Completed insert set – 1994 Topps Black Gold

Topps came out with their second year of Topps Black Gold in 1994, and it never seemed as popular as the first year.  By 1994 there were much shinier things out there – Upper Deck had Michael Jordan baseball cards for crying out loud! I finished this set back in November 2013.  And it’s been sitting in my queue as a “I need to do this” draft post since then.  It seems less than that, but time can get away from you.  Well, I’m using these completed set posts to get me back into the Lifetime Topps project – so this is certainly a good one for that!

Info about the set:

Set description:  Staying in line with the Gold theme that Topps adopted in the early 90’s in the flagship product for all 4 sports, the Black Gold cards had gold foilboard at the top (the team) and bottom (the player).  The background is completely blacked out of the player photo on the front.  The Topps Black Gold logo is shown next to the photo on series 1 but is mysteriously missing on the series 2 cards.  The back of the card has another photo of the player with a his statistics and positional ranking for those stats against a wood background.  The set has 22 players from each league.

Set composition:  44 cards

Inserted: All packs of 1994 Topps.  1:72 hobby odds.  22 cards per each series (AL in series 1, NL in series 2).

There were also redemption cards inserted at a more difficult rate that could be exchanged for 11, 22 or all 44 cards in the set.

Hall of Famers: 9

Roberto Alomar, Paul Molitor, Kirby Puckett, Cal Ripken, Frank Thomas, Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, Craig Biggio

How I put the set together:

• 2 from my series 1 & 2 wax boxes
• 3 cards from trades
• 39 cards from Sportlots

Thoughts on the set:  I like the 1993 set better.  I always thought Topps was pretty inferior to Upper Deck for card technology and for inserts in the early and mid-90’s (because they were).  And while these are decent cards, they aren’t as nice as the first year.  That may be why they didn’t stick around into 1995.

Card that completed my set:  #41 – Mike Piazza

One of 3 cards I picked up on Sportlots back in November.

Highest book value:  #18 – Cal Ripken, #27 – Barry Bonds

Best card (my opinion):  #43 – Robby Thompson

How often will you ever see a non-parallel insert card of Robby Thompson?  And it’s a pretty good photo?  Count me in.

My Favorite Reds card:  There are none.  I knew there was a reason I didn’t like this set.

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