1994 Topps Overview

792 cards in the set – after a one year increase of 33 cards, the set was back down to the standard amount that it had been since 1982.  Topps issued the cards in 2 series of 396 cards for the second straight year.

• Subsets: All-Stars (#384-394), Draft Picks (#201-210, #739-762), Measures of Greatness (#601-609), Hank Aaron Tribute (#715), Coming Attractions (#763-790), Topps All-Star Rookies (10 cards throughout), Top Prospects (10 cards throughout), and Future Stars (26 cards throughout series 1).  Topps eliminated the manager subset in 1994, adding the Measures of Greatness subset in the 2nd series.  The Coming Attractions subset, which was new in the previous year, now has two players per card.  The Future Stars subset was back after a few years away – this time with a player from each team.  A tribute card for Hank Aaron was made to honor the 20th anniversary of the day he broke Babe Ruth’s home run record.
• Set Design: The set design features a player photo surrounded by a border shaped like a home plate, with a white outer border.  The player name is in white italicized font at the bottom over a colored triangle.  There is a thin strip with the team name and position.  The cards were printed on white cardstock, with full glossy UV coating – these cards have noticeably more gloss than the 1993 set.  The back of the card features a color player photo on the left hand side.  The rest of the card back features the card number at the top left, with the planer name, biographical information and the Topps logo above seasonal statistics and career totals.  When there is room at the bottom, Topps included an interesting fact of the player.
• Packs: Topps increased “wax” pack prices by 10¢ to 79¢ – and decreased the number of cards from 15 to 12.  Packs were no longer the plastic packs folded like a wax pack; they were the tamper-evident packs you had to rip open.  Every wax pack had one Topps Gold card in the pack.  As before, there were 36 packs per box and 20 per case.  29-card cello packs increased 60¢ to $1.99 with a decrease of 5 cards – they had 4 Topps Gold per pack.  Rack packs went down to 33 cards (from 45) with 3 Topps Gold per pack.  There were also 56-card jumbo packs (probably cost $3.99) with 5 Topps Gold per pack, and mini jumbo packs with 2 Topps gold per pack (I think these had 24 cards per pack, but am not sure – I’ve only seen the box not the packs).  Series 2 is the first Topps pack I know of to clearly feature a specific player.  While series 1 is a generic player, that’s obviously Mike Piazza on the front of the series 2 pack.
• Rookies: This is one of the least impressive rookie card crops – Billy Wagner’s draft pick card is the only rookie card of any kind of note in the set.  There were some big rookie cards that Topps missed out on in 1994 – the biggest by far being Alex Rodriguez, who didn’t sign a licensing deal with Topps until 1998.  Michael Jordan also had his baseball rookie cards in a number of Upper Deck products.  Topps also missed out on Derrek Lee, Jorge Posada, Chan Ho Park and Torii Hunter.
• Hall of Fame: There are 41 Hall of Famers in this set – down 9 from the year before.  Hank Aaron was back in the Topps set, featured in the subset mentioned above, but there were 10  guys gone from the set.  Six of them were managers gone as the subset wasn’t featured (Tony Perez, Sparky Anderson, Tommy LaSorda, Tony LaRussa, Bobby Cox, Joe Torre).  There were 4 players gone for good; catchers Gary Carter and Carlton Fisk had played their last games, as had Bert Blyleven.  Jack Morris didn’t have a card despite pitching in 1993 and 1994 (he’s in a few other sets).  Since Neon Deion is in the set, there is also 1 NFL Hall of Famer.
• Roberto Alomar, Jeff Bagwell, Harold Baines, Craig Biggio, Wade Boggs, George Brett, Andre Dawson, Dennis Eckersley, Tom Glavine, Ken Griffey Jr., 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, Kirby Puckett, Tim Raines, Cal Ripken, Ivan Rodriguez, Nolan Ryan, Ryne Sandberg, Lee Smith, Ozzie Smith, John Smoltz, Frank Thomas, Jim Thome, Alan Trammell, Larry Walker, Dave Winfield, Robin Yount, Aaron (TRIB)
• Variations: There is no card #379 due to a printing mistake; there are two cards #370.  Mark McLemore’s card was the one that was supposed to be card #379.  Card #109 of Delino DeShields also has two variations – a Red and a Yellow team/position at the bottom.

The series 1 wax box has a blue background with a red stripe along the middle left-hand side, while the series 2 came with a blue stripe.  There are 2 cards pictured – Barry Larkin and Spike Owen for s1, Pete Harnisch and Roberto Alomar for s2.  “BASEBALL” in big block letters covers a baseball over the bottom of those cards, with the Topps logo and 1994 above the cards.  The bottom of the stripe has the series and the words “picture cards”.  The MLB and MLBPA logos are to the left.  There is a yellow section to the bottom right advertising the inserts available.

The odds below are for hobby/wax packs unless noted.

Promo Cards

Topps issued a 9-card promo set of the regular cards in cello packs to dealers and inserted 9 promo cards into specially marked 1993 factory sets.

For the 4th and final year, Topps issued a card in the ’93 design of the Golden Spikes winner in conjunction with the awards banquet (which was held in October 1993).  The winner for the ’93 banquet was Darren Dreifort.

Update Sets

Topps again released a 132-card Topps Traded set in factory set form.  The set had an 8-card Finest insert set including MVP and Rookie of the Year award contenders.

Parallel Set

• Gold – 792 cards (1:1)

Topps again inserted parallel versions into packs with Gold Foil over the player and team name.  The cards were again issued at a 1 per regular pack rate (actually, 5 per every 4 packs).  The 4 checklists were again replaced with players who weren’t part of the base set.

• Bilingual – 792 cards (factory)

Topps issued a Spanish language set for the first time since the days of Topps Venezuelan in the 1960’s.

Insert sets

Topps again included Black Gold inserts in both series in 1994.  Black Gold was inserted at a rate of 1 every other box in both series – though I got one in all 4 boxes I opened from 1993 and 1994.  The series 1 cards are American League players, while Series 2 was National League players (this was flip-flopped from last year).  There were also Winner Cards inserted to mail in for 11 cards, 22 cards, or a full set of the 44 cards.  Topps also included preview cards to generate excitement for the release of its second year of Finest cards.

• Black Gold – 44 cards (1:72)
• Finest Pre-production – 40 cards (1:36)
• Topps Spanish Leyendas – 10 cards (in factory set)

Factory Set

Topps again issued only one design for its factory set.  Hobby factory sets included 10 Gold parallel cards, 3 Black Gold inserts and 3 of the Finest pre-production inserts.  Retail factory sets have the same number Gold and Black Gold cards, while also including a 9-card preview set for 1995 Topps, a spectralight version of those promos, and a 3-card super sampler promo of Topps other 3 sets from 1994 (Bowman, Finest, Stadium Club).

Topps also issued a bilingual factory set paralleling the base set with Spanish writing as well.  The factory set included a 10-card “Legends” insert set of retired Latin stars.

Promotions

None I know of from 1994.

Other releases associated with the Topps flagship set

#1 – Just like 1993, 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 and 1994 set, but read other things saying that a full parallel being done is very unlikely.  Looking around on eBay seems to support the latter.  But there are certainly quite a few porcelain reproductions from the 1993 and 1994 set.

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1994 saw continuation of the first release of “Super-premium” sets – SP, Finest and Flair all continued with their 2nd release, while Leaf came out with Leaf Limited to join the fray.  Topps had really upped the quality (and the price) of its base cards to compete with some of the other base sets.  Upper Deck had actually started moving its base card up to more of a premium level – price-wise it was competing with Pinnacle and Stadium Club, while the Topps base brand’s similar price point was Collector’s Choice.

There were two bigger stories I remember from 1994.  The first was Michael Jordan’s minor league attempt.  Say what you will, but Jordan did show some progress in winter ball after his first year.  I think he would have made it to the Majors someday – but we were all better off with him coming back to the NBA.  The bigger story was the labor unrest – cancelling a World Series dampened interest in everything baseball related, including cards.

Topps joined the retro party that Upper Deck quietly started with All-Time Heroes the year before – this was the first year of the Archives product.  All told, for licensed products we were up to 24 standard products, 2 retired player products, and O-Pee-Chee just had the one bilingual set.

• Topps – Topps, Bowman, Stadium Club, Bowman’s Best, Finest, Archives
• Donruss – Donruss, Triple Play, Leaf, Studio, Leaf Limited
• Fleer – Fleer, Extra Bases, Ultra, Flair, Extra Bases
• Pinnacle – Score, Select, Sportflics 2000, Pinnacle
• Upper Deck – Collector’s Choice, Fun Pack, Upper Deck, SP, All-Time Heroes
• O-Pee-Chee – O-Pee Chee

After a big change in 1993 by going to 2 series and adding UV coating and color pictures to the backs, Topps stayed similar in 1994.  Forme, 1994 was probably my biggest year of collecting – I was going hard after 1993 Upper Deck, and I was all over anything Upper Deck at this point.  I loved anything Griffey Jr. and I remember loving the Michael Jordan baseball cards that Upper Deck did.

1993 Topps Overview

825 cards in the set – an increase of 33 cards.  This was the first time Topps changed the set size since 1982.  Topps issued the cards in 2 series of 396 and 429 cards, respectively.  This was the first time that Topps had issued multiple series since 1973.

• Subsets: All-Stars (#401-411), Managers (#501-514), Coming Attractions (#797-822), Russian Angels (#633), Topps All-Star Rookies (10 cards throughout), Top Prospects (10 cards throughout), and Draft Picks (28 cards throughout).  Topps was down to having only one subset that wasn’t the players actual base card – the All-Stars subset, which now featured 2 players, an AL All-Star next to the same position as an NL All-Star.  The Manager subset was also shrunk to feature 2 managers on each card.  The Top Prospects subset was back for the 2nd straight year as a 4-player “head-shot” card – one for each position, including both starting and relief pitchers.  The Draft Pick cards feature the player over a baseball diamond background – there are 10 in series 1 and 18 more in series 2.  Both the All-Star subset and Manager cards feature 2 players.  New was a subset called “Coming Attractions” which feature one prospect per team.  Also, there were a couple of cards featuring multiple players that feature on the same design as the regular cards in the set.  There was an interesting card of 3 Russian players drafted by the Angels in 1992, and there were 16 2-player cards of Rockies and Marlins prospects.
• Set Design: The set design features a player photo surrounded by a white border.  The player name is at the bottom on a thin strip above the team name, with two diagonal ribbons crossing that strip.  The player’s position is again not shown on the front; the Topps logo is in one of the upper corners.  For the 2nd year, Topps printed the cards on white cardstock, and this time the front and the back of the card had a glossy finish.  The back of the card features a color player photo for the first time.  The card number is at the top left, with the planer name and position on a ribbon from left to right above the back photo and biographical information.  The Topps logo is just below this, above seasonal statistics and career totals.  When there is room at the bottom, Topps included an interesting fact of the player.
• Packs: Topps increased “wax” pack prices by 14¢ to 69¢ – wax packs were again really plastic packs folded like a wax pack.  Every wax pack had one Topps Gold card in the pack; gum was again not included in the packs.  As before, there were 36 packs per box and 20 per case.  34-card cello packs increased 30¢ to $1.39 and had 2 Topps Gold per pack.  Rack packs were still 45-cards with 3 Topps Gold per pack.  There were also 41-card jumbo packs priced at $1.99 (5 Topps Gold per pack) and 74-card super-market jumbo packs, which decreased from 90 cards (6 Topps Gold per pack).  There were also retail packs available that had 18 cards per pack (2 Topps Gold) and 400-card boxes with cards from both series containing 360 base cards, 36 Topps Gold and 4 Topps Black Bold.
• Rookies: Derek Jeter’s Draft Pick card is a huge rookie card in series 1 that makes those boxes go for more than series 2 boxes.  Jim Edmonds is the other notable rookie card – he’s in the Coming Attractions series 2 subset.  There were a number of players who didn’t have rookie cards in the set – but Mike Piazza, Carlos Delgado, Jeff Kent, Trevor Hoffman, Tim Salmon, Tim Wakefield and Javy Lopez all had their first Topps card in the 1993 set.  Guys with RC’s in other 1993 Topps products that Topps missed out on include Johnny Damon and Andy Pettite.
• Hall of Fame: There are 50 Hall of Famers in this set – an increase of 4 from 1992.  2015 Inductee Pedro Martinez had his first Topps card in the ’93 set.  Tony Perez was hired to replace Lou Piniella as the Reds manager in 1993, and though he was fired 44 games into the season, he got a card.  Later inductees Mike Piazza (prospects card), Trevor Hoffman (Marlins card) and Derek Jeter (Draft Pick – a true RC) all had their first cards.  Goose Gossage was gone after his last card in 1992, even though he pitched over 30 games in both 1993 and 1994.  Deion Sanders, NFL Hall-of-Famer, is again in this set.
• Roberto Alomar, Jeff Bagwell, Harold Baines, Craig Biggio, Bert Blyleven, Wade Boggs, George Brett, Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, Dennis Eckersley, Carlton Fisk, Tom Glavine, Ken Griffey Jr., Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson, Chipper Jones, Randy Johnson. Barry Larkin, Greg Maddux, Edgar Martinez, Fred McGriff, Paul Molitor, Jack Morris, Eddie Murray, Mike Mussina, Kirby Puckett, Tim Raines, Cal Ripken, Ivan Rodriguez, Nolan Ryan, Ryne Sandberg, Lee Smith, Ozzie Smith, John Smoltz, Frank Thomas, Jim Thome, Alan Trammell, Larry Walker, Dave Winfield, Robin Yount, Sparky Anderson (mgr), Bobby Cox (mgr) Tony LaRussa (mgr), Tommy LaSorda (mgr), Joe Torre (mgr), Pedro, Piazza, Hoffman, Jeter, Perez (mgr)
• Variations: None that I know of.
• Active in 2010/2011: Too many to start counting – I’m discontinuing this at this point.

The wax boxes have a blue background for series 1 and a red background for series 2.  There are 2 cards pictured (Yount and Griffey for s1, Canseco and Cal Eldred for s2), above a banner with the words “1993 Topps Major League Baseball Picture Cards Series X”.  The MLB and MLBPA logo is in the bottom, next to an advertisement for the Topps Gold cards.

The odds below are for hobby/wax packs unless noted.

Promo Cards

Topps issued a 9-card promo sheet of the regular cards and inserted 9 promo cards into specially marked 1992 factory sets.

For the 3rd year, Topps issued a card in the ’93 design of the Golden Spikes winner in conjunction with the awards banquet (which was held in November 1992).  The winner for the ’92 banquet was Phil Nevin.

Factory Set

Unlike previous years, Topps issued only one design for its factory sets – there were no longer different sets sold to hobby dealers or retail dealers.  This year’s factory set also included 10 Topps Gold parallel cards and 3 Topps Black Gold cards.  Specially marked factory sets also had a 9-card preview set for 1994 Topps.

Update Sets

Topps again released a 132-card Topps Traded set in factory set form.  There was no Gold parallel set issued this year, and the MLB debut set was discontinued in 1993.

Parallel Set

• Gold – 825 cards (1:1)

Topps again inserted parallel versions into packs with Gold Foil over the player and team name. This year, though, the cards were 1 per pack as opposed to 1 per box.  Again the 6 checklists were replaced with players who weren’t part of the base set.

• Micro – 825 cards (factory)

Topps also produced a “micro” set for the third and final time.  This set was issued in factory form – the cards measure 1″ x 1-3/8″.  There was also a 12-card foil set that paralleled cards of 12 stars included in the factory set.

• Inaugural Marlins issue – 825 cards (factory)
• Inaugural Rockies issue – 825 cards (factory)

Topps issued factory sets that were sold at the team stores of the two expansion teams in 1993.  These factory-only parallels had stamps of each team; there were less than 10,000 of each set printed.

O-Pee-Chee didn’t produce a parallel set for the first time since 1964.

Insert sets

Topps issued its first standard insert set in 1993.  Previous inserts had been exclusive to certain types of packs (i.e., Topps Rookies came in Jumbo packs).  Black Gold was inserted at a rate of 1 every other box in both series.  The series 1 cards are National League players, while Series 2 was American League players.  There were also Winner Cards inserted to mail in for 11 cards, 22 cards, or a full set of the 44 cards.

• Black Gold – 44 cards (1:72)

Promotions

Really none to mention this year.  For the first time there wasn’t a game card inserted into packs.

Other releases associated with the Topps flagship set

#1 – Topps issued a 21-card jumbo set called “Full Shots” that was included in retail re-packs of either Topps or Bowman packs from 1993.

#2 – 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.  They of course did one of the ’52 Mickey Mantle card and quite a few others (I’ve seen a lot of Roberto Clemente cards).  And they did quite a few of current cards in the years released.  I’ve read some things that claim that a full reproduction was done of the 1993 set, but read other things saying that a full parallel being done is very unlikely.  Looking around on eBay seems to support the latter.  But there are certainly quite a few porcelain reproductions from the 1993 set.

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1993 saw the first release of “Super-premium” sets.  Upper Deck issued the slick SP set and Fleer issued super-thick Flair cards.  But the biggest entrant to this market was Topps Finest.  Topps announced its production run – the first time this had ever been done – and collectors were able to extrapolate how many cards were printed of the popular “refractor” parallels.

In addition to the 3 super-premium card sets, Upper Deck issued a new product called “Fun Pack” while Pinnacle issued Score Select as an option in between Score and Pinnacle.  Pinnacle’s dufex printing process debuted in this set.  There were 17 standard products in total between the 5 card companies (not counting different series or update sets as different products).  Upper Deck also issued the first “retro” set I know of – 1994 All-Time Heroes, which was a tribute to the T202 Hassan Triple Folders sets.  This was an all retired set.  O-Pee-Chee issued 2 bilingual sets.

• Topps – Topps, Bowman, Stadium Club, Finest
• Donruss – Triple Play, Donruss, Studio, Leaf
• Fleer – Fleer, Ultra, Flair
• Pinnacle – Score, Select, Pinnacle
• Upper Deck – Fun Pack, Upper Deck, SP, All-Time Heroes
• O-Pee-Chee – O-Pee-Chee, Premier

Topps made a big change by going to 2 series, and an even bigger change by adding gloss and color pictures to the back of the cards.  The photography continued to be very good, something they’d clearly started focusing on starting in 1991.

Personally, 1993 was the year I got back into collecting.  I don’t remember what got me back to collecting – but I started buying as much Upper Deck product as I could at the beginning of 1993.  For a while I was trying to get every Upper Deck card out there, until parallels ruined that thought the next year.

1992 Topps Overview

792 cards in the set – the same since 1982.

• Subsets: Record Breakers (#2-5), #1 Draft picks (26 cards throughout), All-Stars (#386-407), Managers (23 cards throughout), Topps All-Star Rookies (10 cards throughout), and Prospects (9 cards throughout).  The “Future Star” subset was gone – replaced by the 4-player “floating head” Prospect set.  The Draft cards feature the players in their high school / college uniform with “Draft Pick” in the upper right hand corner next to a logo that says “Topps Major League” where the Topps logo is on normal cards.
• Set Design: The set design features a player photo surrounded by two wire-thin colored frames (correlating to the depicted team), which is in turn surrounded by a white border.  The player name is in a box in the bottom left, with team name in a box in the bottom right. shown in a flag at the bottom right of the card, just above the player name.  After a 1-year return, the player’s position is again not shown on the front.  For the first time, Topps printed the cards on white cardstock.  The back of the card the card number and Topps logo in the upper left corner next to the player name, position, biographical information.  Statistics from each season and career totals are presented.  When there is room at the bottom, Topps included a panoramic color picture of the player’s home ballpark and a one-line blurb about the player.
• Packs: Topps increased wax pack prices to 55¢ – though wax packs is a misnomer.  The packs were shaped the same way – folded like a wax pack – but were now made of plastic.  Additionally, this was the first time in the 40-year history of the base set where gum was not included in the packs – a watershed decision for Topps.  As before, there were 36 packs per box and 20 per case.  34-card cello packs increased 10¢ to $1.09.  Rack packs were still 45-cards, and jumbo packs were down from 100 to 90 cards.
• Rookies: There’s a very big RC – Manny Ramirez, who is featured as part of the draft picks subset.  Cliff Floyd, Shawn Green, Moneyball’s Scott Hatteberg and famous #1 overall Yankee bust Brien Taylor also have rookie cards in the draft picks subset.  Jim Thome, Kenny Lofton and Mike Mussina had their first Topps card after being featured in other sets in 1991, while Ivan Rodriguez and Jeff Bagwell had their first Topps base cards after being featured in 1991 Topps Traded.  Topps missed out on a number of guys who did have rookie cards in other sets – Mike Piazza, Mariano Rivera, Trevor Hoffman, Jeff Kent and Carlos Delgado are all potential future Hall of Famers with RC’s in other products.
• Hall of Fame: There are again 46 Hall of Famers in this set – up 4 from the year before.  Frank Robinson was fired as the Orioles manager early in the 1991 season, so he no longer had a card.  Pudge Rodriguez, Jeff Bagwell, Jim Thome and Mike Mussina all had their first flagship (non-Traded) Topps cards in 1992.  Goose Gossage didn’t have a card in 1990 or 1991, but did have a card in the 1992 set (1this was his last Topps card).  It’s kind of weird that Gossage only had 1 card during those years.  He played in Japan in 1990, but other than that he pitched at least 30 games in the Big Leagues ever year up to and including his last season of 1994.  There is again one Pro Football Hall of Famer – Deion Sanders is back after not having a 1991 Topps baseball card.
• Roberto Alomar, Harold Baines, Craig Biggio, Bert Blyleven, Wade Boggs, George Brett, Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, Dennis Eckersley, Carlton Fisk, Tom Glavine, Ken Griffey Jr., Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson, Chipper Jones, Randy Johnson. Barry Larkin, Greg Maddux, Edgar Martinez, Fred McGriff, Paul Molitor, Jack Morris, Eddie Murray, Kirby Puckett, Tim Raines, Cal Ripken, Nolan Ryan, Ryne Sandberg, Lee Smith, Ozzie Smith, John Smoltz, Frank Thomas, Alan Trammell, Larry Walker, Dave Winfield, Robin Yount, Sparky Anderson (mgr), Bobby Cox (mgr) Tony LaRussa (mgr), Tommy LaSorda (mgr), Joe Torre (mgr), Gossage, Bagwell, Rodriguez, Mussina, Thome
• Variations: None that I know of.
• Active in 2010/2011: In addition to Omar Vizquel and Chipper Jones from the previous year, Ivan Rodriguez is still active.  Like Thome, Arthur Rhodes also had his first Topps card after a 1991 Bowman and Upper Deck card.  Manny was both active in 2011, said he was retired, and now says he’s coming back.  Ken Griffey Jr., Jamie Moyer and Brad Ausmus (did you guess that one!) were active in 2010 and have a card in the set.

The blue “wax” box has a picture of a stack of 4 cards at the top.  I’ve seen Rob Dibble, Devon White and Bip Roberts on the front of boxes.  The Topps logo and “Major League Baseball 1992 Picture Cards” is written across a red and yellow diagonal banner below the cards – meaning there’s no “the Real One!” and “Bubble Gum Cards” any more.  The MLB and MLBPA logo is in the bottom, next to an advertisement for the Topps “Match the Stats” sweepstakes.  Topps also abandoned the cards on the bottom of the box.

As always – the odds below are hobby/wax packs unless noted.

Promo Cards

Topps issued a promo sheet of both the regular set and the Gold set.

For the 2nd year, Topps issued a card in the ’92 design of the Golden Spikes winner in conjunction with the awards banquet (which was held in November 1991).  The winner for the ’91 banquet was Mike Kelly.

Factory Set

As in previous years, factory sets were sold to hobby dealers and retailers, and the retail sets came in much more colorful boxes.  This year’s factory set also included 10 Topps Gold parallel cards.  Holiday versions of the retail factory sets had a 9-card preview set for 1993.

Update Sets

Topps again released a 132-card Topps Traded set in factory set form.  There was a Gold parallel factory set issued as well – reportedly 6,000 Gold Update sets were issued.

For the third (and final) time, Topps also released a Major League Debut set in factory form. The set has the same basic design as the flagship set and chronicles the first game of any players who made their ML debut in 1990.

Parallel Set

• Gold – 792 cards (1:36)
• Gold Winners – 792 cards (mail-in)

Almost as a replacement for the Tiffany Sets that were issued from 1984-1991, Topps issued the first version of what we’d consider the modern parallel set (love it or hate it!).  Topps Gold replaced the player and team names at the bottom of the card with gold foil.  These cards came 1 per box, and 10 per factory set.  There was also a factory version of the Gold set.  There were 12,000 Gold factory sets created.  An extra autographed card #793 of #1 pick Brien Taylor was included in these factory sets.  What’s pretty cool about this set – the 6 checklists were replaced with players who weren’t part of the base set.

A 10-pack of Topps Gold Winners set was available by playing the Topps Match-the-Stats game.  The prize was originally intended to be Topps Gold cards, but the game was compromised (see here for a good article explaining it) – and collectors could basically win every time with tricky use of a flashlight.  To protect the scarcity of the 1-per-box Gold cards, Topps added a “winner” stamp to the Gold foil for cards received via the Match-the-Stats game.  The “winner” version also has the 6 new players.

• Micro – 792 cards (factory)

Topps also produced a “micro” set for the second time.  This set was issued in factory form – the cards measure 1″ x 1-3/8″.  New this year was a 12-card gold foil set that paralleled cards of 12 stars from the set.

• O-Pee-Chee – 792 cards

For the last time, Canadian-based O-Pee-Chee issued a bilingual parallel set.  The All-Star cards from the base set were replaced with some other players and a few Gary Carter tribute cards in the O-Pee-Chee set.

Insert sets

Aside from the parallels – Topps actually didn’t have an insert set in any type of pack this year.

Promotions

• Each wax and cello pack contains a Topps “Match-the-Stats” game card.  If you collected 100 total runs from adding up amounts at the bottom of the game card, you could send in for a 10-pack of the Gold Winner cards.  The Gold Winner cards were also the main prize if you scratched off matching stats on a diamond before scratching off an “out”.  You could also win a grand prize of a $100,000 shopping spree at a card show and there were 5 $15,000 shopping sprees as the “first prize”.

Other releases associated with the Topps flagship set

There aren’t really any to mention – Topps was focusing as much or more on its other sets.  Bowman was completely re-done and upgraded in 1992 – this was when it got its “prospecting” focus.  The Stadium club set had 3 series and 900 total cards, and there was also a “Dome” set issued under the Stadium Club brand.

By 1992, competition was really starting to change the landscape of baseball cards.  In 1989, Upper Deck had come in with a premium brand.  As a response, the other 4 card companies had created a premium set to compete.

• Stadium Club (Topps) – first started in 1991
• Pinnacle (Score) – 1992
• Ultra (Fleer) – 1991 {but I don’t think it should be considered premium until 1992}
• Leaf (Donruss) – 1990

Topps also issued Bowman (since 1989), while Donruss/Leaf came out with Studio and Triple Play – new in 1992.  That’s 12 major issues between the 5 card companies, up from 9 the year before.  O-Pee-Chee also issued a licensed bilingual set called Premier.

Topps was also improving its base set to compete – not having the gray card back was a big change over the year before.  The white stock backs look much nicer in my opinion – but also lose that retro feel.  The Gold parallel was a big innovation at the time – though it’s kind of considered the bane of collecting these days.  The photography increased markedly in 1991.  I think it took a small step back in the 1992 set, but it was still much better than it had been in the late ’80s.

I still wasn’t back to collecting in 1992 – though I would be toward the end of the next year.  I don’t even know what got me back to collecting – but whatever it was, it still hadn’t happened yet in 1992.

1991 Topps Overview

792 cards in the set – the same since 1982.

• Subsets: Record Breakers (#2-8), All-Stars (#386-407), Managers (26 cards throughout), Topps All-Star Rookies (10 cards throughout), #1 Draft picks (10 cards throughout), and Future Stars (6 cards throughout).  Topps again included a trophy on cards for the previous year’s Topps ASR team.  The “Future Star” subset has a blue and yellow rectangle at the top with the future star phrase surrounded by stars.  The Draft cards feature the players in their high school / college uniform with “#1 Draft Pick” in the upper right hand corner designating the subset.  The Turn Back the Clock subset was gone after it had been through a 5-year run (and they’d be running repeats if they kept going).
• Set Design: The set design features a player photo surrounded by two thin colored borders (correlating to the depicted team), which is in turn surrounded by a white border.  The team name is shown in a flag at the bottom right of the card, just above the player name.  Back after a 4-year hiatus is the player’s position – shown in the lower left corner.  A special Topps logo celebrating 40 years of baseball is shown in the top left-hand corner of the card.  The back features red and gray cardstock with the card number and Topps logo in the upper left corner next to the player name, position, biographical information.  Statistics from each season and career totals are presented.  When there was room at the bottom, Topps included a player-specific write-up and/or a “Monthly Scoreboard” feature, which listed player statistics by month.  The back also has a backdrop (“watermark”) of the Topps 40 logo.
• Packs: Topps increased prices per card slightly. Wax packs stayed the same price (50¢ SRP), but the number of cards per pack came back down by 1 to 15.  As before, there were 36 packs per box and 20 per case.  34-card cello packs (up from 31 cards) increased a dime (99¢ SRP), while rack packs were now 45-cards (down 1 card as the glossy All-Star cards were now available as a mail-in not as an insert).  Jumbo packs were 101 cards.
• Rookies: There’s a very big RC – but Chipper Jones is really the only rookie card of note from the set.  Topps missed out on Jeff Bagwell on Mike Mussina – both of whom were featured in sets by other companies, and on Ivan Rodriguez and Jim Thome, who were featured in Bowman.  Topps at least got Bagwell and Pudge into their traded set.
• Hall of Fame: There are 42 Hall of Famers in this set, down 2 from the year before.  Jim Rice had his last Topps card, as did Whitey Herzog after retiring from the Cardinals.  Mike Schmidt, Johnny Bench and Sandy Koufax had Turn Back the Clock cards the year before and the subset was discontinued in 1991.  2014 inductees Joe Torre (Cardinals) and Bobby Cox (Braves) were back in the set as they started managing gigs with former teams.  Chipper Jones was in the Draft Pick set (inducted in 2018).
• Roberto Alomar, Harold Baines, Craig Biggio, Bert Blyleven, Wade Boggs, George Brett, Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, Dennis Eckersley, Carlton Fisk, Tom Glavine, Ken Griffey Jr., Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson, Randy Johnson. Barry Larkin, Greg Maddux, Edgar Martinez, Fred McGriff, Paul Molitor, Jack Morris, Eddie Murray, Kirby Puckett, Tim Raines, Cal Ripken, Nolan Ryan, Ryne Sandberg, Lee Smith, Ozzie Smith, John Smoltz, Frank Thomas, Alan Trammell, Larry Walker, Dave Winfield, Robin Yount, Sparky Anderson (mgr), Tony LaRussa (mgr), Tommy LaSorda (mgr), Frank Robinson (mgr), C. Jones, Torre (mgr), Cox (mgr)
• Variations: This set has too many variations to count.  First, a lot of the cards have a bold and non-bold version of the Topps 40th “watermark” logo on the background.  There are different variations of the copyright logo on the back relating to which sheet the card was printed on, and there were a number of statistical corrections as well.  There are a decent number of variations that relate to the color of the internal photo frame (most notably a card of Doug Drabek).  There are 3 variations of a more significant variety.  Keith Comstock’s card was mistakenly printed with a Cubs logo – the correction has him with the Mariners team he is pictured with.  The first version of Wes Chamberlain’s card actually pictures another Phillies youngster – Louie Meadows – at some point this was corrected to show Chamberlain.  Finally, a similar photo error was made for the first version of Jose Gonzalez’s card.  The incorrect picture of left-handed hitting Billy Bean was later corrected to show the right-handed Gonzalez.
• Active in 2010/2011:  Omar Vizquel is still playing in 2011 as is Chipper Jones.  Ken Griffey and Jamie Moyer are the only other players who were active in 2010 and have a card in the set.

The red wax box has a picture of a stack of 4 current year cards next to the “Topps 40” logo, with Bo Jackson’s card on top.  As in the past, the word “Baseball” is written over the words “the Real One!” and “Bubble Gum Cards”.  There is a baseball in the lower right with advertisement for the Topps instant win sweepstakes that was run to celebrate the 40th anniversary.  The bottom of the box has 4 cards in the base set design with season highlights on the back.  Again there were 4 different box options, totaling 16 cards (A through P).

Promo cards

Topps issued a promo sheet of 9 cards – cards showcasing the best photos from the set.

Factory Set

As in previous years, factory sets were sold to hobby dealers and retailers, and the retail “holiday” sets came in much more colorful boxes.

Update Sets

Topps again released a 132-card Topps Traded set in factory set form and in packs.  Dealers who bought a case received a mini bronze replica of Brooks Robinson’s 1957 Topps card.

For the second time, Topps also released a set called Major League Debut in factory set form. The set has the same basic design as the flagship set and chronicles the first game of any players who made their ML debut in 1990.

Parallel Sets

For the 8th and final year, Topps issued a Tiffany variation in factory set form, printed on white cardstock with glossy coating on the front.  This set had the lowest print run in of any other year – less than 5,000.  The 1991 Tiffany set came in a blue box;  Topps also produced a Tiffany parallel for the Traded set.  Issuing the set became irrelevant in 1992 as Topps issued their base set with white cardstock.

Topps printed special edition parallel cards of the 1991 Topps set for armed servicemen in the Persian Gulf.  There is a gold foil Desert Shield logo in the upper right corner of the cards – they were issued in packs and are pretty scarce.

Topps also produced a “micro” set for the first time.  Was this the start of the mini-craze?  Not really when you consider Topps issued mini-cards in 1975 and only issued these for three years.  This set was issued in factory form – the cards measure 1″ x 1-3/8″.

Canadian-based O-Pee-Chee again issued a set that was, for the 2nd time, a full parallel to the Topps base set.  The only way to distinguish were the backs, which had bi-lingual backs (French and English) and were printed on white card stock.

Insert sets

• All-Star Glossy – 22 cards (send-in).  This was the last year for all of these glossy sets – this year’s cards all had the 40th anniversary logo on the card.  This year, as opposed to an insert set, Topps offered these cards by sending in a certain number of rack pack proofs of purchase and a shipping and handling fee.
• Rookies Glossy – 33 cards (1 per jumbo pack).

Promotions

• Each wax and cello pack contains a “Topps Instant Win” game card.  If your card had an “X” next to the word Topps (there is a “C” in the scan below), you were one of 41 instant winners.  The grand prize winner got one set of each of the 40 years of Topps cards.  Good thing I didn’t win in 1991 – I’d have no reason do this blog 🙂  40 other winners received one random set from the last 40 years – bummer if you won and then got 1986 Topps!

• In conjunction with the 40th Anniversary promotion, Topps also inserted one of every single card from the past 40 years (and then some) into packs.  I’ve never pulled one – but the odds were listed at 1:1,000.

Other releases associated with the Topps flagship set

#1 – Topps again created a “Gallery of Champions” set of 12 metal ¼-size replicas of the base cards.  There were still three variations – Aluminum, Bronze and Silver (#’d to 1,000), while there is a pewter Rickey Henderson variant given to dealers who purchased the sets.

#2 – Topps issued an 11-card promotional set of cards to commemorate the NBC Babe Ruth movie in the design of the 1991 set.  This set is particularly significant as it contains the last card of Pete Rose printed by Topps.  Rose played Ty Cobb in the movie and was featured on one of the cards.  I actually ordered one of these sets the other day.

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Topps was starting to do a little more to combat the competition Upper Deck had ushered in 2 years earlier. They still had the cardboard backs, compared to Upper Deck’s photo backs – and they didn’t have inserts of any kind yet.  But the photography was clearly much better in this set than for previous years.  I’ll show more of that in future posts.  Also, they used the 40th anniversary to promote the cards – this is probably the first time Topps overtly used their history as a marketing advantage over its competitors.  In a year where Donruss came out with Donruss Elite inserts as the first serial numbered cards in a mainstream set, Topps still hadn’t jumped on the insert bandwagon (though they did insert old Topps cards as mentioned above).

They’d also started issuing more products – Topps issued Stadium Club, which was a premium product much more on-line with what Upper Deck was doing.  The Bowman name was a throwback to the days when there were 2 card sets around, and Topps Archives reprinted the 1953 set and really started the retro craze that has now become the norm for 4 to 5 sets a year.

I didn’t really buy packs of this set in 1991 – my brother bought some cards from this set later when I was collecting Upper Deck.  It’s cool seeing the set, and it’s much improved photography and catchy design.

1990 Topps Overview

792 cards in the set – the same since 1982.

• Subsets: Ryan Salute (#2-5), Record Breakers (#6-8), #1 Draft picks (10 cards throughout), All-Stars (#385-395, 397-407), Giamatti Tribute (#396), Turn Back the Clock (#661-665), Managers (26 cards throughout), Topps All-Star Rookies (10 cards throughout), and Future Stars (5 cards throughout).  Topps again included a trophy on cards for the previous year’s Topps ASR team.  The “Future Star” subset had a star to the left and the word “Future Star” above the player name.  The Draft cards feature the players in their college uniforms and have a “#1 Draft Pick” in the corner designating the subset.
• Set Design: The set design features a player photo surrounded by a colorful border that can be found in 6 different color combinations.  Dotted designs cover most of the border, with two corners remaining a solid color.  The player name appears in a rhombus at the bottom right hand corner.  The team name is written in block letters in the top left, with the Topps logo in one of the right-hand corners.  For the 4th straight year and the 6th time overall, Topps did not present the player’s position on the face of the card.  The back features yellow-green cardstock with the card number in the upper left corner next to the player name, position, biographical information and Topps logo.  Statistics from each season and career totals are presented.  When there was room at the bottom, Topps included a player-specific write-up and/or a “Monthly Scoreboard” feature, which listed player statistics by month.
• Packs: Topps increased prices per card slightly. Wax packs now had 16 cards (instead of 15), and the price increased a nickel (50¢ SRP). As before, there were 36 packs per box and 20 per case.  31-card cello packs (up from 28 cards) increased a dime (89¢ SRP), while rack packs were now 46-cards (up from 43) and cost $1.49.  Jumbo packs and Blister packs (exclusive to K-Mart) were still 101 cards, and probably ran for $2.99.
• Rookies: Frank Thomas and Sammy Sosa are the two biggest rookie cards from the set.  Other key rookie cards include Larry Walker, Juan Gonzalez and Bernie Williams.  Albert Belle, Curt Schilling and Edgar Martinez had their first Topps cards in this set after Schilling had a card in 1989 Donruss and Belle had cards in a couple 1989 update sets.
• Hall of Fame: There are 44 Hall of Famers in this set, the same as the year before.  Reliever Bruce Sutter had his last card in 1989, and Goose Gossage didn’t have a card in 1990 or 1991 – though he did have one more Topps card in 1992.  Mike Schmidt had his last base card in 1989, but he was featured in a Turn Back the Clock card in 1990.  Hank Aaron and Lou Brock no longer had TBC cards, but Johnny Bench and Sandy Koufax did.  Frank Thomas had his first card in this set, and after making the HOF in 2013, he helps offset the loss of Goose and Sutter.  Former Mariners teammates Ken Griffey Jr. and Edgar Martinez as well as Larry Walker would also make it further down the line.  Deion Sanders is also in the set – he’s a pro football Hall of Famer!
• Roberto Alomar, Harold Baines, Craig Biggio, Bert Blyleven, Wade Boggs, George Brett, Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, Dennis Eckersley, Carlton Fisk, Tom Glavine, Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson, Randy Johnson. Barry Larkin, Greg Maddux, Fred McGriff, Paul Molitor, Jack Morris, Eddie Murray, Kirby Puckett, Tim Raines, Jim Rice, Cal Ripken, Nolan Ryan, Ryne Sandberg, Lee Smith, Ozzie Smith, John Smoltz, Alan Trammell, Dave Winfield, Robin Yount, Sparky Anderson (mgr), Whitey Herzog (mgr), Tony LaRussa (mgr), Tommy LaSorda (mgr), Frank Robinson (mgr), Thomas, Griffey Jr., Martinez, Walker Bench (TBC), Koufax (TBC), Schmidt (TBC)
• Variations: A small number of cards were mistakenly printed without black ink on the front, leading them to have no name on the front (NNOF variations).  The Frank Thomas RC is one of these cards, and it has become the most famous and most valuable error card in modern sports card history.
• Active in 2010/2011: After 3 years as the lone player active in 2010, we now actually have a player still active in 2011 – that would be Omar Vizquel.  Ken Griffey and Jamie Moyer are the only other players who were active in 2010 and have a card in the set.

The green wax box has a picture of a stack of 3 current year cards, with a young Ken Griffey Jr. on top.  As in the past, to the lower left of the cards is the “Topps” logo and a banner “Baseball” written hovering over the words “the Real one!” and “Bubble Gum Cards”.  The bottom of the box has 4 cards in the base set design with season highlights on the back.  There are 4 different box options, totaling 16 cards (A through P).

Factory Set

Like the previous 3 years, factory sets were sold to hobby dealers and retailers, and the retail “holiday” sets came in much more colorful boxes.

Update Sets

Topps again released a 132-card Topps Traded set in factory set form.  Dealers who bought a case received a mini bronze replica of Hank Aaron’s 1954 Topps card.

For the first time, Topps also released a set called Major League Debut in factory set form. The set has the same basic design as the flagship set and chronicles the first game of any players who made their ML debut in 1989.  The set was available in factory set form.

Parallel Set

For the 7th year, Topps issued a Tiffany variation in factory set form, printed on white cardstock with glossy coating on the front.  The 1990 Tiffany set came in a red box and had a production of 15,000 sets.  Topps also produced a Tiffany parallel for the Traded set.

Canadian-based O-Pee-Chee again issued a set that was, for the first time, an identical parallel to the Topps set.  The only thing to distinguish these cards is the bi-lingual backs (French and English).

Insert sets

• All-Star Glossy – 22 cards (1 per rack pack)
• Rookies Glossy – 33 cards (1 per jumbo pack).  The set size increased 11 cards for this set.  Topps also did a test set where a foil strip with the Topps logo.
• Batting Leaders – 22 cards (1 per K-Mart blister pack)
• Glossy “All-Star and Hot Prospects” – 60 cards (send-in).  By mailing in 6 of the game cards and $1.25, collectors could send in 6 of these cards to get 10 cards out of this set.  For 18 special offer cards and $7.50, collectors could get the full 60-card set.  This was the last year Topps issued this set.

Promotions

• Each wax and cello pack contains a “Spring Fever Baseball” game card.  Grand prize winners could again win a trip to any Spring Training site for the next season.

Other releases associated with the Topps flagship set

#1 – Topps again created a “Gallery of Champions” set of 12 metal ¼-size replicas of the base cards.  There were still three variations – Aluminum, Bronze and Silver (#’d to 1,000), while there is a pewter Nolan Ryan variant given to dealers who purchased the sets.

#2 – A full size bronze reproduction of Ryan’s 1990 Topps card (#1 from the set) was given to the first 2,500 dealers who ordered Tiffany sets.

#3 – Topps again issued a “Double Headers” set available in packs that came 36 packs per box.  These sets were 2-sided miniature cards (1-5/8 x 2-1/4) with a reproduction of the 1990 card on one side and the player’s first Topps card on the other side.  The set was tripled to 72 cards.

#4 – Topps produced 6 experimental Mylar stickers of cards from the Traded set; these were early test runs of the refractor technology.  Joe Carter and Dave Winfield are the two most notable names in the set.

#5 – As a favor to then President George Bush, Topps printed and presented him with about 100 cards of him in the 1990 design with a picture of him from his playing days at Yale.  Apparently his grandchildren didn’t understand why he didn’t have a baseball card even though he had played for 2 seasons in college.  Some of these cards made it to the open market, supposedly a very small few even got inserted into packs on accident.  The card is exactly like the design from the base set, and has Bush’s statistics from his 2 years at Yale.  His team is listed as “USA”.  Until looking at this card, I hadn’t realized that Bush had gone to Yale AFTER his stint as a war hero in WWII, though I guess that makes sense with the GI Bill.  Also, it looks like “41” definitely improved in his 2nd season at Yale.  I can’t wait ’til they reprint these for the 2039 Heritage set!

Upper Deck came out with a superior product in 1989 and upped the game even more in 1990 with the Reggie Jackson Heroes insert set, and more importantly, the autograph chase card.  Also, Donruss came out with its second set, Leaf – a premium set to compete with Upper Deck.

Topps responded by… increasing the price per pack and not doing much for quality.  They did drastically change the design, but the photography is worse than sets they’d come out with 20+ years earlier.

I don’t really remember buying packs of 1990 Topps – and I definitely didn’t collect Upper Deck until 1993.  I do remember the 1990 Topps design, I just didn’t buy much of it, I guess. I still loved baseball in the 3+ years when I stopped collecting – in fact, I became more of a fan.  I added Rickey Henderson and eventually Ken Griffey Jr. next to Eric Davis as my favorite players.  And the Reds won the World Series, so that made me follow the sport even more.  I guess I just didn’t do so through the cardboard option at the time.

1989 Topps Overview

Note that I had to “cheat” for the first time on my standard picture with the Topps Wax Pack next to a Griffey from that year.  Despite playing in 94 games in 1988, Ken Griffey Sr. was not included in the 1989 Topps base set.  However, he was included in the Traded set after his release by the Braves and signing with the Reds in August of 1988.  Junior’s first Topps card was in the same Traded set.  I realize it’s a little inconsistent, but I wanted to keep my string of Griffey showing the base design next to the wax pack.  I’m hosed once I get all the way up to the current year.

792 cards in the set – the same since 1982.

• Subsets: Record Breakers (#1-7), All-Stars (#386-407), Turn Back the Clock (#661-665), Team Leaders (26 cards throughout), Managers (26 cards throughout), Topps All-Star Rookies (10 cards throughout), Future Stars (5 cards throughout), and #1 Draft Picks (10 cards throughout, new).  Topps again included a trophy on cards for the previous year’s Topps ASR team.  The “Future Star” subset had block letters at the top of the card.  The #1 Draft Pick cards feature the players in their college uniforms and have a stamp designating the subset.
• Set Design: The set design features a player photo surrounded by a thin colored frame rounded at the upper left and lower right with a white border.  The player name appears in a curved banner at the bottom right beneath the team name, with the Topps logo in the lower somewhere against the background.  For the 3rd straight year and the 5th time overall (’52, ’72, ’87, ’88), Topps did not present the player’s position on the face of the card.  The back featured red cardstock with the card number in the upper left corner next to the player name and position. Biographical information was listed just below the player name, while statistics from each season and career totals are presented.  When there was room at the bottom, Topps included a player-specific tidbit and a “Monthly Scoreboard” feature, which listed player statistics by month.
• Packs: Topps increased prices to about 3¢ per card. 15-card wax packs increased a nickel (45¢ SRP) came 36 packs per box and 20 per case.  28-card cello packs increased a dime (79¢ SRP), while rack packs were 43-cards (likely $1.29 now), and jumbo packs increased to 101 cards (my guess is these were $2.99).   New this year were 101-card blister packs available only at K-Mart.
• Rookies: Randy Johnson and Gary Sheffield are the key rookie cards from this set – these players had no update cards in 1988.  If you don’t count XRC’s from update sets – Craig Biggio, John Smoltz, Robin Ventura, Jim Abbott also have rookie cards in their set.  Roberto Alomar also had his first Topps base card after being featured in the ’88 Traded set.  Tino Martinez (Bowman), Curt Schilling Omar Vizquel had RC’s in other sets, but Ken Griffey Jr. was their biggest miss.  They did get him and Vizquel into the Traded set.
• Hall of Fame: There are 44 Hall of Famers in this set, up 2 from the year before.  300-game winner Don Sutton retired in August 1988.  Another 300-game winner, Phil Niekro, had been featured on a record breaker card with his brother in 1988, and Dick Williams was fired as manager of the Mariners halfway through the 1988 season.  Ted Simmons also retired after 1988.  All 4 had their last card in the 1988 set.  Red Schoendienst was also gone from the set after being included in the 1988 set on the Cardinals Team Leader card (he was a coach for the team).  Turn Back the Clock cards of Stan Musial and Bob Gibson were replaced by TBC’s of Lou Brock, Hank Aaron, Gil Hodges and Tony Oliva.  Frank Robinson was back in this set as a manager for the Orioles.  Roberto Alomar, John Smoltz, Randy Johnson and Craig Biggio all had their first Topps cards in this set.
• Harold Baines, Bert Blyleven, Wade Boggs, George Brett, Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, Dennis Eckersley, Carlton Fisk, Tom Glavine, Goose Gossage, Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson, Barry Larkin, Greg Maddux, Fred McGriff, Paul Molitor, Jack Morris, Eddie Murray, Kirby Puckett, Tim Raines, Jim Rice, Cal Ripken, Nolan Ryan, Ryne Sandberg, Mike Schmidt, Lee Smith, Ozzie Smith, Bruce Sutter, Alan Trammell, Dave Winfield, Robin Yount, Sparky Anderson (mgr), Whitey Herzog (mgr), Tony LaRussa (mgr), Tommy LaSorda (mgr), Alomar, Smoltz, Johnson, Biggio, Robinson (mgr), Brock (TBC), Aaron (TBC), Hodges (TBC), Oliva (TBC)
• Variation: Tony Oliva’s “”Turn Back the Clock” card has a somewhat notable (formerly valuable) variation where the copyright line is not included.  This was fixed very early in the printing process.
• Active in 2010/2011: For the third year in a row, Jamie Moyer was the only player in the set still active in 2010.  Moyer was card #36 in this set.  That’s again 1/792, or 0.1% for 1989.

The blue wax box has a picture of a stack of the current year cards, with ’88 MVP Jose Canseco’s card at the top.  To the lower left of the cards is the “Topps” logo and a banner “Baseball” written hovering over the words “the Real one!” and “Bubble Gum Cards”.  The bottom of the box has 4 cards in the base set design with season highlights on the back.  There are 4 different box options, totaling 16 cards (A through P).

Factory Set

Like the previous 2 years, factory sets were sold to hobby dealers and retailers, and the retail “holiday” sets came in much more colorful boxes.

Update Set

Topps again released a 132-card Topps Traded set in factory set form.

Parallel Set

For the 6th year, Topps issued a Tiffany variation in factory set form, printed on white cardstock with glossy coating on the front.  The 1989 Tiffany set came in a blue box and had a production of 15,000 sets.  Topps also released a Tiffany version for the Traded set.

Canadian-based O-Pee-Chee again issued a set that was a partial parallel to the Topps base set.  Each of the cards in the 396-card set had the same design and photographs as the Topps set, with lighter card stock and bi-lingual backs (French and English).  Again, no subset cards were included.

Insert sets

• All-Star Glossy – 22 cards (1 per rack pack)
• Rookies Glossy – 22 cards (1 per jumbo pack)
• Batting Leaders – 22 cards (1 per K-Mart blister pack)
• Glossy “All-Star and Hot Prospects” – 60 cards (send-in).  By mailing in 6 of the game cards and $1.25, collectors could send in 6 of these cards to get 10 cards out of this set.  For 18 special offer cards and $7.50, collectors could get the full 60-card set.

Promotions

• Each wax and cello pack contains a “Spring Fever Baseball” game card.  Grand prize winners could again win a trip to any Spring Training site for the next season.
• Some of the game cards advertised the Topps Company Store – collectors could buy T-shirts or sweatshirts with the Topps logo, or a binder with pictures of older Topps cards.

Other releases associated with the Topps flagship set

#1 – Topps again created a “Gallery of Champions” set of 12 metal ¼-size replicas of the base cards.  There were still three variations – Aluminum, Bronze and Silver (#’d to 1,000), while there is a pewter Jose Canseco variant given to dealers who purchased the sets.

#2 – Topps issued two 24-card sets called “Double Headers” available in packs that came a full set via 24 packs per box.  These sets were 2-sided miniature cards (1-5/8 x 2-1/4) with a reproduction of the 1989 card on one side and the player’s first Topps card on the other side.  Topps issued an All-Star set and a Mets/Yankees set.  Topps issued proof versions of 4 Yankees and 4 Mets that had the ’88 card instead of the ’89 set.

#3 – Topps worked with LJN Toy Company to produce “Baseball Talk” cards.  This set of 164 cards had 163 players and a checklist.  The larger cards were 3-1/4 x 5-1/4 and came 4 per pack, retailing at $4.  The set contains both current and retired players. The current players were featured on a card with the 1989 design, while the retired player cards had a replica of an older Topps card bordered by the ’89 Topps “wave” design.  Collectors could purchase a hand-held player and hear a 2-minute blurb about the featured player.

#4 – Topps again super-sized and reproduced some base cards in conjunction with Shaeffer Eaton into 9-1/2 x 11-3/4 “Sports Shots portfolios”.  This year there were only 39 “portfolios” reproduced, down from 130 the year before.

I would say this is a notable year in the Hobby – the biggest competition Topps had ever seem came out with its first set.  Upper Deck’s inaugural 1989 set sold for $1 a pack, which was unheard of at the time.  It featured higher quality paper stock, sealed tamper-proof packs, a hologram on the back to discourage counterfeiting.  Most importantly, the design was considered superior to anything else the hobby had seen, and the first card of the set was a close-up of Griffey Jr. that has become a classic in today’s collecting world.  For good or bad, Upper Deck’s ingenuity started change in the collecting world.

I remember buying packs and having a lot of cards from this set, but I stopped collecting at 9 years old, somewhere midway through 1989, and didn’t pick it back up until 1993.  I do remember buying these cards, but even though 1989 was the first year Upper Deck got into the fold, I didn’t really know much about Upper Deck until my second foray into collecting.  I still loved baseball in the 3+ years in between (and particularly became a fan of Ken Griffey), but I just remember Upper Deck from commercials when they came out.

1988 Topps Overview

792 cards in the set – the same since 1982.

• Subsets: Record Breakers (#1-7), All-Stars (#386-407), Turn Back the Clock (#661-665), Team Leaders (26 cards throughout), Managers (26 cards throughout), Topps All-Star Rookies (10 cards throughout), and Future Stars (8 cards throughout).  For the 2nd year in a row, Topps included a trophy on cards for the previous year’s Topps ASR team.  “Future stars” was also back for its 2nd year, in italics displayed across the bottom of the based cards.
• Set Design: Player photo surrounded by a thin colored frame and a white border. The player name appears in a diagonal colored strip across the bottom right-hand corner, with the Topps logo in the lower left corner.  The team name is in capital block letters at the top of the card.  For 2nd straight year and only the 4th time overall (1952, 1972, 1987), Topps did not present the player’s position on the face of the card.  The back featured orange and gray cardstock with the card number in the upper left corner next to the player name, position and biographical information.  Statistics from each season and career totals are presented.  When there’s room at the bottom, Topps included a player-specific tidbit and a feature called “This way to the clubhouse”, which describes how the player got to his current team.
• Packs: Topps kept prices the same but decreased cards per pack compared to the previous year.  They came back down from 17 to 15-card wax packs (still 40¢ SRP) that came 36 packs per box and 20 per case.  Cello packs came down from 31 cards to 28-card packs (still 69¢ SRP), 49 cards became 43-card rack packs, and 91-card jumbo packs had 10 fewer cards in them.
• Rookies: Tom Glavine and Matt Williams are the notable rookie cards in this set – though Williams had been featured in the ’87 Traded set.  Greg Maddux and Fred McGriff also had their first Topps base cards since being featured in the ’87 Traded set.
• Hall of Fame: There are 42 Hall of Famers in this set, down 1 from the year before.  300-game winners Steve Carlton and Tom Seaver had their last cards the year before, as did 500-HR club member Reggie Jackson.  Carlton was apparently slated to be included in the set – there is an error checklist card listing him as #455.  Carlton pitched 4 games for the World Champion Twins in 1988, however, he was released at the end of April.  Earl Weaver and Yogi Berra were gone after being part of the 1987 Topps set; Weaver had retired (again) following the 1986  season, and “coach” Berra had been featured on the Astros Team Leaders card.  Red Schoendienst was in the set the same way Berra was the year before – as the Cardinals coach he made it into onto the Team Leader card.  Turn Back the Clock cards of Yaz and Clemente were replaced by 2 Cardinal HOF-ers – Stan Musial and Bob Gibson.  Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine (2014 inductees) and Fred McGriff (2023) had their first flagship Topps cards in 1988.
• Harold Baines, Bert Blyleven, Wade Boggs, George Brett, Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, Dennis Eckersley, Carlton Fisk, Goose Gossage, Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson, Barry Larkin, Paul Molitor, Jack Morris, Eddie Murray, Phil Niekro (RB only), Kirby Puckett, Tim Raines, Jim Rice, Cal Ripken, Nolan Ryan, Ryne Sandberg, Mike Schmidt, Ted Simmons, Lee Smith, Ozzie Smith, Bruce Sutter, Don Sutton, Alan Trammell, Dave Winfield, Robin Yount, Sparky Anderson (mgr), Whitey Herzog (mgr), Tony LaRussa (mgr), Tommy LaSorda (mgr), Dick Williams (mgr), Schoendienst (TL), Musial (TBC), Gibson (TBC), Maddux, Glavine, McGriff
• Variation: The Al Leiter “Future Star” card #18 had a variation – Topps initially put another Yankees pitcher (Steve George) on the card and later fixed the error.
• Active in 2010/2011: There was again one player from this set still active in 2010.  Jamie Moyer’s RC was the year before, and was card #36 in this set.  That’s again 1/792, or 0.1% for 1988.

The red and yellow wax box has a picture of a stack of the current year cards, with Don Mattingly’s card (2nd Yankee in a row) at the top.  To the lower left of the cards is the “Topps” logo and a banner “Baseball” written hovering over the words “the Real one!” and “Bubble Gum Cards”.  The bottom of the box has 4 cards in the base set design with season highlights on the back.  There are 4 different box options, totaling 16 cards (A through P).

Factory Set

Like the previous 2 years, factory sets were sold to hobby dealers and retailers, and the retail “holiday” sets came in much more colorful boxes.

Update Set

Topps again released a 132-card Topps Traded set in factory set form.

Parallel Set

For the 5th year, Topps issued a Tiffany variation in factory set form, printed on white cardstock with glossy coating on the front.  The 1988 Tiffany set came in a green box and had a production of 25,000 sets.  Topps also issued a Tiffany version of the Traded set.

Canadian-based O-Pee-Chee again issued a set that was a partial parallel to the Topps base set.  Each of the cards in the 396-card set had the same design and photographs as the Topps set, with lighter card stock and bi-lingual backs (French and English).  Again, no subset cards were included – however, in 1988, there was a 4-card subset unique to O-Pee-Chee.  This is the first time I know of that O-Pee-Chee had cards of players not in the Topps set.  The OPC only subset included cards of the Blue Jays and Expos top draft picks (Delino DeShields, Nathan Minchey, Derek Bell and Alex Sanchez).

Insert Sets

• All-Star Glossy set – 22 cards (1 per rack pack)
• Rookies Glossy set – 22 cards (1 per jumbo pack)
• Glossy “All-Star and Hot Prospects” set – 60 cards (send-in).  By mailing in 6 of the “Spring Fever” game cards and $1.25, collectors could send in 6 of these cards to get 10 cards out of this set.  For 18 special offer cards and $7.50, collectors could get the full 60-card set.

Promotions

• Each wax and cello pack contains a “Spring Fever Baseball” game card.  This was the 3rd straight year where the grand prize winners could win a trip to any Spring Training site for the next season.
• Some of the game cards advertised the Topps Company Store – collectors could buy T-shirts or sweatshirts with the Topps logo, or a binder with pictures of older Topps cards.

Other releases associated with the Topps flagship set

#1 – Topps again created a “Gallery of Champions” set of 12 metal ¼-size replicas of the base cards.  There were still three variations – Aluminum, Bronze and Silver (#’d to 1,000), while there is a pewter Mark McGwire variant given to dealers who purchased the sets.

#2 – Topps released a test issue called “Topps Cloth”.  This was an experimental release of 121 cards from the base set printed on textured paper, similar to higher-quality paper towels.  These cards were pretty rare, and the stars fetch a pretty penny today.

#3 – Topps super-sized and reproduced 130 of their cards into 9-1/2 x 11-3/4 “Sports Shots portfolios”.  These  “portfolios” were jumbo folders marketed toward school kids.  I remember having the Andre Dawson, Eric Davis and Ripken.

Though not nearly as notable a year in the Hobby as 1989 would prove to be, Topps did see some new competition in 1988.  The first cards under the “Score” brand were released by Optigraphics, the company that had been producing Sportflics.  While Sportflics was viewed as a novelty, Score was a direct competitor to Topps, Donruss and Fleer.  Additionally, Score had upped the ante in quality as the first card set with color pictures on the reverse.

1987 was the first set I bought packs for, but I remember this set more than any other.  I remember endless days of sorting this set.  I’d organize the set by team, by number.  I particularly remember sorting the cards into who was an All-Star that year – since I attended the ’88 Summer Classic at Riverfront Stadium.  This seems like the middle of the junk was era to me – ’87 to ’90 seem the be the pinnacle of overproduction.  Regardless, probably due to the memories, this is undoubtedly my favorite Topps set.

1987 Topps Overview

792 cards in the set – the same since 1982.

• Subsets: Record Breakers (#1-7), Turn Back the Clock (#311-315), All-Stars (#595-616), Team Leaders (26 cards throughout), Managers (26 cards throughout), Topps All-Star Rookies (10 cards throughout), and Future Stars (6 cards throughout).  The inclusion of a trophy on cards for the previous year’s Topps ASR team returned for the first time since 1978.  “Future stars” was displayed across the bottom of the based cards for this new subset.
• Set design: A throwback to the 1962 Topps set, with wood-grain borders and the team logo within a circle in the upper-left corner.   The player name is in a colored box across the bottom, with the Topps logo next to it in the lower left corner.  The player’s position did not appear on the face of the card for the first time since the 1972 set.  The gray, yellow and blue card backs feature the player name and card number in the upper left corner, next to player name and position. Stats from each season and career totals are presented.  If there’s room, player-specific information and/or an “On This Date” fact is shown at the bottom, just above the player’s bio.
• Packs: Cards were issued in 17 card wax packs (40¢ SRP) that came 36 packs per box and 20 per case.  Also available were 31 card cello packs (59¢ SRP), 49-card rack packs, and 101-card jumbo packs (new in ’87).
• Rookies: The most significant rookie cards include Barry Bonds, Barry Larkin, and Rafael Palmeiro.  Bo Jackson, Bobby Bonilla and Will Clark also have rookie cards in the set.  Larkin and Palmeiro are rookie cards in the truest sense – Bonds, Bonilla, Clark and Bo all had XRCs the year before.  Jose Canseco has his first Topps base card set, and Mark McGwire has his first Topps card since he was featured as a member of the US Olympic team in the 1985 set.  Donruss had the lone RC of Greg Maddux in a 1987 regular (not update) set.
• Hall of Fame: There are 43 Hall of Famers in this set, down 2 from the year before.  Rod Carew and Rollie Fingers hung up their cleats in 1985, and Tony Perez retired in 1986 but did not have a card in the ‘87 set.  Bobby Cox was temporarily gone as he was no longer the Blue Jays manager.  Barry Larkin’s rookie card replaced Perez so there’s still a Reds Hall of Famer!  Yogi Berra was coach of the Astros and was featured on their Team Leaders card (and yes, I count that).  The Turn Back the Clock cards of Frank Robinson and Willie Mays were replaced by cards of 2 more HOF-ers – Carl Yastrzemski and Roberto Clemente.
• Harold Baines, Bert Blyleven, Wade Boggs, George Brett, Steve Carlton, Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, Dennis Eckersley, Carlton Fisk, Goose Gossage, Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson, Reggie Jackson, Paul Molitor, Jack Morris, Eddie Murray, Phil Niekro, Kirby Puckett, Tim Raines, Jim Rice, Cal Ripken, Nolan Ryan, Ryne Sandberg, Mike Schmidt, Tom Seaver, Ted Simmons, Lee Smith, Ozzie Smith, Bruce Sutter, Don Sutton, Alan Trammell, Dave Winfield, Robin Yount, Sparky Anderson (mgr), Whitey Herzog (mgr), Tony LaRussa (mgr), Tommy LaSorda (mgr), Dick Williams (mgr), Weaver (mgr), Larkin, Berra (TL), Yastrzemski (TBC), Clemente (TBC)
• New Feature on this write-up!!!! There is one player still active in 2010 (meaning he played at least one game in 2010) with a card from this set. Jamie Moyer’s RC with the Cubs is card #227. That’s 1/792, or 0.1%. I’ll track this trend over the next decade of sets or so.

The yellow and green wax box has a picture of a stack of the current year cards, with Dave Righetti’s (BOOM!) card at the top (In all fairness to Mr. Righetti, he had just broken the single season saves record). Below the card is the “Topps” logo and a banner with the words “Baseball” on top of a yellow ribbon and “the Real one!”. The bottom of the box has 2 cards resembling the base set with career highlights on the back. There are 4 different box options, so in total there are 8 cards (A through H).

Factory Set

Like the previous year, factory sets were sold to hobby dealers and retailers, and the retail “holiday” sets came in much more colorful boxes.

Update Set

Topps again released a 132-card Topps Traded set in factory set form.

Parallel Set

For the 4th year, Topps issued a Tiffany variation in factory set form, printed on white cardstock with glossy coating on the front.  The 1987 Tiffany set came in a violet box and had a production of 30,000 sets, much greater than previous years.  Topps also issued a Tiffany version of the Traded set.

Canadian-based O-Pee-Chee again issued a set that was a partial parallel to the Topps base set.  Each of the cards in the 396-card set had the same design and photographs as the Topps set, with lighter card stock and bi-lingual backs (French and English).  Again, no subset cards were included.

Promotions

• Each wax pack contains a “Spring Fever Baseball” game card where grand prize winners could win a trip to any Spring Training site for the next season.
• Again, for $2 + 60¢ S&H, you could send in for 10 “Official Topps Sports Card Collectors Sheets”; these are 9-card sheets to store your cards, similar to what Ultra-Pro makes today.

Insert sets

• Glossy “All-Star and Hot Prospects” – 60 cards (send-in).  By sending in 6 of the “Spring Fever” game-cards and $1, collectors could send in 6 of these cards and $1 for one of six 10-card “All-Star and Hot Prospects” Glossy sets.
• All-Star Glossy – 22 cards (1 per rack pack)
• Rookies Glossy – 22 cards (1 per jumbo pack)

Other releases associated with the Topps flagship set

#1 – Topps again created a “Gallery of Champions” set of 12 metal ¼-size replicas of the base cards. There were still three variations – Bronze and Silver and Aluminum, while there is a pewter Jose Canseco variant given to dealers who purchased the set.

This was the first set I really collected. I’m guessing I started in the middle of 1987 – because I definitely had more 1988 cards than anything else. I probably collected part of the year in 1987, all of ’88, and then some during 1989. I owned the ’86 Topps set, but it had been purchased as a full set, not to be played with like the wood grain 1987 set. Pete Rose had his last “player card” from this set, so this made it kind of cool for Reds fans. Eric Davis was becoming an All-Star, Dave Parker was still one, and it was Larkin’s first card, so this is a pretty good set for Reds fans. This seems to be a love-hate set for collectors; I fall in the “really like” it category. I certainly like it way more than the 1986 set, and I really like the wood-grain design. The 1988 set is probably my favorite for nostalgic reasons, but this set is up there too.

1986 Topps Overview

An overview of the 1986 Topps set:

• 792 cards in the set – the same since 1982.
• Subsets: Pete Rose Tribute (#2-7), Record Breakers (#201-207), Turn Back the Block (#401-405), All-Stars (#701-722), Team Leaders (26 cards throughout) and Managers (26 cards throughout).  The Rose tribute cards show a retrospective of each of his previous base Topps card since his rookie card.  Turn Back the Clock shows Topps cards of players with significant seasons 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 years previously.
• Set Design: This set represented a significant design change from previous years; the card fronts feature a black and white split border.  The team name in block letter / team colors featured across the black top border.  The Topps logo appears in the upper right-hand corner, the position is shown in a circle in the lower left-hand corner, and the player name appears across the bottom.  The red card backs feature a darker black die than previous years and features the player name and card number in the upper left-hand corner, next to player bio and stats from each season and career totals.  If there’s room, player-specific information or a “Talkin’ Baseball” fact is shown at the bottom.
• Packs: Cards were issued in 15 card wax packs (35¢ SRP) that came 36 packs per box and 20 per case.  Also available in 49-card rack packs, 42-card grocery rack packs, and 28 card cello packs (59¢ SRP).
• Rookies: The aren’t any really significant rookie cards in the set; Cecil Fielder and Lenny Dykstra are the most notable.  Topps didn’t do so well here compared to their competitors – Jose Canseco had a card in the Donruss set by himself and a 2-player card in the Fleer set.  Andres Galarraga, Fred McGriff and Paul O’Neill also had RC’s in other products.
• Hall of Fame: There are 45 Hall of Famers in this set, the same as the year before.  Yogi Berra and Joe Torre were ousted as managers, and Joe Morgan had retired.  Earl Weaver was re-hired as the Orioles skipper, and the new Turn Back the Clock subset had cards of Frank Robinson from 1966 and Willie Mays from 1971.
• Harold Baines, Bert Blyleven, Wade Boggs, George Brett, Rod Carew, Steve Carlton, Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, Dennis Eckersley, Rollie Fingers, Carlton Fisk, Goose Gossage, Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson, Reggie Jackson, Paul Molitor, Jack Morris, Eddie Murray, Phil Niekro, Tony Perez, Kirby Puckett, Tim Raines, Jim Rice, Cal Ripken, Nolan Ryan, Ryne Sandberg, Mike Schmidt, Tom Seaver, Ted Simmons, Lee Smith, Ozzie Smith, Bruce Sutter, Don Sutton, Alan Trammell, Dave Winfield, Robin Yount, Sparky Anderson (mgr), Bobby Cox (mgr), Whitey Herzog (mgr), Tony LaRussa (mgr), Tommy LaSorda (mgr), Dick Williams (mgr), Weaver (mgr), Robinson (TBC), Mays (TBC)
• Variations: There is no card #171 or #51; there are 2 cards #’d 141 and #57.
• Last Active Player: Just like 1985 – this depends on what you count.  Julio Franco (last regular season game – 9/17/07) and Roger Clemens (9/16/07, last postseason game – 10/7/07) were the last players with a card in this set.

The yellow wax box has a picture of a stack of the current year cards, with card #1, Pete Rose at the top. Below the card is the “Topps” logo and a banner with the words “Baseball” on top of a blue square.  Below that are the words “the Real one”.  The bottom of the box has 4 cards resembling the base set.  There are 4 different options, so in total there are 16 cards, “numbered” A-P.

Factory Set

For the first time, factory sets were sold to hobby dealers.  The retail sets, also known as the “holiday” sets due to their time of release, came in much more colorful boxes than the hobby versions, which are descriptive, though not colorful.

Update Set

Topps again released a 132-card Topps Traded set in factory set form.

Parallel Set

For the 3rd year, Topps issued a Tiffany variation in factory set form, printed on white cardstock with glossy coating on the front.  The 1986 Tiffany again had production of 5,000 sets.  Topps also issued a Tiffany version of the Traded set.

Canadian-based O-Pee-Chee again issued a set that was a partial parallel to the Topps base set.  Each of the cards in the 396-card set had the same design and photographs as the Topps set, with lighter card stock and bi-lingual backs (French and English).  Again, no subset cards were included.

Promotions

• Each wax pack contains a “Spring Fever Baseball” game card where grand prize winners could win a trip to any Spring Training site for the next season.
• Again, for $2 + 60¢ S&H, you could send in for 10 “Official Topps Sports Card Collectors Sheets”; these are 9-card sheets to store your cards, similar to what Ultra-Pro makes today.

Insert Sets

• All-Star Glossy – 22 cards (1 per rack pack).
• Glossy “All-Star and Hot Prospects” – 60 cards (send-in).  By mailing in 6 of the cards and $1, collectors could send in 6 of these cards and $1 for one of six 10-card subsets of this set.  The set increased from 40 to 60 cards this year to include Hot Prospects.

Other releases associated with the Topps flagship

#1 – For the 3rd year, Topps created a set of 12 metal 1/4 size replicas of base cards, again called “Gallery of Champions”. There were now three variations of these cards – Bronze and Silver and (new) Aluminum, while there is a pewter Don Mattingly variant given to dealers who purchased the set.

#2 – Topps also produced a 60-card Super set again (4-7/8 x 6-7/8). The 60 cards differ from the base cards only in size and numbering. They also issued an Eddie Murray sample card for this set.

This was the first year since 1981 that a new company earned an MLB license.  Optigraphics began producing cards with its “magic motion” technology on the front of the cards that allowed you to see 2-3 different shots of the player.  These were the first cards with color photos on the reverse, however they were viewed more as a separate product than a direct competitor to Topps, Fleer and Donruss.

I was 6 years old when this set was released, though I wasn’t collecting yet, I did buy a set of these cards a year or two later. It’s the earliest set I really bought anything of; in my mind, the gap between 1985 and 1986 seems the point when cards started getting overproduced. Pete Rose was prominent in the set with the subset celebrating his history of Topps cards – and the record breaker for passing Ty Cobb – so this made it popular in the Cincinnati area.

1985 Topps Overview

An overview of the 1985 Topps set:

• 792 cards in the set – the same since 1982.
• Subsets: Record Breakers (1-7), Father-Son (131-144), #1 Draft Picks (271-281), Team USA (389-404), All-Stars (701-722), and Managers (26 cards throughout).  Father-Son depicts current Major League players with their fathers who also played MLB – Yogi and Dale Berra may be the most notable.  #1 Picks shows former first overall picks still active in the Majors, while Team USA shows college players from the 1984 US Olympic Team which won the silver medal.  The Team USA set has the only true Mark McGwire RC, and it only includes players whose college eligibility was up.  Notably, Barry Larkin and Will Clark were on the ’84 USO team, however were not included in the set.  These three new subsets replace the various 1984 are “Leaders” subsets – Team, League, and Active.
• Set Design: Topps made some design changes in the current year – the dual picture design from ’83 and ’84 were scrapped for a larger main photo.  The front has a white border featuring the Topps logo in the top left-hand corner.  The team name with team colors is featured in a diagonal box across the bottom next to a circle around the team logo on the right.  The player name and position is shown just below the team information.  The green card backs features the player name and card number in the upper left-hand corner, player bio and stats from each season and career totals.  If there’s room, player-specific information and an upside-down trivia question are shown at the bottom.
• Packs: Cards were issued in 15 card wax packs (35¢ SRP) that came 36 packs per box and 20 per case.  Also available in 49-card rack packs (99¢ SRP), 42-card grocery rack packs, and 28 card cello packs (59¢ SRP).
• Rookies: The most significant rookies are the aforementioned McGwire, Roger Clemens, Kirby Puckett and Dwight Gooden.  Eric Davis, Brett Saberhagen, and Orel Hershiser also had a rookie card in this set.  Gooden and Saberhagen was in the ’84 Topps Traded and Fleer Update sets, while Clemens and Puckett had XRCs in the Update set only.  McGwire, Davis and Hershiser are true RC’s.
• Hall of Fame: There are 45 Hall of Famers in this set, down 4 from the year before.  Bench, Yaz and Gaylord Perry retired following the 1983 season and only had subset cards in the ’84 set.  Jim Palmer and Fergie Jenkins were released early in the 1984 season (Jenkins during spring training), and subsequently retired. Frank Robinson was fired as the Giants manager in the middle of the ’84 season.  The Yankees hired Yogi Berra for what would be a controversial stint as manager, and Kirby Puckett’s first card was in this set. As of now the Puckett card is currently the latest Rookie Card of a player inducted in the Hall (since passed by a number of guys).  This made sense when I thought about it; Puckett had a short career, and all the recent inductees outside of Rickey Henderson are guys who had to wait some time (Dawson, Rice, Sutter, Gossage).  So this number will continue to drop from here forward, after peaking at 51 HOF-ers in 1983.
• Harold Baines, Bert Blyleven, Wade Boggs, George Brett, Rod Carew, Steve Carlton, Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, Dennis Eckersley, Rollie Fingers, Carlton Fisk, Goose Gossage, Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson, Reggie Jackson, Paul Molitor, Joe Morgan, Jack Morris, Eddie Murray, Phil Niekro, Tony Perez, Tim Raines, Jim Rice, Cal Ripken, Nolan Ryan, Ryne Sandberg, Mike Schmidt, Tom Seaver, Ted Simmons, Lee Smith, Ozzie Smith, Bruce Sutter, Don Sutton, Alan Trammell, Dave Winfield, Robin Yount, Sparky Anderson (mgr), Bobby Cox (mgr), Whitey Herzog (mgr), Tony LaRussa (mgr), Tommy LaSorda (mgr), Joe Torre (mgr), Dick Williams (mgr), Puckett, Berra (mgr)
• Variation: Card #497 – Gary Pettis – was not really Pettis.  That is, it wasn’t Gary Pettis.  The card was actually Gary’s younger brother Lynn (14 at the time) who had snuck into the pose for the Topps photo shoot.  The mistake was never caught by Topps and made its way into the set.
• Last Active Player: This depends on what you count.  Julio Franco (last regular season game – 9/17/07) and Roger Clemens (9/16/07, last postseason game – 10/7/07) were the last players with a card in this set.

The red wax box has a picture of a stack of the current year cards, with Keith Hernandez’s card at the top.  Below the card is the “Topps” logo and a banner with the words “Baseball”.   Below that are the words “the Real one” and the MLB licensing logo.

Other items of relevance:

Factory Set

Topps again issued a full factory set, though the box was finally descriptive, though not colorful.  This set was again packaged in an unmarked cardboard box.

Update Set

Topps again released a 132-card Topps Traded set in factory set form.

Parallel Set

For the 2nd year, Topps issued a Tiffany variation in factory set form, printed on white cardstock with glossy coating on the front.  The 1985 Tiffany set had half the production of the previous year, limited to 5,000 sets, and is one of the most expensive sets of the 80’s given the plethora of rookies and short production.

Canadian-based O-Pee-Chee again issued a set that was a partial parallel to the Topps base set.  Each of the cards in the 396-card set had the same design and photographs as the Topps set, with lighter card stock and bi-lingual backs (French and English).  O-Pee-Chee went back to only including regular player cards (no subsets) in 1985.  The USA subset isn’t included, so the McGwire rookie isn’t in this set.  Neither is the Clemens RC, but Kirby Puckett is included.

Insert Sets

• All-Star Glossy – 22 cards (1 per rack pack).  Back for the 2nd year – each rack pack contained 1 insert of a 22-card All-Star Glossy set.
• Glossy All-Star – 40 cards (send-in).  By collecting 25 total bonus runs from the cards, collectors could mail-in (along with 50¢ S&H) for 5 cards which were part of the Topps “All-Star” Glossy sets.

Promotions

• Topps again offered collectors the 6 uncut sheets of 132 cards that make up the full set, this time for $60 total.
• Each wax pack contains a “Winning Pitch Baseball Game” game card that either contained an instant winner of a certain prize or could be sent in for a drawing to win a trip for 4 to the All-Star Game.
• You could again send in for the collecting box for the same cost as the year before, $1 and a wrapper.

Other releases associated with the Topps flagship

#1 – For the 2nd year, Topps created a set of 12 metal replicas of base cards, this time the name changed to “Gallery of Champions” (from Immortals) at 1/4 the size.  There are two variations of these 1/4 size cards – Bronze and Silver, while there is a pewter Dwight Gooden variant given to dealers who purchased the set.

#2 – As part of its relationship with O-Pee-Chee, Topps tested printing equipment in Canada by printing variations of certain cards in the base set that were ~10% smaller than the base cards (2-3/8″ x 3-9/32″).  The cards were printed on white cardboard stock.  Only 1 sheet was printed, so there were only 132 cards printed.  These somehow made it out the backdoor in Canada, and now fetch a pretty penny, particularly the Nolan Ryan and Mike Schmidt cards.  Everything I read estimated there to be around 100 of these cards out there.

#3 – Topps also produces a Super set again (4-7/8 x 6-7/8), though this year the set was 60 cards (previously 30).  The cards are replicas of the base set except for the numbering and size. They came in 3 card packs, 24 packs per box.

I got this box from eBay – this is one of the last boxes that will run me more than 50 bucks (I think it cost right around or $65 after shipping). As usual, I’m ahead on the cards compared to the posts; I’ve opened the wax box and the vending box I bought. I will post these over the next few days.

I was 5 years old when this set was released; Pete Rose was the player manager of the Reds and broke the hit record, which is kind of my first sports memory. I never collected this set, so opening it was pretty cool – this set still seemed untouchable when I was growing up, as difficult to buy as a 1979 Topps card was. Had I been collecting cards this year, I’d have been trying my best to get the 40-card glossy set, 5 cards at a time and the rack pack inserts containing the 22-card glossy All-Stars there.