Modern Monday - living in the past

This is the fourth card I've added to the collection that was released in 2021. I actually put a call out for this in the UK collectors Facebook group and a few days later Jamie posted it asking "Was someone looking for this?" I did the Facebook equivalent of jumping up and down saying "ME! ME! ME!", and Jamie sent it to me.

Card Number 622: Topps 35th Anniversary insert, 2021; #86B-77

There are 100 cards in the 35th Anniversary insert series in Topps Series 1 that use the 1986 template. The front has a different photo to the special Chrome version that can be found in 'silver packs' in hobby boxes of Series 1.

I'm not familiar with that photo of Tony in the 1983-4 uniform. I welcome Topps using a new or different photo on their cards. However, there is a slight anachronism in using such a recognisable uniform from before 1986 in a 1986 retro template. The Padres changed their look significantly in 1985, adopting pinstripes and ditching the yellow and orange detailing.

On the back the card has the same problem as the chrome version - it has a massive stats box, which isn't complete and, annoyingly, doesn't include stats from 1986.

I've seen several discussions about the state of the baseball card hobby lately. One thing I've said a few times previously is that I don't feel the monopoly that Topps enjoys in terms of being the only licensed card producer, is particularly beneficial. Topps seems to be looking to the past a lot. They have two nostalgic sets - Archives and Heritage - and they keep putting retro cards into their main flagship series. In fact, the four cards released in 2021 I have acquired so far are all nostalgia cards. That includes a re-use of the 1974 template, two re-uses of the 1986 template, and a double reprint of cards from 1983 and 2002.

There is a danger when any company begins to rely on past glories that they will slowly stagnate. I wonder if Topps had a competitor they would be pushed to try new things, instead of relying on their licensing to make their cards more desirable than those on offer from Panini. My feeling is that the monopoly is detrimental to the card hobby, and also detrimental to Topps. However I can't see them giving up their prime status voluntarily.

In the meantime, I'm grateful there are people like Jamie breaking new product and remembering that someone had been asking about it!

Total: 622 cards

Modern Monday - Stadium Club 2020

Andy M, who sent me the DonRuss card packet featuring Tony recently, got back in touch to ask if I had the 2020 Stadium Club card. (At that point I didn't, although I've subsequently been offered it by several people.)

Card Number 402: Topps Stadium Club, 2020; #160

That's an attractive photo, although Topps seems to be doing their darnedest to make it look like a logoless card. However, it's a great pose and always fun to see a batting doughnut on the bat.

Tony's place on the all-time hitting list is dependent on whether you count Cap Anson's total as 3,435 or 3,081. This comes down to which leagues are counted as "major" leagues. Baseball Reference includes Anson's batting record from the five seasons he spent in the North American League before he joined the Cubs in the National League. Topps have followed the Baseball Reference list.

As an aside, I've noticed that Tony has had a card in all of Topps's main releases this year. This includes in Topps Archives, where it makes sense for Tony to have a card, but it also includes a short print card in the flagship set along with some inserts and retro cards, a faux rookie card, cards in Allen & Ginter and the Topps 206 sets, and so on. There have also been more than a few put out by Panini under various brands like DonRuss.

Out of curiosity I went to Trading Card Database to see how many Tony Gwynn cards have been released recently. I was astounded really to see that since Tony passed away, almost 1,800 cards have been produced and listed on the database.

In 2015, the year after he passed away, 313 cards were produced. That's understandable given the cicumstances. DonRuss produced a set of 5 tribute cards for example. There were 155 cards released in 2016, 153 in 2017 and 159 in 2018. A lot of these are parallels and short print versions of the same card, so in reality there aren't that many cards to collect to have an example of each type.

150 cards a year for a player who stopped playing over a decade beforehand is a lot. But things went slightly bonkers in 2019. TCDb lists 514 Tony Gwynn cards released last year. That level of production has continued into this year. As of the 2nd October when I was looking these numbers up, TCDb had 426 cards listed. That's more than were released in 2001, the season Tony retired.

The peak year of releases during Tony's career was 1998 when 812 cards are listed. However, at least 200 of these are variant patterns in the plastic on "Topps Tek" cards. While that is a ridiculous volume, it was at the height of the mad card boom in the 1990s, and, more importantly, Tony was still playing!

Just to show the 'bloat' in production, at the end of the 80s Tony's card totals rose from 66 in 1987 to 108 in 1990. in 1995, the season after he recorded his .394 modern day batting record, he featured on 173 cards. Then there is a huge peak at the end of the 90s, before the bell curve drops back down to more sensible levels. In 2002, the year after he retired, he featured on 232 cards. It peaks back up for a few years to an ultimate high (1,297 cards in 2005 after 648 in 2004 and before 485 in 2006), mainly because card companies started doing lots of very short print memorabilia cards, and then drops again (189 in 2010). So this is definitely a third surge in sheer numbers of cards.

There are probably lots of reasons why Tony is such a popular choice for the card companies in the last year or two. I get a sense from reading card blogs that a lot of collectors are a bit older and nostalgia plays a factor in their collecting. Cards of retired heroes, particularly the cards designed to look like cards from the 70s and 80s, or referencing events in the 80s and 90s, are targeting that demographic of collector who isn't interested in the latest hot rookie. And because absolutely every card in a set released this year will have multiple parallels as a matter of course, the number of cards will be inflated even more.

And that's why I'm blogging about a Stadium Club card released this year on a blog dedicated to a player who stopped playing 18 years ago and passed away six years ago.

Total cards: 402