Mini Monday

Back in 2011 Topps included Kimball Champions cards as inserts in their flagship products, based on cigarette cards produced by William Kimball & Co. in the 19th Century. Unlike Allen & Ginter and Gypsy Queen which are also tobacco brands revived by Topps, Kimball never made the jump to become a full set in its own right. 

This card arrived in the eBay lot that was misdelivered after I'd paid an 'administration fee' for the privilege of paying customs charges. I'm still a bit irked about that.

Card Number 554: Topps Kimball Champions, 2011; #KC-59

The front is illustrated rather than a photo. The bottom half of the picture makes it look like Tony is playing in a park somewhere.

The illustration is based on a photo of Tony taken in the early part of his career. The brown cap and jacket help to date the photo, as does his fine moustache.

All the cardbacks contained a checklist for the relevant section they were in. Cards 51-100 featured retired players and legends of the game. It's a dull cardback even by fake cigarette card standards. 

This is only the second card from 2011 that I've featured on the blog so far. 2011 was a comparatively lean year for Tony Gwynn cards - with just 182 cards listed on the Trading Card Database. 

Total: 554 cards

Modern Monday - talking turkey

Topps Turkey Red cards issued in 2020 are insert cards rather than their own set. There were 100 different cards in both Series 1 and Series 2 of the Topps flagship product, and in their wisdom, Topps decided to number them 1-100 in both series! Tony was given a card in Series 2.

Card Number 523: Topps Turkey Red insert (Series 2), 2020; #TR-70

TR-70 in Topps Series 1 depicted Aaron Nola.

Turkey Red cards are modelled on old time tobacco cards and feature a full length portrait of a player against a crudely rendered background. Their generic look is exactly like Tony's card in the set.

Topps haset several faux-vintage ranges, and this card has the best cardback of all of them. This is a contender for the best summary of Tony's career ever on a baseball card.

There is some artistic license taken with the opening sentence. Baseball was never the "fallback plan", although it's true that it wasn't the original plan. Tony wasn't allowed to start playing until his second year in college. When it became apparent that he would be in the draft for both baseball and basketball he decided to play baseball because he felt he would have a longer career.

However, overall, the cardback elevates this card above other retro cards released this year. Thanks to Andrew T in the UK Baseball Cards Collectors group on Facebook for sending me this.

Total: 523 cards

Modern Monday: back to Allen & Ginter (and an A&G back)

One of the first posts on this blog was about two Allen & Ginter inserts, and last month I blogged about a couple of base cards from earlier in the decade. In the last couple of weeks some more up-to-date base have come through the post, so here are the base cards from the last couple of years, and a bonus.

Card Number 468: Topps Allen & Ginter, 2019; #77

The front is a nice portrait rendered like a painting, as is the Allen & Ginter style. This is obviously adapted from a photo taken in 1999 - it's easy to tell because of the prominent 30th anniversary sleeve patch.

The back is the same quirky / tiresome list of statistics with the numbers written out in full.

Card Number 469, Topps Allen & Ginter, 2020; #128

It's harder to date the source photo for this card to a particular season, but I'd guess it's around about 1988, based on the brown jacket and Tony's moustache.

The cardback design is slightly less fussy.

Card Number 470: Topps Allen & Ginter Mini, 2020; #128 (A&G back parallel)

And the bonus card! All Allen & Ginter base cards have a 'mini' parallel that's cigarette card sized. Every pack of Allen & Ginter 2020 had one of these parallels in it. And this is a parallel of a parallel because it has a different cardback - these versions were only available at a rate of one in five packs. 

The front picture is cropped slightly to fit the new card dimensions.

And this is the back with a big A&G logo on. It looks a lot better than the typical list of statistics.

I've commented before about the links with tobacco companies of yore on modern day cards. I don't need to say anything more about that. But this cardback is so much better than the standard ones, I'm not going to criticise Topps again for it. I have noticed that Topps say they are commemorating the picture cards that came out in 1887, rather than saying the tobacco or cigarette cards. If you didn't know Allen & Ginter were once one of the biggest cigarette companies in the world, then you wouldn't have a problem with it.

(And on that historical note, Allen & Ginter was a comparatively progressive company in its own way. They were the first cigarette rolling company to employ women - although that might have been because they could pay women less than men. They were also innovative, the first American company to try and develop mechanised cigarette rolling. If that had been totally successful, they wouldn't have need so many employees, so maybe that's less laudable.)

I'd like to thank Gawain and Andy M for sourcing and sending me these cards - cheers, chaps!

Total: 470 cards

Modern Monday Minis

Topps 206 is an expensive premium card range made to look like cigarette cards of yore. In addition to the size and design, Topps also use some old tobacco company names on some of the card backs to introduce even more parallels into the card hobby, except this time you can't see the parallel until you turn the card over. 

Marc, who also sent me the Topps Archives card that I blogged about a few weeks ago, sent me two Topps 206 cards released this year. I've scanned them together because that's easier.

Card Number 421: Topps 206, 2020; unnumbered

Card Number 422: Topps 206 - Piedmont Back Parallel, 2020; unnumbered

The Piedmont cardbacks appear at a rate of 2 per box, so they are reasonably rare. I'm just lucky that Marc pulled one and knows I collect Tony Gwynn cards. The fronts as you can see are exactly the same.

I've written before about how I feel ambivalent about Topps using tobacco brands on their cards. The original T206 cards that were released from 1909 to 1911 by the American Tobacco Company numbered 524 different cards over the three years, with different backs representing 16 different brands of cigarettes or tobacco. The same card was printed with different backs in that original release as well. 

Piedmont was one of those original brands, launched in 1905 by a subsidiary of American Tobacco Co. called Liggett & Myers, which continued to produce the brand after the American Tobacco Co. was broken up so it was no longer a monopoly. Piedmont is a region of North Carolina, near the border with Virginia, where yellow tobacco is grown. It's sometimes referred to as the "Tobacco Belt", and that probably explains why the brand name was chosen. The Piedmont brand existed at least up until the Second World War.

I feel uncomfortable with the juxtaposition of cigarette branding, even historical brands like Piedmont, on the back of a Tony Gwynn card released in 2020. Given that Tony died after several courses of treatment for cancer caused by chewing tobacco, and the subsequent lawsuit against the tobacco industry by his family, it feels in poor taste to have his picture on a card with a cigarette brand on the back. Tony has appeared in almost every Topps set this year, and they could have possibly left him out of this one.

Total: 422 cards

Back to Base: Allen & Ginter

Allen & Ginter World's Champions baseball cards have been issued by Topps for several years now. In addition to baseball players there are usually a number of random quirky cards included in the sets as well, along with "Rip" cards that contain another image under the photo and ask the holder if they will 'keep it or rip it?' and a variety of other inserts, mini cards, relics, autographs and so on.

The original Allen & Ginter was a tobacco company in the 19th Century. The link between baseball cards and tobacco companies predates the link with bubblegum, and a surprising number of very old tobacco brands have been resurrected by the card companies in this century. Upper Deck have their Goodwin's Champions, and Topps release their very high end "206" product and the Gypsy Queen range. 

I am ambivalent about the use of long-gone tobacco company names by card companies. While they aren't recognisable brands and the association with packets of cigarettes or tobacco are purely historical, there is an anachronism that tobacco advertising has disappeared from sports grounds within the last 30 years or so, and yet card companies are still preserving the link between tobacco and the sport, albeit in a very obscure way. (Cigarette advertising has sometimes inadvertently appeared on cards. There's a Marlboro ad in the background of a card from 1994, which was shortly before advertising was banned altogether.)

However, as a fan and chronicler of Tony Gwynn's career, I can't escape the fact his life was cut incredibly short because of chewing tobacco and I am supportive of efforts to ban tobacco entirely from the sport. So, that's another reason why I have mixed feelings about these particular card sets.

And, being honest, the cards themselves aren't particularly interesting to warrant the fuss that is made over them by some collectors. The insert series can sometimes be quite nice -  I really liked the Star Signs card featured on this blog in one of my first posts - but the sets tend to blend into each other and the cards all feel very samey. I have similar feelings towards Gypsy Queen and Panini Prizm cards. Still, at least they put the set years on the front so it's easy to tell them apart.

Card Number 385: Topps Allen & Ginter, 2013; #97

The enforced quirkiness of the Allen & Ginter brand is shown on the front where they just have the player's surname and don't mention the team. In the photo, Tony is wearing a batting practice jersey - Mitchell & Ness have produced a replica of this top complete with the number 19 on the back.

If the front is quirky, the back is similarly trying to be eccentric in its disdain for numerals, instead writing the key numbers out in full words. (Except for the card number.)

At least it's a different way of summarising and displaying career stats. For a known contact hitter, Tony was afforded very few walks in his career. That's probably because he wasn't a home run slugger like the all-time record holder Barry Bonds. But even Ted Williams, Tony's hitting hero, received over 2,000 walks in his career.

As I noted when I reviewed this year's Topps Archives card on Monday, they have decided to print Tony's weight at the end of his career, which seems rather mean-spirited. He didn't weigh 225lbs when he stole most of those 319 Stolen Bases!

Card Number 386: Topps Allen & Ginter, 2014; #223

This year the team name was on the front of the card. It's a photo of Tony in his batting stance - a classic pose for a hitting champion.

The back was very similar to the previous year's card, except it was printed in blue ink rather than black.

As the cardback is to all intents and purposes the same as the previous year, there is very little else to say about it.

Total: 386/394

Tuesday Twins - Upper Deck Doubles

Parallels and special editions mean that card companies print virtually the same card twice and collectors like me will want both. It's such a common practice now that some collectors set out deliberately to collect parallel colour and foil versions, "collecting the rainbow".

This all started back in the 90s, and, yet again, Upper Deck were instigators of this development. Here are two cards from 1994 that I scanned together to illustrate what I mean.

Card Number 137: Upper Deck Collector's Choice, 1994; #122
Card Number 138: Upper Deck Collector's Choice - Silver Signature, 1994; #122
I scanned these with the signature version on the left as you look at them.

The silver foil signature comes out black on the scan. I do appreciate that Tony is actually signing a shirt in the picture, which really works with the silver signature in the parallel version. But this is basically the same card.

I clocked the Marlboro advert in the background which give this card that proper 'vintage' feel (it is over a quarter century old!). Back in 1994 you could still smoke in some ballparks, but the days were numbered for both smoking and the Marlboro ads. By 1998 most cigarette advertising was banned in sports stadia. 

The cardbacks are actually identical, barring a slight printing shade variation. 

Every single Collector's Choice card came with a silver signature variant. However in 2000, Upper Deck decided to print the same card, but in a different set.

Here's Tony's card from the base set.

Card Number 139: Upper Deck, 2000; #216

Upper Deck added the logo of the previous year's All Star Game to the cards of players who were selected. The 1999 game was in Boston. Tony was injured and couldn't play, but flew to Boston anyway to assist legendary hitter Ted Williams who was throwing the ceremonial first pitch. Ted was Tony's hitting idol and he considered it a huge honour to walk out onto the diamond alongside one of his heroes at the start of the game.

The back is a bold blue.

Upper Deck took 300 of their base cards, tweaked them a bit and released them as a different set.

Card Number 140: Upper Deck Gold Reserve, 2000; #224

There's no blue strip on the front and they've taken off the All Star Game logo. The cardback has changed colour as well.

I assumed this was a parallel and it took me ages to identify it as belonging to a completely different set altogether. It's not the most elusive 'twin' I've ever had to find, but it wasn't easy!

Total: 140/394