Tag Archives: 1982

1975 Lookalikes, 1975 Theme, 1975 Topps, Fleer, Oddballs, Panini, Topps, Upper Deck

Mail Call: 2017 Opening Day

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Opening Day is about starting fresh. For me that means catching up, which starts with writing.

And the first thing I needed to write about is a very generous card care package from Fuji. Queue Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show thank you writing music…

First up is Johnny Bench from the 2010 Topps Vintage Legends set (I don’t know why 2002 Topps is printed on the card). I have a card from this set because it’s a 1975 look-alike with Babe Ruth.

The Bench card has a familiar photo. It was also used in the 2011 Topps Lineage Mini set. I’m looking for his mini card so if anyone has one to trade then, you know, get in touch.

The backs tell us how these players would rank against future players. Apparently good enough to keep the legend status intact.

I also have a couple 1991 Upper Deck Baseball Heroes cards, but hadn’t seen this one:

 

This went right in the 1975 theme folder. The back tells us Joe was so awesome in 1975 that he was named MVP. Then he did it again in 1976. There’s also mention of Ernie Banks as the only other NL player with back-to-back MVP years.

I like Then & Now cards. And I also like the Father & Son sets. Here’s one of Tony Perez and son Eduardo:

In 1982, Topps produced parallel cards for the Reds and Red Sox team sets. The packs had 3 player cards plus a team “header card” with the team name and a Topps ad on the back. The Oddball Collector’s complete write-up covers other differences between the base and Coca-Cola sets.

Fuji included a couple of these Coke cards. Here Dave Concepcion and Dan Driessen are next to their younger 1975 selves:

 

   

The signatures are similar, but a little different. What else is different? You’ve got caps vs. batting helmets. Dan moved to first base by 1982. Topps added their logo. There’s the Coke logo, which I like. The Red Sox version also included a Bringham’s logo. It starts to look like Times Square with all the branding.

The 1982 base set has a green back, but the Coke versions are red, which works much better for a Reds or Red Sox theme.

Speaking of themes, are you sensing one yet? The package was full of Reds and Red Sox players and logo stickers.

Who doesn’t like stickers? First up are three Fleer Cloth Patches. Are these stickers or patches or both? I don’t know. They were made between the late 60’s and mid-70’s.

The Fleer Sticker Project blog is my go to for Fleer Sticker info. There’s a post about the Reds patches, where I learned there are at least 3 variations of this one:

The other two patches were coming off the backing paper:

That was fine because unlike cards, stickers are meant to be stuck on things. These didn’t stick, but that’s ok because they slid in the binders:

The rest of the stickers might also go on a binder — ones like this one from the 2001 Opening Day Set (Topps first foray into baseball card stickers):

Then there’s this 1989 Fleer sticker:

 
It has some historical information on the back. I’m not familiar with 1980’s Red Sox history, so had to check on the Joe Morgan reference. It’s not that Joe Morgan from the Reds.

And it wasn’t just logos, but also uniforms:

Here’s the last sticker, a 1991 Upper Deck Reds Hologram. It’s a super cool cross between the Reds logo and Ghostbusters:

There were a few more cards, but I need to wrap this up. Thanks Fuji for the cards and your most excellent attitude. You’re the best!

1975 Topps, Blogs, Kmart

1982 Kmart Redux

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The 1982 Kmart MVP Baseball card set that celebrate the 20th anniversary of Kmart’s 1962 opening includes what I think should’ve been the Fred Lynn rookie card (covered here). Also included is Kmart nostalgia (I still remember walking by those flashing blue light specials as a kid).

The set breaks down like this:

  • 41 cards of MVPs from 1962 to 1981. You’d expect the MVP cards to have an even number, but there are 3 in 1979. That’s the only year with a tie (Willie Stargell and Keith Hernandez – see here for more details on the voting).
  • 3 Highlight cards like this one:

  • 28 are of players featured in the 1975 set (including rookies and future MVPs: Jim Rice, George Brett, Keith Hernandez, and Fred Lynn)
  • Players with two cards in this set: Johnny Bench (1970 & 1972 MVP), Joe Morgan (1975 & 1976), Mike Schmidt (1980 & 1981), Pete Rose (1973 MVP and Highlight)
  • 26 are also in the 1975 Topps MVP subset, which have two photos per card (#200 to 212). But the Kmart cards have larger photos since there’s one photo per card:


It’d be nice to own the original cards represented in these reprints

I don’t know how many were produced. I was able to find one clue here where a forum post noted 2,000 Kmart stores initially got from 576 to 1,152 sets per store. That amounts to between 1.1 to 2.3 million sets. Even a production run that was a fraction of that would explain why there’s still so many unopened packs

Kmart also made similar sets with different themes in four other years (all with 33 cards per set): 1987 Stars of the Decades, 1988 Memorable Moments, 1989 Dream Team, 1990 Superstars. The Wrigley Wax blog has a good overview of them all here.

Kmart also made a 726 card OPC set in 1980 but I don’t know much about it (other than they’re available on eBay in cello packs for cheap):

The Kmart cards may not have much monetary value, but card collecting doesn’t have to be about value. If all cards cost 10 cents, I’d still collect them. And wouldn’t that make it a lot easier?

1975 Reprint, 1975 Topps, Card Compared to 75, Kmart, Topps

1982 Kmart Baseball Cards

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One of the cool things about collecting cards is finding something shiny that leads you down a new path. I was scanning eBay listings and saw a glitch in my matrix, a Fred Lynn card that was unlike any other I’d seen:

It wasn’t the #622 Fred Lynn rookie card photo that I knew:


Look at Fred’s photo and notice it just looks weird. As in… what’s that white blob below his face?

It shouldn’t have shown up in my card search, but it was mislabeled. It was part of the 1982 Kmart 20th Anniversary AL & NL MVP’s Baseball Picture Cards Bubble Gum Collector’s Series.


Kmart box front

This set was co-branded with Topps – marked as a limited edition. Limited is ironic, there are so many unopened packs for sale it’s akin to the 90s mass overproduction. And that’s awesome because it makes a vintage pack break affordable.

What I like about this set:

  • an full (and likely unedited) rookie card photo of Fred Lynn – no future reprints have this view.
  • includes likely the first 1975 tribute cards
  • it’s cheap… you can get a set for less than 5 bucks including shipping – there’s your blue light special!
  • the experience of opening a pack of 44 “vintage” cards (complete with a stale stick of gum)


Back of box checklist

The 1975 Topps set is my favorite, but I’m not a fan of the shared four player rookie cards. The three rookies per card format in 1973 was pretty good, and then for some reason Topps started cramming in four tiny faces on a card in 1974. So this Lynn card rights that wrong and on its own made it worth getting the set. The only other ’75 reprint in the set is Joe Morgan:

Update: After I wrote this I found another blog post about this card from a while back