1997 Topps Overview

495 cards in the set – 275 in series 1 and 220 in series 2.  The card numbers go up to 496 since this was the first year Topps didn’t include card #7 after retiring it in honor of Mickey Mantle.  This was a move up from the low point of 440 cards the year before, but still the 2nd lowest since I’ve started this project.

• Subsets: Season Highlights (#100-104, 462-466), Prospects (#200-207, 487-494), Expansion Prospects (#249-253, 468-472), Draft Picks (#13-26, 232-245), Jackie Robinson Tribute (#42).  New in this set were 10 2-player cards of Minor League players from the 2 new expansion franchises, the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays.  The Prospects cards are have 3 players, while Draft Picks cards have 2.  Topps continued its string of tribute cards, as Jackie Robinson had card #42 in honor of the 50th anniversary of his ML debut and the retiring of his number for all MLB teams in April of 1997.
• Set Design: The card fronts feature a glossy player photo with matte finish of either green (NL) or red (AL).  The matte finish, which is not glossy, is further surrounded by a white border.  The player’s name is on the bottom in block-lettered gold foil stamping; the Topps logo is in the upper corner and the team logo in the lower corner.  The back of the card is horizontally positioned, with the player name, position and card number across the top.  Another player photo is below this along the right hand side.  Biographical information, seasonal statistics and career totals are shown to the left.  A write-up about the player follows below that when there’s room.  Like the card fronts, NL players have green backgrounds, while AL players have red.
• Packs: Topps again went lower with cards per pack in 1997 – both series had 11 cards per retail and hobby packs.  Topps no longer listed MSRP on the packs or the boxes themselves, but I believe it was the same $1.29 from 1995 and 1996 (only fewer cards per pack now).  The packs feature a shot of Barry Bonds, the Topps logo, the series and a list of what’s randomly inserted.  There’s an H-logo on the hobby packs, and you can also tell from the list of inserts.  Most of the jumbo packs were hobby exclusive and contained 40 cards (I’ve seen it said 45 – but seen 40 more) at 12 per box.  There was also a Retail packaging that came with one of 3 Topps Super cards and 15 retail packs.
• Rookies: To call this an unimpressive crop of rookies is an understatement.  There really isn’t a notable rookie card, and in fact, there isn’t even a notable first Topps card.  There aren’t even that many notable first Topps cards – the guys there would be Mike Cameron, Luis Castillo, Livan Hernandez and Mike Sweeney.
• Hall of Fame: There are 35 Hall of Famers in this set – the fewest thus far.  This is a decrease of 3 from the year before.  Jackie Robinson replaced Mickey Mantle in the tribute cards.  Mariano Rivera had his first card in the main Topps set.  Andre Dawson, Kirby Puckett, Lee Smith and Ozzie Smith had their last Topps cards in 1996.  Puckett is the first player gone who has been a “new HOF-er” on one of my lists, or, said another way – he’s the first player whose entire Topps run is in my project.  Deion Sanders – the resident NFL Hall of Famer over the past few years – was gone as he didn’t play baseball that year – but he’d be back the next season.
• Roberto Alomar, Jeff Bagwell, Harold Baines, Craig Biggio, Wade Boggs, Dennis Eckersley, Tom Glavine, Ken Griffey Jr., Vlad Guerrero, Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson, Trevor Hoffman, Derek Jeter, Chipper Jones, Randy Johnson. Barry Larkin, Greg Maddux, Edgar Martinez, Pedro Martinez, Fred McGriff, Paul Molitor, Eddie Murray, Mike Mussina, Mike Piazza, Tim Raines, Cal Ripken, Ivan Rodriguez, Scott Rolen, Ryne Sandberg, John Smoltz, Frank Thomas, Jim Thome, Larry Walker, Robinson (TRIB), Rivera
• Variations: There is an error and corrected version of the John Mabry Season Highlights card describing his feat of hitting for the cycle.  The error version is missing the last sentence of the write-up of his accomplishment.  Additionally, there are 2 cards numbered 61; Mike Fetters should have been card #84.  Not sure how they got confused there.  They also got confused with the numbering at the end of series 1 and the beginning of series 2.  The last card of series 1 is checklist #276.  The first card of series 2… is also card #276, for Chipper Jones.  There is no card #277.  I have to believe that this is related to confusion from Topps decision to retire Mickey Mantle’s card #7 – the first series had 275 cards, so normally it would make sense for series 2 to start there.

Both boxes feature pictures of spokesmen Barry Bonds and his godfather, Willie Mays on the front.  Mays is featured in the top right while Bonds is in the lower left.  It’s interesting – their batting positions are switched – Mays is kind of striding through on the series 2 box but looking up after his swing on series 1. The Bonds shots are kind of reversed.

There’s a dividing line to separate the 2 backgrounds from each photo on each box.  The Topps logo is kind of shooting out from the Mays swing at the top.  There is an advertisement on the box noting this is the “Mickey Mantle Commemorative Edition 1996”.  There is also some wording advertising the Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle reprint cards that are inserted.  The series 2 box hobby also has wording advertising the Derek Jeter autograph insert.

Hobby boxes have an H designation on them.

The odds below are for hobby packs unless noted.

Promo Cards

Topps issued a pre-production set of the regular cards, but as noted in the post yesterday, I can’t find much info on that set.

Update Sets

For the second straight year Topps didn’t issue a Traded set.

Parallel Set

For the second straight year, Topps didn’t issue a parallel set.  I hadn’t thought about this before – but it can’t be a coincidence that parallels temporarily going away coincided with the inaugural release of Topps Chrome in 1996.

Insert sets

Topps really upped the number of inserts this year.  Willie Mays was the main theme on these inserts – he had reprints in series 1 and Finest cards in series 2, just like Mantle did the year before.  Mantle also had some cards – this year they added his subset cards to the mix as cards #21-36, continuing the set from the previous year.

Also new was a lot more differentiation from hobby and retail sets.  The Finest insert from this season was focused on Interleague play.

• Hobby Masters – 20 cards (1:36 hobby)
• All-Stars – 22 cards (1:18 series 1)
• Inter-League Finest – 14 cards (1:36 series 1)
• Sweet Strokes – 15 cards (1:12 series 1 retail)
• Season’s Best – 25 cards (1:6 series 2)
• Team Timber – 16 cards (1:36 series 2)
• Awesome Impact – 20 cards (1:18 series 2 retail)
• Mays Reprints – 27 cards (1:8 series 1)
• Mays Finest Reprints – 27 cards (1:20 series 2)
• Mantle Reprints – 16 cards (1:12 series 1)
• Mantle Finest Reprints – 16 cards (1:24 series 2)

This was the first year they had “insert parallels” – and they had quite a few.

• Inter-League Finest Refractors – 14 cards (1:216 series 1)
• Mays Finest Refractors – 27 cards (1:180 series 2)
• Mantle Finest Refractors – 16 cards (1:216 series 2)

Autographs

This was the first year Topps ever inserted autographs directly into their packs.  Topps had inserted Brien Taylor auto’s into all 12,000 of the 1992 Topps Gold Factory Sets – but never into packs.  In Series 1, 19 of the 27 Willie Mays reprints were autographed by Mays and inserted into packs – there were about 65 of each card autographed.  I believe these were only included in hobby packs, but I haven’t been able to verify for sure.  I think that’s the case because they’re not listed on the retail packs from the s1 I bought – but I’d like to see a hobby pack to see if it’s advertised there.  Neither is the Derek Jeter Rookie of the Year autograph from series 2.  I’m much more sure this was hobby only – because I’ve seen it advertised on the front of a hobby pack but it wasn’t an option on the retail packs from the s2 box I bought.

• Willie Mays Reprint Autographs – 19 cards (1:2,400)
• Derek Jeter Rookie of the Year Autograph – 1 card (1:576 hobby)

Factory Set

Topps issued 2 different types of factory sets in 1997. Both of them were supposedly printed in lower amounts than previous years – and can’t be found for less than 3 figures these days.

First, hobby factory sets were packaged in a gold background.  They included 8 random insert cards and a hermetically sealed “Last Day Production” version of one of the Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays cards.

The retail factory set was packaged in red background and had just the 8 random insert cards.

Promotions

None that I know of.  There wasn’t an equivalent to the Mantle redemptions from the year before.

Other releases associated with the Topps flagship set

#1 – A special Wal-Mart box included a jumbo version of the reprint of the 1952 Willie Mays Topps card.  The packaging had 10 series 1 packs as well.  For series 2, there was a box of 15 retail packs with jumbo versions of 3 different players from the set – Ken Griffey Jr., Cal Ripken or Chipper Jones.

#2 – Just like previous years, R&N China supposedly issued a bunch of “parallel” versions of Topps cards throughout the mid-90′s.  Some of the porcelain cards created were reprints – for example, they did a full run of all 26 of Nolan Ryan’s cards.  I’ve read some things that claim that a full reproduction was done of the 1993, 1994 and 1995 sets, but read other things saying that a full parallel being done is very unlikely.  Looking around on eBay seems to support the latter.  I’ve seen fewer of the 1996 and 1997 cards than others.

#3 – Topps again issued the “Topps Chrome” product, which reproduces many of the cards from the base set with a Chromium finish.

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In the baseball card landscape, there wasn’t anything quite like the 1996 development of Pinnacle buying the Donruss and Leaf brands.  The biggest thing to note was Upper Deck’s Game Jersey insert set – this was the first baseball card with a swatch of game used memorabilia included.  Upper Deck also included buyback cards in their SP product where they bought old SP cards and had the players sign them.  In the 90’s, they always seemed to be on the cutting edge compared to any other company.  Pinnacle came out with a big innovation, as well – inserting the 8 printing plates used to print New Pinnacle cards into packs.  They offered a cash prize for anyone who could put together a set of all 8 of one player (it went unclaimed in the infancy stages of the internet).

For me, the 1997 year I wasn’t completely out of card collecting – but I was damn close.  In 1997, I definitely only purchased a box of SP.  I did get the greatest pull of my young life at that point – I got one of those autographed buy back cards – and of my favorite player, Ken Griffey Jr.  Still my favorite pull to date.  I also continued to buy some Jalen Rose cards.  But aside from that, I really was more focused on track practice and girls as opposed to baseball cards.  Because of that, this is a Topps set I have no memory of from my collecting days.