Cameo blogger

A little diversion today, to redirect readers to a guest post I wrote for Baseball Fans Only. Dave from the UK Collectors Group on Facebook runs the blog and asked me to write something about collecting Tony Gwynn cards. You can read the post here (and see a picture of me looking a bit tired in the Hall of Fame!)

A couple of weeks back Fuji described a card I showed as a "cameo card" - that's when a player appears on another card that isn't really "theirs". The card in question was this card from the Topps 1989 set which features Tony sliding in to second base on the 'Pirates Leaders' card.

The year prior to this, Tony featured on the Padres Leaders card, alongside Benny Santiago. I'm not sure whether this is really a 'cameo', but it was listed on the checklist just as Padres Leaders and it doesn't have Tony or Benny named on the front.

This is another card that I have already blogged about, which arrived in a joblot of Tony Gwynn cards, but wasn't a Tony Gwynn card. He is high-fiving, and partially obscuring, his team-mate Greg Vaughn.

And here's another card that arrived in a similar lot of Tony Gwynn cards. Like on the first card in this post, he is sliding in to second base. This time it's Astros second baseman Bill Doran trying to avoid a Tony Gwynn slide. 

I admit I'm inconsistent with these cameo cards. The first two I count in the collection, the latter two I don't. I think if it has another player's name on the front then it can't really count as a Tony Gwynn card. 

I hope you enjoyed the cameos - sorry, no new cards today. If you want to see my cameo on Dave's blog, then here's the link again!

Tuesday Twins - preview refractor

This card was in the bundle I bought recently. I'd mentally discounted it as a dupe when I bought the bundle, but when it arrived I got a pleasant surprise because it had a multi-coloured sheen on it, and the word 'refractor' on the back. There was an additional surprise when I went to log it on Trading Card Database and found out it had the wrong card number, because I was looking in the wrong set and it was a preview card.

One of the fun things about collecting cards from the 90s is finding out what cards they actually are!

Card Number 588: Bowman's Best Previews Refractors, 1996; #BBP10

This card has suffered some serious warping. I reckon it's bowed about a millimetre across the width. Apart from the rainbow sheen, it is exactly the same as the regular Bowman's Best shiny card (which I blogged about back in November!) 

The Bowman's Best Preview cards were included as inserts in the regular Bowman set from 1996, with 30 cards from the Bowman's Best range available as the regular style cards and the refractors.

The cardback is also exactly the same as the regualar edition, apart from the top left corner where it has the number and the word 'refractor'. The cardback, with its "stat-scan" and "super skill" is worth having twice.

So that's today's 'twin', which I thought was a refractor parallel of a card I had and turned out to be a refractor parallel from a whole other different set.

Total: 588 cards

A duo of mid-90s Diamond Kings

Here are two DonRuss Diamond Kings cards from the 90s. They are both numbered out of 10,000. When people complain about overproduction in the current hobby, ask them if any card companies bother serial numbering cards into five digits! How many regular cards were printed that 10,000 was regarded as low?

Card Number 586: DonRuss Diamond Kings, 1996; #DK-9

There's a little bit of damage on the gold border of this card.The 'gold' seems to be overprinted on the card rather than embossed foil. 

The artist is Dick Perez, who painted the portraits for DonRuss's Diamond Kings range from 1982 to 1996. There is a full gallery of his Diamond Kings portraits on his website. He had produced portraits of Tony before, in 1985, 1989, and 1994. It's to his credit that they are all look quite different.

The write-up on the back is a contender for most words squeezed onto a cardback ever. I counted 113 words (not including numbers) in this paragraph.

This was the 8,950th card in the sequence. I can't think of a statistical tie-in to that number. The copyright year is 1995, but this was definitely part of the DonRuss 1996 set.

Card Number 587: DonRuss Diamond Kings, 1998; #4

This card had a very different look, with a silver foil edging to the frame. There isn't an indication who the artist is, apart from what looks like the initials 'BG' or 'DG' - it's hard to tell.

I've googled it, but am none the wiser. The DonRuss brand was changing hands with frightening regularity around this point. In 1998, it was owned by Pinnacle but they went bust that year. Unlike Dick Perez, whoever drew this card hasn't got an easily findable online gallery of their work. If Pinnacle ever put the details online that would be long-gone now.

The back is more restrained in terms of word volume. It's still one of the bigger blurbs on a card back.

At 1,927, the serial number is 7,023 lower than the card from 1996. Again this is a card with a copyright date a year out from when the set was released.

And as a little bonus, here's a timeline of Tony's Diamond Kings appearances from 1989 to 2005. (I have yet to acquire his 1985 and 1994 cards!)

Total: 587 cards

One card only - a hint of pinstripe

It's been a week since I last blogged, but I'm back! 

A couple of weeks ago I made an offer on a bundle of Tony Gwynn cards on eBay. It was the first time I'd used eBay's global shipping service which handled all the customs taxes on my behalf. In the end I ended up being charged about the same amount each for the cards, the postage and the import duties!

However, the parcel arrived safe and sound without the dreaded grey form of doom or being misdelivered to another street (as happened last November) and I got to open a joyful packet of cards from the late Nineties and early Noughties.

I decided to start with what would have once been the pick of the bunch - a relic card. I have a few plain swatches in my collection already, so it's nice to have one with a hint of a pinstripe down one side.

Card Number 585: Upper Deck People's Choice Game Jersey, 2002; #PJ-TG

(A card 'number' that sounds like a Star Wars droid!)

One thing I don't understand with these swatch cards is why they didn't apply a bit more thought to them. This would have looked a lot cooler if they had angled the pinstripe to run diagonally across the window it appears in, or at least line it up to the stripe is down the middle of the relic piece.

The same photo is used on the back, although it is decolourised. There is also a large blurb about how it is genuinely a piece of a shirt worn in a game.

There's a good reason why Upper Deck wanted to underline the authentic game-worn pedigree of the fabric. A couple of years earlier the Pacific trading card company was accused of buying uniforms off the rack in sportswear shops and cutting them up for relic cards. There are some incredible details about another mistake they made that outed a player for using a corked bat.

Upper Deck made their CEO, Richard P. McWilliam stake his name and reputation on the validity of that tiny square of fabric. However, they don't say which game(s) Tony wore it in, or show a picture of the actual shirt - unlike the direction DonRuss took showing the very bat they chopped up for a bat relic card.

I'm hoping to post regularly all week, this week. See you tomorrow!

Total: 585 cards

One card only - headless Tony and #53

The previous three posts have all featured cards I received from Jason, who I initially chatted to when he showed off his collection of all 20 Tony Gwynn cards from Topps' Project 2020 endeavour. After he had sent me those three cards, Jason asked if I wanted to buy a spare Project 2020 card he had available. 

As I only had one Project 2020 card already, I quite happily said yes, and it arrived in the post yesterday. I haven't bothered including the outer sleeve as it's the same as the one I scanned previously. And this time I went straight to careful sticker-peeling and popped open the mag holder so I could put the card directly on the scanner.

Card Number 584: Topps Project 2020, 2020; #161

The card designs of all the Project 2020 cards took Tony's 1983 rookie card as it's base. Card #161 in the project was designed by Ermsy, and his take on the rookie card design was to remove Tony's head. I'm not really bothered by that because one of my frequent complaints about Tony's rookie card is that you can't see his face and his most prominent feature in the photo is his backside. I know other people love it, and that's fine. But I just don't.

The back of the card is plain, and has a blurb about the Project and about the artist. This isn't really a 'card' as it's printed on 3mm foamboard. I think it would be quite fun if Topps introduced these designs as insert series in future sets printed on actual cardboard.

This card had a print run of 5,543, which is quite a lot lower than the print run for the other card I own, which was designed by Efdot. That was #94 in the series at the absolute apex of the interest in Project 2020. If sales were plotted on a bell curve, this card by Ermsy was on the way back down! It's also the 33rd card released in 2020 in my collection.

Seeing this reworked image of Tony's rookie card reminded me of another thing that has bugged me about the card, and that is Tony's uniform number in the photo.

It has always been a mystery to me why he was shown wearing a number in the 50s, which looked like number 53. I have seen pictures from Tony's debut where he is quite clearly wearing number 19 - he was given that number and wore it consistently for his entire career. So that really made me wonder when this photo was taken.

I didn't find an easy answer on Google, and I went through a number of options. Maybe Topps had a photo of the wrong player - that has been known to happen. Except nobody wore 53 in 1982, and that's clearly a 1982 uniform, and none of Tony's team-mates looked like him. Another possibility was that it was a minor league picture, especially given the background. There was no way that was Jack Murphy Stadium; I've seen enough pictures to know it wasn't taken there.

I did read a story somewhere that Tony was involved in a Padres photoshoot while he was still a student at San Diego State, but I doubt he would have been running the bases in a random photoshoot and it seemed very unlikely Topps would use that. Plus that would have been in 1980 or 1981 and the uniform would have been slightly different.

Jason runs Dugout Classics in Scotland, billed as "The largest collection of vintage and throwback jerseys this side of the Atlantic", so I thought he might be the chap to ask about the number. He quickly sent me a link to a fascinating story about the restoration of this very jersey, which reveals the truth about this photo.

Tony was allocated #53 in Padres Spring Training in 1982 held at the Desert Sun Stadium in Yuma, Arizona. The guide for the Spring Training has Tony listed in a footnote - there is a picture here. This would be after Tony's successful 1981 season with Walla Walla and Amarillo, and before he went out to Hawaii to play for the Islanders. 

When he was brought up to the Major Leagues in July 1982, Tony was given the number 19 jersey. At some point Topps compiled their checklist for the 1983 season and would have noted San Diego's hot rookie and allocated him card #482. Then they needed a photo, and presumably the only one they had on file would have been this one from Spring Training.

I really want to thank Jason for offering me this card and also for helping me discover why Tony isn't wearing #19 on his rookie card. I had been pondering it for ages and now the mystery is solved!

Total: 584 cards

There are three packages in transit from North America as I write this. But unless one or more of them arrives tomorrow, there's going to be a little break in blogging!

Scraping the bottom of the box

This is the third card that was in the envelope from Jason. When I saw it in the photos of cards he sent me I knew I didn't have it, but I also had no idea how I hadn't seen it before. When it arrived it suddenly became clear!

Card Number 583: Topps Display Box Bottom, 1988; #F

(That's right, this card is number F!)

Just like I knew straightaway that the mini card I blogged about a couple of days ago was from 1989, I could tell this was a card from 1988 immediately. But I knew it was a different picture and the turquoise border threw me slightly. 

When it arrived and I saw the back, and the slightly squiffy edge, I realised what it was.

Topps, and other companies, used to print additional cards on the display boxes. It's actually something Topps revived a couple of years ago with their Big League range which had an extra card printed on the side of blaster boxes that could be cut out. In 1988 these 'box bottom' cards were printed in panels of 4, and there were 4 different panels to collect, with the cards 'numbered' A-P.

Tony was one of three Padres featured on the box bottoms, the other two being Marvell Wynne and John Kruk. The write up on the cardback explains why those three players featured. In a game against the San Francisco Giants on 13 April 1987, Marvell, Tony and John all hit a home run in consecutive at bats off pitcher Roger Mason - they were the first three at bats in the Padres first inning.

And you thought Slam Diego was a new thing for 2020!

Sadly, despite this feat, the Padres lost the game 13-6. Tony had 3 hits, picking up a couple more singles, and had a walk as well. It was one of the first of many defeats in a losing season for the Padres. They finished with 65 wins and 97 defeats, and in sixth place in the division. Tony's batting title was one of the few bright spots of the year.

Although this card is a little bit damaged, with a slight crease on the front and a mark on the back, I really like it. Of course it won't be pristine. It was cut from a counter-top display box after all the packs had been sold. But that makes it authentic, a genuine artifact from the 1980s baseball card hobby explosion.

Plus, there's a batting doughnut in the photo, so I know Fuji will appreciate this. In fact, if you look at his blogpost with a "dozen doughnuts", you'll see this card is the very first one. (And his card has an even more visible crease on it!)

I'd like to finish with a big thank you to Jason for sending me the cards I've blogged over the last couple of days. 

Total: 583 cards

Fleer's baffling photo choices

A second card from Jason, and a second card within a few blog posts from one of Fleer's limited edition 44-card glossy sets that were sold in complete sets, in packs like decks of playing cards. At the end of January I posted about an All Star card that started off a new binder page devoted to these cards. I'm glad to say it didn't take long for that card to have some company.

Card Number 582: Fleer Award Winners, 1988; #16

I like the bold frames that most of these card sets feature.

However, I have to question the use of the photo, particularly if you juxtapose this with the other Fleer Award Winner card I have, which was printed in 1987.

So, on the 'slugger award' card from 1988, Tony isn't shown holding a bat. But on the 'fielding award' card from 1987, he is holding a bat! (And rather nonchalantly too!) 

It feels like Fleer are trolling us here. I find it very hard to believe they couldn't have found a photo of Tony holding a bat to illustrate him slugging.

Anyway, the back of the Award Winners card from 1988 isn't very interesting. There's a bit of space under the candy-striped stats box that Fleer could have filled with a little note about what Tony did to win the award. But they didn't write anything there. (He was the batting champion with an average of .370.)

The second page of these special edition cards is coming along nicely, though!

Total: 582 cards