80s Wednesday - a couple of 80s oddballs

Here's a trip back almost four decades to when baseball cards started to proliferate in '88...

Card Number 966: Nestle, 1988; #40

I seriously doubt Nestle needs any introduction. They are one of the biggest food conglomerates in the world. The company has also been the target of a decades-long boycott due to the way it markets baby milk formula in the developing world. (I'm relieved to say that my acquisition of this card was not linked to the purchase of any Nestle products - although originally it would have been.)

The card itself is semi-licensed with a strange airbrushing job removing the Padres logo from Tony's cap. Unlike modern cards in the twilight zone of player licensing, this card includes the franchise name.

This card was produced by oddball card producer Michael Schechter Associates (also known as MSA) and printed in Canada. It has a comprehensive write up on the cardback compared to most oddballs. 

Card Number 967: KayBee Superstars of Baseball, 1988; #13

I've done a brief explanation of the KayBee Toys company on the blog before. I still love their little soldier in the logo. 

These cards were produced by Topps. When I came to wite this post I had a moment of deja vu. A quick look through my Topps folder and I realised why.

Topps re-used this photo in 2009 in their Legends of the Game insert series. The print is darker, but that is clearly the same photo.

A couple of years later, Topps used a cropped version of the photo for the Golden Greats insert card in 2012. (In fact, if you click on that link, you can see it was also used on a card from 2010 as well!)

It's unusual for the photo on an oddball card to reappear several years later, but I suppose this was in the Topps photo archive. It hadn't been used in an official Topps set and I doubt anyone at the company thought a random blogger would ever notice this.

Anyway, back to the card sold in Kay-Bee Toys and here's the back of the card sold in Kay-Bee Toys.

Although it has a photo on it, this doesn't have the impact of the Nestle card. June 1987 was a very hot month for Tony with an incredible average nearer to .500 than .400!

Total 967 cards

FFF - 80s Wednesday

A couple of Fleer Star Stickers from the 80s for your enjoyment today... kicking off with a spot the difference challenge.

Card Number 933: Fleer Star Stickers, 1986; #50

"Wait, Jon, did Fleer use that picture of Tony on the Star Sticker from 1987 as well?

"Well, reader, it looks likes they did. That's very observant of you! However, if you look closely you will see there are some teeny tiny differences."

They fixed the over-exposure on the second picture and Tony's smile is a fraction different. There is a minute difference in the electronic scoreboard on the edge of the balcony to the right of Tony as we look at him here. But those are obviously the same fans in the seats. These photos must have come off the same roll of film.

The back has some stats and some factoids. As usual, I will highlight how interesting the factoids on these early cards are. They were soon eclipsed by other achievements as the awards piled up. This has interesting stats from Tony's batting title winning season in 1984 and showed how he was setting club records already.

Card Number 934: Fleer Star Stickers, 1988; #123

The year before Fleer used grey borders on their flagship set, they tried it out in the Star Stickers set. The little stars around the border are cool, though.

The back just had a stats box and no factoids. Fleer did add in a "stat breakdown" at the bottom of the card, dividing up the stats according to day and night games, and games at home in Jack Murphy Stadium compared to games out on the road. 

From the looks of that breakdown, home games at night suited Tony!

Total: 934 cards

Modern Monday - a framed relic from A&G

This was an eBay purchase that arrived in the first few days of 2022.

Card Number 911: Allen & Ginter framed mini-relic, 2021; #MFR-TG

The mini card could be popped out of the frame if one so wished to do that. The swatch is a dark blue that could be a Padres uniform from the latter end of Tony's career. The photo is an interesting choice because it isn't the photo used on the Allen & Ginter base card or mini in 2021. Here's a reminder of what that card looked like.

The relic card looks like it has been rendered off the photo used by Topps for the Stadium Club Chrome card in 2020.

I haven't got an explanation why Topps switched out the photos for the mini-relic card. The eBay win included a 2021 Allen & Ginter relic card of Trent Grisham as well, and that used the same photo as his base card. That was a full-sized relic card, though.

The back looks nicer than the average Allen & Ginter card. The card acts as a guarantee of the genuineness of the cloth swatch, except...

... below the logo, it says the memorabilia isn't from "any specific game, event or season". So, what exactly is it from? 

Topps have produced relic cards for Tony for the last few years and I'm beginning to wonder how they are doing this. Surely at some point, they will run out of articles of clothing that Tony touched. This is beginning to feel like the trade in religious relics in Europe in the Middle Ages, when there were enough venerated bits of wood, all supposedly from the cross that Jesus was crucified on, to build a large structure. All those holy relics, ranging from bits of bone from long-dead saints to items touched or blessed by Jesus himself or his mother, often had very vague provenance. Topps seem to be following a similar path in terms of guaranteeing the genuineness of a relic while issuing a subtle disclaimer.

Total: 911 cards

Reusing photos raises questions...

No new cards today, but something that's stood out to me. As I've acquired more cards I have started noticing the same photos being reused. Recently I was hunting for a blog post to check something, and I found the post with the Fleer Tony Gwynn Commemorative cards from 1991. I noticed something I hadn't picked up on before.

This is one of the cards - #5 in the insert set.

It wasn't the front that caught my eye. It was the back.

I had just been flicking through my Topps binder looking at cards from 2021, which I why I noticed this connection.

That is the Topps Archives insert from 2021 Series One. And that is the exact same photo that was used on the back of the Fleer card in 1991 - except it's not close-cropped.

So, what does this mean? Have Topps acquired the photos that Fleer used in the past? This may explain why so many cards that give me a feeling of deja vu give me a feeling of deja vu! Except, I've only ever been looking at Topps cards to find where the photos are originally used. I will need to be looking in my Fleer binder from now on.

I doubt this is a ground-breaking revelation, but I felt a bit stunned when I discovered it. Maybe other bloggers would be able to shed some more light on the situation?

There's that photo again

Last week Glenn from Glasgow sent me a photo of a card asking if I had it. The answer was 'no' although the photo on the card is one that is becoming more familiar. In fact, I blogged a card that uses the same photo last week, and a different card that used it a fortnight ago! Glenn kindly sent it to me and here it is:

Card Number 638: Topps Minis, 2014; #TM-4

This card was part of a 100-card insert set of die-cut minis that reused the Topps template from 1989. I've always liked that card design.

Yes, that is the same photo that was used in the Gypsy Queen set in 2014 and in an insert series in the Topps Update set in 2019 and again in Topps Update in 2020.

There's reusing photos and there's reusing photos. 

The cardback on this is great though, with a tip-top factoid about Tony's dual sporting Collegiate career, on a pink background like the cards from Topps 1989 set.

So, there are a lot of plus points to this card to counterbalance Topps reusing the same photo: the 1989 swoosh design, the great cardback factoid, being a die-cut card, even the coloured edging around the border. 

And I suppose it does fit in my developing gallery of cards that use this photo. I am up to five now!

When I messaged Glenn to tell him the card had arrived we started chatting about photo reuse, and he sent me a picture of some of his vintage Tigers cards, showing how Topps had been doing this since the 60s. At least they have been consistent in their practice for a long time!

Total: 638 cards

One card only - shiny DonRuss Zenith

This is another card that arrived in the eBay package that turned out to be one that I didn't already have. I blogged the regular base version of this card six months ago, and now here's the shiny version.

Card Number 632: DonRuss Zenith Silver Artist's Proof, 2005; #234

There were also gold Artist's Proof cards, which I presume were rarer.

This card really pops on the scan!

The back is the same as the regular released version. I didn't have much to say about it when I blogged the base version, and I don't have much to add now.

However, one thing I noticed when I filed this card is that the image of Tony had appeared previously on a DonRuss Fan Club card in 2002, so there's a little bit of photo reuse going on.

They've even been consistent in how they've cropped out his bat. That's amused me, I must admit.

Total: 632 cards

Foolish mistakes on April 1st

Nobody reads cardbacks. That's my explanation for why Topps can produce baseball cards with nonsense on the back. As today is April Fools Day, it feels relevant to feature some foolish mistakes.

Card Number 627: Topps Gypsy Queen, 2011; #28

This was the from the first Gypsy Queen set. The range is a decade old now. 

It's not a particularly exciting card design. And then turn it over and witness how lacksadaisical Topps can be with regard to fact-checking their cards.

My first reaction was "Eh?" Then I remembered Tony Gwynn Jr was playing for the Padres in 2010. Maybe some stat compiler mistook Tony Jr for his dad. Tony Jr did play 117 games for the Padres in 2010, and it was a winning season for the team (90-72; second in the division with a win percentage of .556). But the team didn't play an additional 73 games without him. Those figures on the card add up to 190 games, and the Padres only played 162 games that season.

For the record, the two seasons the Padres have played the most games were the World Series seasons of 1984 and 1998, where they played in 171 and 176 games respectively. Nowhere near the 190 total listed here. Maybe Topps added in Spring Training games.

So, to sum up, it looks like Topps confused Tony Sr and Jr on this card. The picture is clearly Tony Sr even though his son does look like him in a lot of photos. But physically, Tony Jr was very lean in his seasons with San Diego. Then to compound the error, Topps just chucked some random figures on a page that add up to more games than is physically possible to play. (By my calculation, the most games a team could play if they maxed out the post-season series would be 181.)

I know I am sometimes overly-critical of Topps, but these are just weird mistakes that the market leading company really shouldn't be making. 

There was a second Gypsy Queen card in my recent eBay purchase and it highlights something that is becoming more prevelant with Topps - the reuse of images. 

Card Number 628: Topps Gypsy Queen, 2014; #53

(Hey, #53 - that was Tony's first ever number with the Padres.)

Recognise that photo? Well, last week I blogged about a card from 2020 that used it.

It also appeared in sets in 2019. This is the Chrome version.

They've photoshopped it a bit on the Gypsy Queen release, but it's clearly the same photo. I have seen other collectors complain that Topps are using the same images for players again and again. I'm willing to give Topps a bit of leeway on this for players like Tony who played before the era of digital photography. I don't think there can be any excuse for continually reusing photos of any players who are active now. But there is a more limited bank of photos available for stars from the last century.

However, Topps might need to think carefully about how often they reuse images. 2014 to 2019 is an acceptable gap in use. But using this image in two insert series in consecutive years makes it much more obvious.

The cardback is fairly dull, but at least the factoid is about the right Tony Gwynn and the numbers are right. 

I was a bit surprised recently when I made an off-hand comment on Facebook about Gypsy Queen that there are a number of collectors who still really like it. Personally, I think it's feeling a bit tired, but it's still popular with the people who like to rip packs and build sets and as long as it sells I have a feeling Topps will keep producing it.

Total: 628 cards

Tidying up my mistakes!

I was perplexed recently because the number of cards left to post on the blog combined with the number of cards I had blogged didn't tally with the number of cards I had recorded on Trading Card Database. I was missing two.

I decided to try and find them, thinking I might have misfiled the scans. After a few different false starts I looked on an Excel spreadsheet I'd started compiling in an idle moment and soon discovered my mistake. I had two cards numbered 48 and two cards numbered 253.

In one sense it doesn't matter what arbitrary numbers I apply to cards on this blog. On the other hand it was very annoying!

I felt I had a couple of options to fix this. One was to go through and renumber every single card in every single blogpost since the 26th May. That would be well over 450 cards in about 190 blog posts. I really didn't want to do that. It would also mean every card I'd specially selected as my 100th, or 300th or 394th(!) card would be wrong.

The other option would be to remove one of the #48s and one of the #253s and renumber them. I decided to do that instead. So this post features two cards that have been on the blog before but with new, higher numbers. One of the cards is my favourite card made by Score, and the other is a fun 'oddball', so in a sense it works out.

I have left the references to the cards in the original posts, because otherwise some of the comments on those posts wouldn't make sense. If you are one of my regular commenters, then thank you for keeping me honest!

Card Number 514 (originally misnumbered as 253): Score, 1996; #378

I originally blogged this card in a Monday Mixer on 10 August. 

There have been enough baseball card insert series featuring stars, as in the astronomical objects, that someone could put together a decent-sized collection. They would look lovely all together as well. (On this blog, I've already blogged about star-themed cards by Allen & Ginter and Topps!)

The fielding photo on the front is made by the dirty smudge all over Tony's shirt. 

On the back we get a solemn portrait shot.

There's another entry into my collection of adjectives applied to Tony Gwynn on the cardback. Here he is "a class guy". It certainly reads as if the cardback writer was "star struck".

ADDITIONAL NOTE: I've just recognised the portrait photo! It's the same one used on Tony's Pinnacle card in 1997. Here's the Pinnacle card for reference:

'Card' Number 515 (originally misnumbered as 48): Fantastic Sam's Disc, 1988; #18

This was originally included in my very first post about "oddballs".

There are almost 1,000 franchises of Fantastic Sam's Hair Salons across America (or at least there were before the pandemic; hair salons have been hit bad).

These discs are similar to discs given away by several other businesses in the late 80s. They were printed by Michael Schechter Associates (MSA), who produced cards for a number of companies to use as freebies in the 80s and early 90s. They are about the same size as a poker chip (or a pog, if you remember pogs).

The discs open up like a tiny booklet, so you get a front...

...a middle (with a few pertinent player stats)...

...and a back.

The disc advertises a 'Superstar Sweepstake' where you could "Win a pro player for a day!" I'm intrigued by this. Which pro player had they roped in for this? What would you do with them? Could you send them to run errands for you? So many questions!

You have to scratch off the little foil panel to see if you won a prize. Whoever received this one wasn't particularly bothered about winning a prize. The foil is pristine.

So, there we go. My collection is tidied up. My numbering is now correct! Was it all worth it? Have your say in the comments!

(REVISED) Total: 515 cards