1973-02 Book Promotional Cards

Set size: approximately 32

Distribution: Cards in this "set" were issued in conjunction with various baseball-related books.

Thoughts: While this is a "set" listed in the Beckett database, it's really a collection of separate releases. Occasionally, book manufacturers will issue a "baseball card" (or series of cards) to promote an upcoming or bestselling book. This example is for the 1989 book Out of the Blue, about pitcher Orel Hershiser. Occasionally, two different cards are issued for a book (Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig for 2002's Breaking the Slump), or even a dozen cards (Who was Harry Steinfeldt? and other baseball trivia). I'm not sure why Orel is wearing something other than Dodger Blue in this promo - especially given the title of the book - and I'm not familiar enough with his history to identify what team he might be representing. I was quite excited to find this card sitting in a dime box at a card show!

1989 Starting Lineup Greats (Cards)

Set size: 19 cards

Front Design: The player's photo appears in sepia inside a white border. The top of the card is a white banner with the Starting Lineup Baseball Greats logo. The rest of the card has a brownish border; the player's name and nickname appear in white beneath the photo.

Back Design: The blue-on-white backs contain the player's vitals and complete career statistics including postseason play.

Parallels and Similars: None known.

Distribution: Cards were included with Starting Lineup player figurines. The figurines and cards were sold in pairs, with each player paired with another specific player that shared similar traits, or (more often) played on the same team. There is an odd number of cards, which means at least one player was in multiple pairings. Cursory research determined that Hank Aaron appears with Carl Yastrzemski or Eddie Mathews. Both pairings include the same card and figurine. I didn't see any other dual pairings, but they could exist - there are four Yankees in the set that could be rearranged. All packaging-back images shows seven pairings, accounting for 14 figures - even the Yaz/Aaron pairing shows the same seven arrangements, even though they're not on an advertised pair. While there don't appear to be any card variations, there are figurine variations, most notably the Ruth/Gehrig appearing in both home and away jersey colors.

Thoughts: Starting Lineups are cool. They were inexpensive action figures of the best baseball players of the time, AND they came with a card, too! They represent the time when toys and figurines were still about being fun, though collectors were taking note. They don't have the detail of a McFarlane, but they don't carry the price tag of a McFarlane. Unfortunately, the better quality won out, so SLUs stopped being produced after 2001.

Checklist: Cards only - figurines exist for each card, but other than the Ruth/Gehrig variations mentioned above, I'm not aware of any variations. The cards are unnumbered. If you know of any variations not listed please let me know!

• Hank Aaron (grey Braves script)
• Ernie Banks (away)
• Johnny Bench (away)
• Roberto Clemente (home)
• Joe DiMaggio (home)
• Don Drysdale (away)
• Lou Gehrig (home and away)
• Bob Gibson (away)
• Reggie Jackson (yellow)
• Mickey Mantle (away)
• Eddie Mathews (home)
• Willie Mays (home)
• Willie McCovey (away)
• Stan Musial (home)
• Pete Rose (home)
• Babe Ruth (home and away)
• Willie Stargell (away)
• Billy Williams (home)
• Carl Yastzemski (home)

1989 Cadaco Ellis Discs

I adjusted some of the colors on the template so the blog text is black on a lighter background. If you view this blog in the template (instead of through your own reader) and anything is difficult to read, let me know. Yesterday's black-text post was caused by crazy manipulation of the Blogger system while writing the post due to the connection issues the night before, but now all text should be black by default.

Set size: 63 discs, approximately 3.5" in diameter

Front Design: An airbrushed color player photo appears in the center of the disc, surrounded by a black ring with the player's name. Team name and position are beneath the name in a yellow ring which also contains a series of numbers to be used in a game. There are several errors in the set; four were corrected and the error versions of those cards can hold a slight premium.

Back Design: The black-on-white backs contain up to five years of career stats and biographical information. The team name and league may or may not be listed on the back

Parallels and Similars: Future yearly issues of additional discs follow identical layouts, but can be distinguished by the last year of stats on the back of the card. Note that my 1989 disc has a copyright year of 1988; the statistics data is the best way to judge the issue year of this set. Cadaco games issued prior to the 1989 edition did not contain color photos.

Distribution: The discs were issued with and intended for use in a board game. The numbers on the front of the card correspond to the player's career statistical likelihood in various game situations. Complete board game sets are valued around $20.

Thoughts: Without context, the numbers on the front have no meaning. The backs are plain and as a stand-alone set these discs have no interest. I've never played a Cadaco game so I'm a bit interested in the meanings for all those numbers. As you can see in the hi-res scan, the image quality is somewhat low, but expected in a product like this (they're game pieces, not collectibles).

Additional Images: Disc back:

1989 Topps

1989 Topps #382 John Smoltz

There's no better place for me to start this blog than with the set that started my collecting career. 1989 Topps holds a special place in my heart. My background on collecting is already written here, so feel free to read it if you haven't already.

Unlike my other blog, which contains a varied source of material, I plan for this one to focus on one card set per post. I'm not sure if I'll be able to write a meaningful post every day, but that's the plan anyway. You'll see card sets from today, twenty years ago, and one hundred years ago, though the focus will generally be on modern cards. Cards featured in this blog will generally be the ones used in my type set collection which I've been referring to lately as my Sampler Collection.

Yes, I realize there is at least one more Type Set blog, and it is fantastic. Be sure to check it out!

If I were to show one card from every set ever made to this point, per day, I would be posting for the next 85 years, so I think I'll be set on content. I'll combine some sets together, such as I'll be doing today, which will certainly help!

Now, on to the show.

Set size: The 1989 Topps set was issued with 792 cards in one series.

Front Design: The vertical card fronts have white borders with a picture framed in a team color. The top-left frame corner is curved and the Topps logo generally appears in that corner of the photo. When the logo interferes with the photo, it appears in the lower left corner. The bottom right corner of the card front contains the team name in script format, while a curved banner beneath the team name contains the player name. The card stock is brown/gray.

I borrowed the card back image. 1989 Topps

Back Design: Backs are horizontal and symmetric in design, using black printing on varied shades of red. The player's name, position, vital stats, and complete career statistics are found; if space allows, a short blurb and monthly scoreboard fill up the bottom of the card. Card numbers are easy to read in the upper-left corner.

Parallels and Similars: The design was duplicated (with baby blue borders) for a small series (16) of cards that appeared on the bottom of wax boxes. The design was also used for the 132-card Traded factory set, as is standard procedure for these sets. Full parallels of the base and traded sets were issued called "Tiffany" sets, limited to 15,000 copies, and printed on glossy white card stock. A partial (396-card) parallel set of the base set was issued in Canada called O-Pee-Chee. O-Pee-Chee sets differ from the regular Topps cards by the use of the O-Pee-Chee logo instead of Topps, a lighter card stock, and bilingual (English and French) on the back. The box bottoms were also paralleled on the O-Pee-Chee boxes.

Distribution: Cards were issued in 15-card wax packs, 28-card cello packs, 43-card rack packs, and 101-card jumbo and blister packs. Cards were packed with gum. A factory set was also released.

Thoughts: Being the first cards I ever had the joy of opening from a pack, the set is near and dear to my heart. However, the cards don't feature team logos and the design, while clean and unobstructive, is uninspired. Photographs generally lack action, though image quality is generally acceptable for a non-premium set.

Additional Links: Wikipedia has a surprisingly detailed list of Topps products released that year. The Lifetime Topps Project 1989 Topps Overview page breaks the base set down by components.

Additional Images:

 Box Bottom

 Box Bottom Back

O-Pee-Chee

 O-Pee-Chee Back