Return of the King B

See also: The King B 1993 and 1994 Cards

In my collection: 1 1990, 1 1996

Griffey looks: satisfied

Is this a good Griffey card? Yes.  A unique, colorful, and fun set of oddballs.

The sets: With very few exceptions, King B had the market cornered when it comes to cards with no corners. 

These are the first and last Griffey cards King B would make.  They were manufactured by Michael Schechter Associates or MSA (who also made round cards for Oscar Mayer) and released with packages of King B Beef Jerky for over a decade. In that time Griffey appeared in the set seven times.

With the addition of these two, I now have four of the seven.

The 1990 card is probably my favorite of them all.  It has a colorful, nostalgic look and a great portrait of the Kid looking satisfied.  The red, white and blue with the stars add a dash of patriotism into the mix.  Plus it's the earliest of the King B sets to feature Junior.

The '96 design is darker and more modern with no more border and nearly full-bleed action photography.  The backs stay roughly the same every year, the only changes being the stats and the omission of the "The Legend of the West" slogan.

Griffey would never be included in another King B set following his devestating wrist injury.

I still need these:

1991 King B #6
1992 King B #8
1995 King B #11

Now that this post has come full-circle, I'll say that I believe these cards are 360 degrees of fun.  I like to think my opinions are fairly well-rounded.  That may seem a bit one-sided, but I think eventually you too will come 'round. 

Sorry.  It's early and I'm feeling punny.

King B: Quality Meat Snacks and Baseball Cards

See also The 1990 and 1996 King B Cards

In my collection: 2 1994, 1 1993

Griffey looks: like a pog

Is this a good Griffey card? Yes.  Unique and extremely collectable, round cards are obviously the future.

The set: King-B Beef Jerky Company put out a set of round baseball cards from 1988 through 2002.  Griffey had cards in those sets from 1990 to 1996.  That's 7 years of round Griffey cards.  Two of those years are represented in my collection.

The cards were manufactured by Michael Schechter Associates who also made cards of similar roundness for Oscar Mayer in 1994.  The Oscar Mayer cards could be flipped up into a standee.  I don't have said card, so forget I said anything.

This King B cards are very much oddballs, but I feel they are prolific enough a set to merit their own post.

I mean come on, doesn't this look good?



The bag may be resealable, but that's a feature I've never had to use....


Peppered is good.  I like teriyaki better, but sweet & hot is my absolute favorite when available.  Pemmican makes a really good one, but it seems Jack Links is taking over everything now.  This is exactly what happened to King B. 

The cards came in canister packages of beef sticks, so this bag is not an appropriate picture for this post.  I do prefer this type of jerky, though.  My blog, my rules.

So, round baseball cards, huh?  Remember that Simpsons episode where they put Bart into the remedial class and the teacher says, "Everyone grab a safety pencil and a circle of paper."  And there's that kid who "starts fires" and the other who "has mittens pinned to his shirt all year long?"  Man, that was a good one.

Anyway, these are the perfect cards for those kids.  Even as a reasonably intelligent adult, have you ever shuffled a bunch of Topps Tek cards too quickly?  Those corners hurt.  Plus there's 4.15" less of potentially damageable edge not to mention four fewer corners to "ding."

Let's take a closer look:

Griffey is staring off pensively, meditatively.  Perhaps he is experiencing one of those moments when your mind slips the reigns of the now and plunges the depths of infinity, ensnaring your spirit in existential crisis both exhilarating and terrifying.  Also, he looks like a pog.

This one's a little more light-hearted.  The purple carries over to the back and you've got the updated glove logo.  Also the diamond-in-circle design of the '93 set hurts my eyes, so I like this a lot better.

The only real complaint I have with the King-B Jerky cards is that they gave up on Junior after 1996.  Why?  He was coming off his injury and putting up some really solid numbers.  Instead they went with likes of Jeff Montgomery, Al Martin, and Matt Mieske.  The only Seattle Mariner in the set?  Dan Wilson. 

Don't get me wrong, I love Dan Wilson and have a pretty extensive PC of him, but does he better represent meat products?  I would think if you had to pick another Mariner to represent meat snacks it would be Randy Johnson.  I'm not sure why, he just seems like a salted meat kinda guy.

Have you noticed that there are not enough round cards out there?  I've only ever seen these, the Oscar Mayer ones, and 2003 Upper Deck Standing O Die-Cuts (which look great).  There are a lot of potential designs that suit the circle layout nicely.  I shouldn't mention specifics here as I may someday start my own brand, but think about all the sports that use a round ball or puck.  Ooh, and cards shaped like little footballs.

I've already said too much.

Here are the five years of King B Griffeys I am missing:

1990 King B #16
1991 King B #6
1992 King B #8
1995 King B #11
1996 King B #6

I'd also like to give a shout-out to one amazing website full of oddball knowledge that helped make this post possible.

In closing, I'd like to say that Tuesday sucks.  Come on, 5 o'clock!