means the player's image is flipped when looking at the reverse of the card. This is how Tony would have seen himself when he looked in a mirror. 

There isn't a stats box at all on the back, but the write up is all about Tony's stats to date. He's also lining up an outfield catch in the photo.

Card Number 360: Pacific Prism Invincible Gems of the Diamond, 1997; #GD-207

As a sign of how mad the baseball card hobby was in the 1990s, this "insert series" actually had 220 cards in it making it a larger set than the Prism base set.

There's a big gemstone shape with the Padres logo in it centred at the bottom of the card. Other companies had gold and diamonds, Pacific had gems.

The back describes Tony's achievements in the 1996 season in Spanish and English. The sparkle effect with the rays emanating from behind his head reminds me of religious iconography.

The portrait photo looks like it's from the same photoshoot as on the card in the Crown Collection flagship range. It certainly looks like Tony is wearing the same gear and there's a blurred building in the background on both cards.

I hope you enjoyed this dip in the Pacific!

Total: 360/394

Monday mixer

Here are 3 random, unrelated cards, that I'm posting because it's Monday and we can all use some random drops of joy in our lives on a Monday.

Card Number 62: Sportkings  (Series D), 2010; #180

There are two versions of this card. This is the slightly smaller version. It's not as small as a Topps Mini, but it's smaller than a regular sized trading card. This is also another entry into the 'When is a baseball card not a baseball card?' category. The Trading Card Database lists this as a 'multi-sport' card. The series includes famous sportsmen from across a range of sporting activities.

Sport Kings Gum was one of the ranges brought out by the card manufacturer Goudey before the Second World War. The brand got revived several decades later, and this is from when it was an independent little company. It has also been part of Leaf. When this was produced the company had no affiliations with Major League Baseball, but look at how cunning they have been in their portrait of Tony - on the front of his cap are his pioneering sunglasses, and you can just see a little bit of the SD logo.  That's sneaky!

On the back there is nice little bio and we also learn the card was printed in Canada. Just another odd little aspect of this odd little oddball card.

Card Number 63, Pacific Invincible, 1999; #122

I have one card in my collection so far which is part acetate. This is the card. That little window with Tony's face is actually a window. Pacific are one of those card companies that created little masterpieces that no-one really asked for. Die-cuts and gold foil and see-through bits and all kind of things to make their cards stand out. This may be an unpopular opinion, but the hobby is poorer without Pacific.

There's the back. There's some blurb in Spanish as well as English and the picture of Tony is mirrored because it's printed on acetate. It's weird to think this is the view Tony would have had of himself if he looked in a mirror. He is properly legging it in that photo as well. That's a man on a mission to reach the next base!

Card Number 64: Upper Deck Collector's Choice (The Big Show Insert Series), 1997; #39
The Big Show was one of 20 insert series in the 1997 Collector's Choice set. The premise is that baseball commentators Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick, hosts of ESPN's SportsCenter, are talking about various players in a commentator style.

The cards are foiled on the front, so look nicer than in this scan.

The back has one of the most confusing layouts I've ever seen on a baseball card. It's another 90s design classic!

Basically the text is interlinear as if the commentators are talking over each other. It's horrible to read and I can't work out which person is saying what. Separately they are saying:

"Hit .353 in '96 to win his seventh batting title, which is third-most in Major League history... Has hit .300 or better for 14 consecutive seasons ('83-96)... Has .337 career average, highest among active Major Leaguers ... Posted 2,500th career hi 8-14-96."

"If there is such a thing as a hitting artist, Tony is it. "Mr Padre" is another one the small list of players that I would pay to see. He won a batting title in '96 despite suffering from a painful heel injury. If you broke his legs, he'd probably still get a hit off you."

Am I the only one who feels a slightly sinister undertone in that final sentence?

Keith Olbermann has also been a political commentator but he is back on ESPN now. In He Left His Heart in San Diego Keith recalls meeting Tony Gwynn, who called him Mr Olbermann until Keith asked him not to. They became friends and Keith knew how excited Tony was to be playing at Yankee Stadium in the 1998 World Series. He asked the Yankee stadium announcer, Bob Sheppard, to record his intro for Tony Gwynn and then put it in a talking photo frame and gave it to him. Apparently Tony was so taken by it, that he kept the frame in his trophy cabinet next to the silver bats he won.

That's your Monday Mixer. Have a great day!

Total: 64/394