1984 Topps parallels – Robin Yount

1984 Topps

Card I selected:  #10 – Robin Yount

I swear it isn’t intentional, but out of the 5 years I’ve done so far, I’ve picked 5 straight Hall of Famers.  Carlton, Yaz, Eckersley, Carter and now Robin Yount.  This is a streak that will end in my next post, but I guess the greatness of the player impacts how good I view the card.

The number of “parallels” went way up in 1984.  O-Pee-Chee was the only one in the previous year; it’s back.  But there were 4 addition cards made in 1984, and Robin Yount was a good choice because he has all 6 cards (counting his Topps card).  Also, Yount has one of the best photos in the set – I picked this as the top card of the entire set.

# of cards (including the Topps card):  6

The parallel sets in 1984 include:

• O-Pee-Chee
• Tiffany
• Nestle
• “Encased” test
• Super

Scans:

1984 Topps #10

1984 O-Pee-Chee #10

The Canadian version of the Topps set was, again, 396 cards; half the size of the Topps set.  This particular card was given the same number as Yount’s Topps card.  If the player got a OPC card but his Topps card was in the second half (#397-792) of the set, he’d have a different card number.

Here are the differences for this card:

• The “O-Pee-Chee” logo on the front replaces the Topps logo in the top right.
• On some of the cards (not this one), the card number is different.
• The copyright on the bottom of the back says O-Pee-Chee and notes the card was printed in Canada.
• The card is printed on white card stock and tends to be poorly cut as cards from the early 80’s were for OPC.
• Any wording on the back is in both English and French.
• It says O-Pee-Chee on the back instead of “Topps”.

1984 Topps Tiffany #10

For the first time, Topps issued a Tiffany variation in factory set form.  The Tiffany set is a true full parallel – the cards are numbered exactly the same.  There are only 2 differences for the Tiffany cards – they’re glossy, and they were printed on white cardstock.  The cards were limited to 10,000 sets.

1984 Nestle #10

Another true parallel, Topps issued a full set as an uncut sheet as a promotion with Nestle.  Many of the sheets were cut up to be sold as individual cards.  The only difference for these cards from the base set is that the Nestle logo replaces the Topps logo on the front and back.

1984 Topps Encased Test #NNO

Topps issued 66 promo / sample cards as blank-backed versions of the cards in the set. Other than the blank back, this version is also distinguishable by the “encased” portrait photo in the lower left-hand corner.  The edge of the small portrait photo is cut off by the border, whereas for the regular set, the top of the player’s head/cap will overlap the border.

1984 Topps Super #29

Topps also made 30 cards that were larger (4-7/8 x 6-7/8), with only the numbering differing from the base set.  Called Topps “Super”, these cards came in 1-card packs, 36 per box.

The “Rainbow”:

Any sets I didn’t get:  There’s no others that I know of.

Other cards I would have liked to do:

I really liked Buddy Bell’s card and actually own most of his variations.  He wasn’t in the super set, however.  Pete Rose would also be cool; you could get his 1984 Traded card with the Expos (which also has a Tiffany version) to put next to his regular Topps cards (with the Phillies).

Completed set & master set – one last look at 1984 Topps

The 1984 Topps and Traded set is my fifth set completed – thus I’m halfway through completing the sets from the 80’s decade!  I’ve also completed my “personal master set” for this year as well – which I’m defining as the base set, the traded set, and any regular inserts.  Here’s the “look back” for this set.

Info about my set:

How I put the set together:

• 365 cards from the wax box
• 195 cards from a vending box
• 100 cards from an eBay lot of rack packs
• 126 cards from trades
• 1 card from the Topps Diamond Giveaway
• 5 cards purchased from Sportlots

Card that completed my set: #251 – Tony Gwynn (1 of 5 cards I purchased from Sportlots)

’90 Reds Catchup Post – 1984 Topps + Traded

Piniella and Oester are back from the previous year’s Topps set, as is Bill Doran from the ’83 Topps Traded set. However, Rick Mahler doesn’t have a base card in the ’84 set as he spent nearly the entire 1983 season in the minors. Oester is also on a subset card as the Reds’ team leader in batting average. Bill Doran’s base card is his Rookie Card (if you don’t count XRC’s as rookie cards). Jose Rijo’s XRC is in the Topps Traded set.

1984 – Lou Piniella, Ron Oester, Ron Oester (TL), Bill Doran RC

After going 15-5 with a 1.68 ERA in the Florida league as an 18-year old the previous year, Jose Rijo made his major league debut for the Yankees in 1984. This was quite a big jump for Rijo, who wasn’t quite ready and went 2-8. Interesting that Rijo and Piniella were briefly teammates (basically for the first half of the ’84 season), and Piniella was later Jose’s manager when he won the 1990 WS MVP.

1984T – Jose Rijo XRC

84 Darryl Palmer card scan

I referenced this card in an earlier post – it’s a card Topps made to promote the movie “The Slugger’s Wife”, which I’ve never seen. I was trying to find a picture on the internet with no luck until now. I saw this on ebay for a lot more than I’d be willing to pay. Maybe by linking this site, I’ll be the middleman between the seller and a grateful buyer. A tiny 10% middleman fee would be fine, no?

1984 Topps Glossy Sets

Topps printed 2 Glossy All-Star sets in conjunction with its base set in 1984. The first set was a 22-card set commemorating the 1983 All-Star game. This set had the manager, the 9 starters, and an honorary captain card for each league (retiring stars Johnny Bench & Carl Yastrzemski).

12 Hall of Famers:     R. Carew, G. Brett, R. Yount, J. Rice, D. Winfield, C. Yastrzemski, W. Herzog, M. Schmidt, O. Smith, A. Dawson, G. Carter, J. Bench

Bench is the lone Big Red Machiner.

The next set was a 40-card send-in set returning for its 2nd season. After obtaining 25 “runs” from the “All-Star Baseball Game” card that came 1 per wax pack, you could send in to get 1 of 8 different 5-card portions of the set. The players in this set were primarily All-Stars from the previous year’s game (1983). Again, this wasn’t true for every player – Nolan Ryan and Pete Rose were not All-Stars in 1983 or 1984, but are included. Darryl Strawberry was not an All-Star in 1983, but was the Rookie of the Year, and he was an All-Star in 1984.

16 Hall of Famers:     E. Murray, R. Henderson, W. Boggs, G. Carter, G. Brett, N. Ryan, D. Winfield, O. Smith, J. Rice, R. Carew, S. Carlton, A. Dawson, R. Yount, M. Schmidt, C. Fisk

Rose is the lone Big Red Machiner. Interesting that Bench is in the earlier set, but not this one.

I got both sets on eBay. The first set was pretty cheap, like $4 including S&H. The second set was a little bit more, but I didn’t feel like waiting to find a good deal.

1984 Topps Traded

Topps again issued a 132-card factory “Traded” set in 1984. The setup of the 1984 Traded set was the same as the previous two years; cards were numbered in alphabetical order, separately from the base set with a “T” suffix as #1-132. The design was the same as the base set, and for the 2nd year in a row the cards were printed in Ireland on white cardstock. The set contains XRC’s of players who didn’t have a card in the base set, players who signed with or were traded to new teams, and new managers.

For the 2nd year in a row, Dealers who ordered cases of the Topps Traded set also received a miniature Bronze Card – this time the card was a replica of Darryl Strawberry’s 1984 Topps Base Rookie Card. For the first time, Topps issued a Tiffany set that had a glossy picture on the front.

There are 3 Big Red Machiners in the set – Tony Perez and Joe Morgan were in the Traded set for the 2nd year in a row, joined by Pete Rose. All 3 left the Philadelphia after a BRM “reunion” and a World Series appearance in 1983. Perez was on a 1 year deal, and returned to Cincy by signing a free agent contract with the Reds. Morgan and Rose were both released in October of 1983. Morgan returned home for his second 1-year stint in the Bay Area, this time signing with his hometown Oakland A’s. Rose signed with the Montreal Expos, where he would collect his 4,000th hit and play for just over half a season. This card is one of the few Rose Expos cards. Cards I know of that feature him in Canadian attire:

84 Topps Traded, 84 Topps Traded Tiffany, 84 Fleer Update, 84 Stuart Expos, 84 All-Star Program insert, (Note that 84 OPC – picture in Phillies uni, but denotes he was traded and team name says Expos)

This is by no means the most expensive set in the 80’s. But from my perspective, it seems pretty loaded for a Traded set. There are 7 Hall of Famers in this set.

• Morgan & Perez, as noted above
• Tom Seaver, who was selected as a free agent compensation pick by the White Sox. Seaver was left unprotected after a 1-year return to the Mets, who assumed no team would want a 39-year-old pitcher with a decent-sized contract.
• Dennis Eckersley, who was traded from the Red Sox to the Cubs in May. Eckersley helped the Cubs to their first postseason appearance in 39 years, though he lost a game in the NLCS.
• Phil Niekro was signed as a free agent by the New York Yankees. “Knucksy” would win 16 games for the Yankees in 1984 and make his final All-Star game selection. He would also win his 300th games with the Yankees a season later.
• Goose Gossage left the Yankees to sign as a free agent with the Padres. One of many new faces for San Diego in 1984, Goose clinched the game 5 NLCS win to send the club to its first World Series appearance.
• Yogi Berra was signed for his second stint as manager for the Yankees. This card is interesting because this hiring led to a decade-plus rift where Berra did not return to Yankee Stadium. Yogi managed the team in 1984 and agreed to return in 1985 after owner George Steinbrenner told him he would manage the full season. 16 games into the ’85 season, Steinbrenner reneged on that promise and fired Berra. Yogi held a grudge for years and his participation in Yankee celebrations seemed finished; he even stayed away from Yankee Stadium for the dedication of his plaque in Monument Park. To quote the former catcher – “it ain’t over ’til it’s over”. Steinbrenner finally issued a public apology in the late 90’s, and Yogi returned for “Yogi Berra Day” in 1999. There he caught the ceremonial first pitch from Don Larsen – to battery mates for the historical World Series perfect game. At that game, David Cone put an appropriate stamp on the tribute by throwing the 3rd perfect game in Yankees history.

Perez and Berra are the only players featured with the cap from their HOF plaque. Both are on return stints to the team they are most associated with.

The set is best known for the Dwight Gooden XRC; the Strawberry card from the year before and the 84 Donruss Mattingly were some of the cards that started the Rookie card craze in the hobby. Future 2x Cy Young winner Brett Saberhagen and future WS MVP Jose Rijo also have XRC’s in this set.

There were some other Rookies in this set who would go on to have very productive careers, and there were also some guys who would have some serious impact on future pennant winning and World Championship teams. Willie Hernandez would win the AL MVP for the World Champion Detroit Tigers. Darrell Evans didn’t have a great year for the Tigers, but in 1985 he would become the first player to hit 40 homers in both leagues. Graig Nettles joined Gossage in moving from the Bronx to San Diego. Buckner and Johnson would both have what I’ll call “significant” impact on the 86 World Series – Johnson as the winning manager, Buckner as the goat. These are the first cards with those teams.

1984 Topps scans

Here’s what I’d consider the most famous cards of the set. The first two are the most recognizable RC’s from then and now. I’ve read on a lot of blogs that collectors born before the 1980’s (so basically anyone older than me) generally don’t like the RC craze that took over the hobby in the 80’s and 90’s. I tend to disagree with them up to a point. To me, the idea of rookie cards is generally a good one. Having the first card of a star means you’ve either got a card from when no one knew what was to come, or, for these 2 guys, from when they were the new “buzz” in the baseball world. When Doc Gooden or Darryl Strawberry were a rookies for the Mets, it wasn’t just that their RC’s got valuable. They were the biggest stories in baseball at the time. For Gooden, he was the biggest story in baseball in the ’84 and ’85 season. Why shouldn’t their first card carry a premium? Now I agree, this can go too far – it’s done so when you had sets or large subsets that are built just for prospecting guys who are 3 years from even making the majors. The new fix MLB imposed a few years ago (no cards until the guy has made his debut) seems to help this.

The Ryan/Carlton/Perry highlight card is truly iconic to me. Johnson’s mark of 3,509 strikeouts had stood for 56 years, and Johnson himself set the record 6 years before he retired. So this was a 62 year-old record. And 3 guys surpassed it in the same season. Plus, it was the all-time strikeout record – if chicks dig the long ball, the second best thing is the strikeout.

The Quisenberry may not quite rise to the same category as the other 3 – but to me, this card also commemorates a pretty big record. His 45 saves shattered the record of 38. And he truly had a great season. Quiz was quite the character in baseball – at times he seemed halfway amused with his success, halfway struggling with it. He became a poet after he retired, and published a book of his work, “On Days Like This”, in 1998. Sadly, Quiz died of cancer that same year. See the picture of his book at the end of this post.

Speaking of pretty good players, here are some pretty good players on cards pretty early in their career (but not the dreaded RC’s)! These guys hod quite a few batting titles, MVP’s, and a Cy Young Award.

Speaking of winning Cy Young Awards. This guy won a few. Topps honored him with a bunch of different subsets, and they sure went with a variety of poses in doing so. The highlight card acknowledges his 300th win in addition to his ending the season as the all-time strikeout leader.

Speaking of all-time leaders with a lot of subset cards. Here’s Rickey’s 4 cards that I pulled. Much like fellow recent Hall-of-Famer Andre Dawson – Rickey’s base Topps cards always seem to be a really good picture.

Speaking of recent HOF-ers. Here’s 12 more cards of Hall-of-Famers. I like most of these shots. The Jackson card does seem to show another lack of variety across the years – most of his 80’s Topps cards have him kneeling down at the end of that powerful swing. The Jenkins card was his last Topps card; it’s strange that he had a base card this year, despite retiring at the end of the 1983 season. Bench, Yastrzemski and Perry did so as well, and they were only featured in subset cards. The Seaver card shows his 1-year return to the Mets, and I never knew Jim Rice was in the “Oscar Gamble crazy afro” club too!

Here’s some other recognizable players. This is Hernandez’s first regular issue card with the Mets (he was in the Traded set the year before). I like the Fernando shot – this was when he was still considered one of the best in baseball. Garvey is shown in his first regular issue card without the Dodgers – he helped get the Padres to the World Series in 1984. Good shot of future manager Brenly in all his catcher’s gear. Bucky Dent with the Rangers? I didn’t know he played with the Rangers. He had some cool glasses though.

Speaking of cool glasses, these guys are the pre-cursors to Chris Sabo. I wonder if Knicely wore his glasses under that catcher’s mask.

As mentioned, here’s Quiz’s book. This is the largest picture I could find.

1984 Topps Cards – Big Red Machine

For the ’84 set, I got every base card except Pete Rose. His card is shown here. So is the Bench/Yaz/Perry retirement card, which is the last Topps card for Bench and the other 2 Hall-of-Famers. The base cards I did pull are below.

BRM-ers were a part of 5 of the subset for “active career leaders”. In fact, for the one for NL hits, Perez and Rose were on there. I pulled 2 of this subset, but was still missing 3 others. See the scan below.

Here are the ones I didn’t pull, so I stole the pic from the WWW. The “Big Dog” was on 3 of these!

1984 Topps vending box

In the past I was posting how much of the set was completed by the vending box break (stand-alone – as if I had just opened that box and not the wax box). Doing this and then putting it together with the wax box I’d opened was taking too much time. So I’m just posting how the vending box did for completing the set.

Since the wax box was so poorly collated, it stood to reason that the vending box would do better in helping complete the set. It did. I got 194 base cards that I hadn’t had from the first box break. So I had a total of 560 cards, or 71%, toward finishing the set. I did get the Ripken 3rd year card and the Sandberg 2nd year card out of this pull, so that was a good thing. Gwynn is the only notable card I didn’t pull from one of the boxes. So I don’t have his RC or his 2nd year card.

I also bought a few rack packs as part of an eBay auction. After opening everything, I have 660 cards out of the set. So I’m getting there. As usual, I’ll post some pictures in a later post this week.

1984 Topps wax box break

I finished breaking the 1984 wax box, which I bought from BBXC, it ran fifty bucks. I pulled both the key Rookies – Mattingly and Strawberry. Of the key 2nd year guys, I only pulled Boggs – so no Gwynn or Sandberg. I also didn’t pull the Ripken card.

So not so great there, and overall, the collation was pretty awful for this set. It seems to be getting gradually worse – 1980 was the best (though ’83 was good too), and you’d think it would improve since the set got 66 cards bigger in 1982. I had a total of 174 doubles out of the 540 cards in the box – compared to 20 from the year before! That’s a really bad drop-off!

The one saver here – Topps packaged the cards so that the wax was again touching the front of the first card. In 1983, it was touching the back, and because of that and the gum stain, basically 2 cards per pack were not salvageable. Well this year, it was the exact opposite. For whatever reason, the gum stains only ruined a couple cards. And since the front touched the was, I was able to get the wax off the front of most of the cards. So compared to about 70 ruined cards from 1983, I had only 4 or 5 this box, and only 1 was a single. Stats for the box:

36 packs per box * 15 cards per pack = 540 cards

174 doubles

366 of the 792 card set. (46.2% set completion)

36 “All-Star Baseball” game cards

1 singles was, so I really about the same portion of the set as above. Still much worse than last year – I can’t wait until the gum issue goes away! Though that will probably not be until the mid 90’s. I still haven’t had a real valuable card with a stain yet, so that’s good.

I’ve opened the vending box as well; I’ll update my checklist of cards for the ’83 set in a little bit – including that break.