After Tony Perez was in the base set as a manager in 2002, we were back to no more Big Red Machine players in the base Topps set. But, as would pretty much be the case going forward, there were quite a few insert cards of Big Red Machine members.
First, it’s worth noting that just about all of the “Great Eight” as well as manager Sparky Anderson were included in the Topps Retired Signature product. This used the same design as 2003 Topps, except with a white border. It’s not the same product, so I don’t count it – just thought it was worth pointing out.
Most of them were involved in the Vintage Embossed inserts. You could argue this isn’t even really an insert, but I’ll list the cards that were bought back and the announced quantities.
- 1968 Topps Joe Morgan AS (#/2)
- 1971 Topps Johnny Bench / Tony Perez / Billy Williams LL (#/7)
- 1971 Topps Johnny Bench / Tony Perez / Billy Williams LL (#/6)
- 1973 Topps Johnny Bench / Dick Allen LL (#/8)
- 1975 Topps Johnny Bench / Dick Allen MVP (#/13)
- 1975 Topps Johnny Bench / Jeff Burroughs MVP (#/4)
- 1976 Topps Johnny Bench (#/4)
- 1977 Topps Joe Morgan (#/10)
- 1980 Topps Joe Morgan (#/13)
- 1981 Topps Joe Morgan (#/45)
- 1982 Topps Ken Griffey Sr. / Tom Seaver TL (#/9)
- 1983 Topps Joe Morgan SV (#/5)
- 1983 Topps Johnny Bench (#/10)
- 1984 Topps Glossy All-Stars Johnny Bench (#/1)
OK, so now we can move on to real cards made for the 2003 Topps product. Three of the guys were in the relic set “Farewell to Riverfront Stadium”. Bench, Morgan, Perez and Concepcion all had cards in this set.
George Foster made it into a different set. He was in the Record Breaker set for both series 1 and series 2.
He had an autographed version as well.
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