General All Purpose Baseball Card Thread

[batmagadanleadoff]

Mets Card of the Week: 1968 Tom Seaver by Doug Parker � August 13, 2014 � 5 Comments [fimg=233]http://mets360.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/1968-Seaver-regular-213x300.jpg[/fimg] Tom Seaver shared his 1967 Topps rookie card with Bill Denehy. Of course, Seaver won the Rookie of the Year award that season, earning himself the privilege of not just a stand-alone card in 1968, but also one numbered with the coveted divisor of 5 (45), and adorned with the all-star rookie trophy. In the portrait photograph selected for his 1968 card, Seaver looks impossibly young. His hat looks impossibly blue. And the sky looks only slightly less-impossibly blue. It is an impossibly beautiful and simple card. But if the scheming Seaver had had his way, the aquarian star-children of the day would have pulled something quite different from their first-series packs. You see, back in spring training of 1967, before he�d thrown a pitch in a big-league game, the sly rookie tried to pull a fast one on the Topps lensman, and posed in a follow-through motion as a left-handed pitcher. And as it happens, Topps initially chose a picture from this session for Seaver�s 1968 card, going so far as to run at least one proof sheet with this layout. He would have gotten away with it too, if not for some meddling proofreader who pointed out that Seaver was indeed a right-handed pitcher. There is only one known copy of this proof card extant, so all I can share is a degraded iPhone snap of a reproduction of a second-generation scan: [fimg=233]http://mets360.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/1968-Seaver-219x300.jpg[/fimg] It turns out that Seaver wasn�t the only right-handed future Hall of Famer who tried to pull this stunt in 1968� Bob Gibson also appeared as a lefty on his initial proof card. Not sure if they were in cahoots, or if there was just something southpaw in the air that year� [fimg=233]http://mets360.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Bob-Gibson.jpg[/fimg] http://mets360.com/?p=22707

The proof is in the proof sheet: second row, second card.

[fimg=744]http://photos.imageevent.com/ltsgallery/memberfoldersfh/jmoran19/uncutsheets/large/68series1c.bmp.jpg[/fimg]

[Zvon]

Wow. Never heard of any of this. Very kool.

Imagine if that card did get released as Tom's '68t! Or if it did and was pulled after they realized it, making it wacky AND rare.

[Edgy MD]

That card is gonna be the Honus Wagner t206 of future generations.

[Guest Madoff's Mets]

[Guest d'Kong76]

Didn't Seaver always wear 41 on the White Sox? I guess
if you mess around with the numbers, oh wait, who am I
to tell you about messin' with numbers? haha

[Guest d'Kong76]

I get it now! Uh, never mind!

[Edgy MD]

Welcome abordick to Madoff's Mets.

[seawolf17]

Floyd Bannister?

[Guest d'Kong76]

Yes, I should have googled first

[Guest Madoff's Mets]

Yes, its the Seaver error card. Thanks for the welcome!

[Zvon]

Madoff's Mets wrote: Yes, its the Seaver error card. Thanks for the welcome!

Kool avatar.

I used to have that card. Still might. Nope, can't find it.

The 84 Fleer traded Seaver/White Sox was a bitch to track down.
I should scan a few of these. The 84 OPC is sweet. I have 4 '84 Donruss Seavers if anyone wants one.

[Zvon]

I love the wacky Seaver cards.

[Guest Madoff's Mets]

Zvon wrote: Madoff's Mets wrote: Yes, its the Seaver error card. Thanks for the welcome! Kool avatar. I used to have that card. Still might. Nope, can't find it. The 84 Fleer traded Seaver/White Sox was a bitch to track down. I should scan a few of these. The 84 OPC is sweet. I have 4 '84 Donruss Seavers if anyone wants one.

I have about 200+ Seaver cards (except the rookie). Kelloggs, mini, 1968 decal etc etc

[Guest d'Kong76]

I was curious and looked at Beckett Media site and there
are 4,500 Tom Seaver cards listed! Some are realllly obscure,
but that number kinda floors me.

[Guest d'Kong76]

I guess I'm card naive, Mike Piazza has 9,795.

[Guest Madoff's Mets]

d'Kong76 wrote: I was curious and looked at Beckett Media site and there are 4,500 Tom Seaver cards listed! Some are realllly obscure, but that number kinda floors me.

I think you may have misread that. There are over 4600 threads(posts) about Seaver cards. I'm not sure of the exact number but I'm pretty sure that it doesn't top 250.

[Guest d'Kong76]

Nah, they're all cards and some stickers. Like I said, some
of them are extremely obscure.
[fimg=900:2sayp88s]http://www.kcmets.com/CPF/seaver.png[/fimg:2sayp88s]

[stevejrogers]

According to this site, as of this year's early releases, 4,036
http://www.tradingcarddb.com/Person.cfm/pid/5301/Tom-Seaver

With 50 already this year!

Granted, the majority are special parallel set cards, but still it is pretty substantial thanks to being in plenty of the nostalgic based sets and subsets that have come out from the major companies over the last two decades.

[Guest d'Kong76]

After reading Stevie's post, maybe M'sM means there were only
a couple hundred cards issued during Seaver's career.

[Edgy MD]

What are "parallel set cards"? Some sort of reprints?

[stevejrogers]

d'Kong76 wrote: After reading Stevie's post, maybe M'sM means there were only a couple hundred cards issued during Seaver's career.

Most likely 1965/66-1987, with the explosion being since...I want to say 1994, or possibly 1991 with Topps' 40th Anniversary, is when the nostalgia boom hit the hobby in terms of the brands that focused on the current sports making tons of cards of past stars in some fashion.

Edgy MD wrote: What are "parallel set cards"? Some sort of reprints?

Kinda. Gimmicked in some fashion to make them more collectible, and in some cases (i.e. the one of a kind specific color printing press of the card) rarer.

[Guest Madoff's Mets]

Thanks for that link. There are some obscure ones. I only collected his cards through 1987.

[seawolf17]

Parallels are colored variations, typically short-printed and/or numbered. In packs of this year's base Topps set, you can find red (at Target), blue (at Walmart), purple (at Toys R Us), yellow (in special "hanger packs"), green (in all the "retail" packs), "red hot," gold (numbered /2014), camo (numbered /99), black (/63, only available at baseball card shops), pink (/50), clear plastic stock (/10), and platinum (only 1 version made of each card).

For example, some of the 2014 Topps Murph parallels: http://www.comc.com/Cards,so,vDetails,=2014+topps+mets+155

They can make you crazy, but can be fun too:


https://twitter.com/cdorso/status/418041771088953344

[Guest d'Kong76]

Were issues like Topps Venezuelan cards considered
parallel cards or is there another buzz word?

[stevejrogers]

d'Kong76 wrote: Were issues like Topps Venezuelan cards considered parallel cards or is there another buzz word?

Parallel means the same exact card, right down to the number on the back, as the base set. So no, the 1975 minis I believe are the first official parallel cards.

[ashie62]

The Topps Venezuelan cards stand alone as a set.

[Edgy MD]

Parallels are colored variations, typically short-printed and/or numbered. In packs of this year's base Topps set, you can find red (at Target), blue (at Walmart), purple (at Toys R Us), yellow (in special "hanger packs"), green (in all the "retail" packs), "red hot," gold (numbered /2014), camo (numbered /99), black (/63, only available at baseball card shops), pink (/50), clear plastic stock (/10), and platinum (only 1 version made of each card). For example, some of the 2014 Topps Murph parallels: http://www.comc.com/Cards,so,vDetails,=2014+topps+mets+155 They can make you crazy, but can be fun too: https://twitter.com/cdorso/status/418041771088953344

Wow!

This is obviously an insanely cynical move to get eight times as much change out of Stony Brook suckers like yourself.

[Guest d'Kong76]

Ashie62 wrote: The Topps Venezuelan cards stand alone as a set.

I kinda knew that, since it's listed as sets in a few
things I have/had access to. I was more wondering if
they were like the original parallel sets or something.

[Guest d'Kong76]

Edgy MD wrote: This is obviously an insanely cynical move to get eight times as much change out of Stony Brook suckers like yourself.

Well, that's kinda harsh. Collecting stuff is fun and if
that's the niche you want you go get it.

I stopped collecting Mets cards up to about 2000. The
industry just got so insane ya can't keep up with it unless
you make it a second business or something. No longer fun.

[Edgy MD]

d'Kong76 wrote: Well, that's kinda harsh.

Well sure, but it's said with love.

That said, the problem is that
1) the collecting hobby leads to a spirit of completionism, which leads
2) the producers to make more product to exploit that drive the collector has, which leads to
3) more and increasingly less interesting and distinctive product, which leads to
4) a diminishing spirit in the collector, which leads to
5) ultimately quitting in frustration, or becoming an absolute nut.