1990 ProCards A and AA

Set size: 200 cards

Front Design: a neon orange background surrounds a wavy-cropped, red and white bordered photo and red box with the player's name, position, and team at the bottom. The ProCards logo appears in the upper left. (See Jason's comment below.)

Back Design: The backs are similar to most 1990 ProCards backs, with vitals and minor league statistics.

Parallels and Similars: None known. ProCards team sets feature a woodgrain plaque design, and the AAA sets have white or green borders.

Distribution: Cards were issued in packs and complete set form.

Thoughts: The bright colors make these easily found in most card stacks. I'm not sure if that's a good thing, given the number of players who didn't make the major leagues. There are several standouts in the set, though, including Frank Thomas and Jim Thome.

1990 Canton-Akron Indians ProCards

Set size: 27 cards

Front Design: Cards are designed to resemble hand-made photo plaques. The photo appears with a white border on a woodgrain background; a gold plate at the bottom contains the player's name, position, and team.

Back Design: The horizontal backs contain the player's vitals and minor league statistics on a peach background. The card number appears in the upper-left corner, and is numbered as part of a master set. Note: as Jason points out in the comments below, my card back is different from the team set by essentially two things: the additional card number in the lower right, and the black border.

Parallels and Similars: All 1990 ProCards team sets follow this design.

Distribution: Cards were distributed through dealers, the team, and the manufacturer.

Thoughts: I remember making photo plaques like that at camp or in boy scouts. You'd cut out a photograph, glue it on a piece of stained wood, and cover it with varnish. Maybe you'd use a drawing, make your own nameplate, put something like "Happy Mother's Day!" in cheap marker, and you'd have a gift ready to go! If the wood color didn't remind me of a 1970s station wagon, and the borders weren't white, I would enjoy this design a good bit. The backs are plain, though I always appreciate minor league statistics. There is plenty of room for a write-up, but I suppose when you're a company printing over 1300 different cards each for two different sets, with players moving up and down daily, a biography can be tough to write and out of date before it's even printed.

Additional Images: card back:

1991-92 Pro Cards Tomorrow's Heroes

Set size: 26 cards

Front Design: A player photo appears in a white diamond-shaped box, surrounded by small gray diamonds at the top and silver foil diamonds below over a pink background. The player's name, position, and team name appear in a red banner at the bottom while the ProCards logo is at the top.

Back Design: The backs contain the player's name and position in a red box at the top, followed by team details, vital statistics, and career minor league statistics.

Parallels and Similars: I'm not aware of any, though they may exist.

Distribution: Cards were sold in 12-card packs, and the set was fairly limited (Beckett reports 1009 cases).

Thoughts: Poor Chad Curtis needs some sunglasses after sitting in the clubhouse playing Super Mario Brothers for several hours. The use of foil is fairly new for baseball card sets at the time this card was released, though the design is fairly basic. It is much more attractive than the ProCards notebook set design. I suppose they wanted to go all-out for this limited edition set featuring the best of the minor leagues?

Thank you, Jason, for your help (see comments).

Additional Images: card back: