Unlike the Big Red Machine, which had 3 base cards, the 1990 Reds World Series team is featured in quite a few inserts in 2014 Topps Archives. There are 4 players from that team in the product, though Barry Larkin (the team’s only HOF-er) still isn’t in this set. Eric Davis, Paul O’Neill and Rob Dibble are back from last year, along with Chris Sabo aka Spuds! Davis, in particular, is all over this product.
Base Set
Davis has a base card in the 1980 portion of the set. Obviously this doesn’t have “provenance” in a regular Davis card – he had just been drafted at that point!
Paul O’Neill is also in the set – in the 1989 section. O’Neill does have a 1989 card, but they show him with the wrong team here! He wasn’t with the Yankees for a few more years.
Since both guys are in the regular part of the set – they have Gold Rainbow Foil parallels (#/199) and the Silver Rainbow Foil parallels (#/99), plus 4 printing plates.
1971 Hockey
Davis and Sabo can both be found in the insert set based on the 1971-72 Hockey set. Both players would have been very young when the original set came out!
Davis autographed 25 of these cards (Sabo did not have an autographed version). These have printing plate 1/1 versions as well.
1987 Future Stars
Davis is featured in this retail-only set. This makes a bit more sense – he was definitely in the 1987 Topps set, and even could have been considered a Future Star at that point:
There are printing plates of these, so he’s got 4 of those here as well. There’s also an autographed version numbered to 25.
1997 Stadium Club Firebrand
Davis also has a card in this subset. He is again shown with the Reds. By 1997 he had moved on to Baltimore, but 1996 was his 2nd stint in Cincinnati – so he definitely could have been on this insert set as a Red.
Davis also autographed a version of this card, again numbered to 25. It’s a silver sticker auto – and honestly doesn’t go that well with this card.
1981 Mini Autographs
Davis had another card where he signed it 25 times. You can only find this card as an autograph, however. It’s a miniature version of the 1981 design.
Fan Favorite Autographs
There are 3 guys with Fan Favorite autographs. Davis interestingly has a different design than his base card (he and Mark McGwire are the only two players where Topps did that). His card is in the 1989 design, which is actually a year he had another Topps card.
Sabo also has a card in the Fan Favorite autographs. It’s in the 1990 design, and it’s a beautiful card – in my humble opinion!
Finally, fireballer Rob Dibble also has an autograph, also in the 1990 design. There are 6 parallels of the Fan Favorites. I was able to find examples of Dibble’s card for all of the parallels.
Triple Autograph
This card has Davis, O’Neill and current Red Jay Bruce. I’d love to get my hands on this card – but the one shown below went for $152 on eBay! These cards actually aren’t numbered, but they are pretty rare nonetheless.
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So, all told – if you wanted to collect every single card I mentioned above, you’d have 64 cards to find. If you didn’t want the 1/1’s – that number would be 29.
Davis (16/33) – Base, Gold Rainbow, Silver Rainbow, 71 Hockey, 87 Future Stars, Firebrand, 1981 mini Auto, 71 Hockey Auto, 87 Future Stars Auto, Firebrand Auto, Fan Favorite Auto (“FFA”), Triple Auto, FFA Gold, FFA Silver, FFA Purple, FFA Blue, FFA Ruby, 16 total printing plates
O’Neill (2/6) – Base, Triple Auto, 4 printing plates
Sabo (6/15) – 71 Hockey, Fan Favorite Auto, FFA Gold, FFA Silver, FFA Purple, FFA Blue, FFA Ruby, 8 total printing plates
Dibble (5/10) – Fan Favorite Auto, FFA Gold, FFA Silver, FFA Purple, FFA Blue, FFA Ruby, 4 FFA printing plates