1990 Topps Coins

Set Size: 60 coins, 1-1/2" diameter

Design Notes: Made of metal, the coins have full-color photos of players with a baseball field design; the player's team and name appear at the bottom. Backs have black text describing a highlight in the player's career.

Parallels and Similars: Most coins have aluminum colorinng on the edges, as seen above, though some award-winning players were issued in different colors - these are not parallels or variations. Several other coin sets were issued by Topps, but this design is unique and a 1990 copyright is found on the back.

Distribution: Coins came three per pack, 36 packs per box. Factory sets and coin holders were also available.

Thoughts: I've listed some of the other coins issued by Topps, and they all have a similar basic design. This has the best images I've seen, and the design is pretty clean and sharp. It's another inexpensive set to obtain, with Ripken and Ryan leading the pack at around $1/coin but it's a fun issue to put together by busting packs.

1971 Topps Coins

Set Size: 153 metal coins, 1-1/2" diameter

Design Notes: Printed on metal, the coins have a color photo inside a color border with the player's name, position, and team. Coins were printed in three sets of 51 coins - they have either brass backs (seen here), chrome backs, or blue backs with black printing containing the coin number, basic biographical information, and a highlight.

Parallels and Similars: Other coin sets have been printed by many manufacturers and might have a similar basic design; these are distinguished by the TCG copyright at the bottom and the message at the top, both on the back.

Distribution: Coins were inserted into packs of 1971 Topps.

Thoughts: These are fun little novelty additions to collect along with the 1971 flagship set - commons can be picked up fairly cheap these days especially compared to the regular cards.

1962 Salada Coins

Set Size: 263 coins (221 subjects), 1-3/8" in diamater

Design Notes: These plastic discs contain a color portrait on the front, which is actually a paper insert on the inside. The plastic discs themselves could be one of several colors, with the text on the "back" embossed or pressed into the plastic. The color portrait front also contains the disc number, team name, and player name and position.

Parallels and Similars: Other coin issues have been made by Salada and other companies, but this is distinguished by the plastic disc and text on the back.

Distribution: Coins were included with Salada tea packets and Junket pudding mixes. There are 10 players for each of the 18 original teams, with an additional 20 subjects for the Mets added in a later version. In addition, several players were updated with new teams and 21 players were replaced with new subjects (with higher numbers - 201-221). The updated players make the total number of variations/coins available 263.

Thoughts: I like oddball issues and this one is fairly odd. These don't really feel like "coins" but discs because they're made of plastic. These are fairly small, but it would have been cooler if action art was used instead of portraits.