Everything You Always Wanted to Know About 1991 Studio *But Were Afraid to Ask

The longer I collect cards, the more I love 1991 Studio.  The logo, the layout, even that ugly mauve border on every card totally do it for me.  I am just bananas about them.

So bananas, in fact, that I bought a whole bunch (pun intended).  I picked up a sealed box of the stuff, and I'm going for the set!

Before we go into the cards themselves, I just have to mention that it's amazing that this product even got made.  In what world does a company put out a set like Studio in the same year as this:

Compared with other flagship brands, particularly one as unspectacular as '91 Donruss, Studio must have been about as alien to collectors as a UFO landing.  I'm guessing somebody had a moment in the Donruss pitch meeting and lightning just struck.  Somehow the damn thing got made, and the result is this bizarrely wonderful set of cards.

My own appreciation for this set probably comes from a deep, abiding love for this card:

You've seen this card.  Heck, your Mom has probably seen this card.  It had collectors chasing it from the moment it hit the market 25 years ago.  Even now it remains one of the most iconic collector cards ever made.  So what's the big deal?  First year of Upper Deck, yeah.  Card #1, okay.  Son of an all-star, absolutely.

Now how about that picture? That up-close and personal portrait of the fresh-faced young star, impeccably photographed and framed?  Portraits had been done before but not like this.  It's intimate, full of personality, and larger-than-life.  Oh, and it's not blurry, an important difference considering the quality of the photography that was adorning some sets around this time.

Donruss took that aspect of a great card and built a set around it.  They even expounded on it by bringing it quite literally into the studio and giving us a real, unfiltered look at the players in stark black & white.  It was the age of Glamour Shots, after all.  They probably had those fancy lighted umbrellas and everything.

The best part about this set is that these are not Hollister models or Hollywood actors - they're ballplayers.  And not just stars, either.  Most of these guys were barely recognizable on your old standard-definition cathode ray tube television in the 90's.  So we ended up with a set of portraits with dozens of big names and Joe Schmos alike that run the gamut from hilarious to heroic.  It's a very fun, often stirring set.

Enough talk - is everybody mentally and emotionally prepared to see what your childhood baseball heroes really look like?

We'll start off easy with the guys who clearly "got it," the cards that this set was made for:

These exemplify what I believe they were going for with the Studio set.  They're not stealing a base or raising a knee in a wind-up, swinging a bat or leaping up a wall.  It's just them.  This is probably how their families see them - I love that.  Just dudes, bro.  Just dudes.

Then again, not everybody's portrait turned out as good as those.

Willie McGee has a striking resemblance to Barney Fife.

Steve Lake and his bird are legend thanks to this set.

Mattingly looks surprisingly into the whole intimacy thing.

Those cards were fun, but some guys showed up with no intention of having fun.  These homies mean business.  Reckonize:

 Shitting your pants yet?  I know I am.  But don't change them tighty-whiteys yet...

Remember that sleep you were planning on having tonight?  Well you can forget it.  Visions of Gregg Olson have been dancing my head for weeks.

Here are some guys who like to have fun.  Gregg Jefferies is all Bobby Teenager captain of the football squad going to ask Sally to the big dance.  And Sammy's all like........actually I don't know what the hell Sammy's deal is.  And this is allegedly before he went insane with steroids and skin treatments.  Yikes.  At least Leo Gomez is there with his comforting grandpa glasses.

Now just when you thought it was safe to look at Studio cards again comes ZOMBIE STEVE FINLEY!

GRRRRRRRR!

Apologies to Finley fans (I know he's got a bunch out there), but this is far and away the scariest card in the set.  Maybe it's the lighting, the sunken eyes, or the stubble, but you can see: there's menace behind that smile.

Now I know we already saw this one, but it needs another look:

Somewhere between the thousand-yard stare and the classic dumb guy glossing-over is Turner Ward and this inimitable facial expression.  I've literally sat in a room with people and tried to make this look happen - it cannot be done.  Turner has a special set of muscles that allows him to resemble a very peaceful potted fern.

Perhaps a towel could have helped.

Don't forget to bring a towel.

There had to have been a towel guy on-set.  There's no way all these guys were leaving the house thinking, "Okay - wallet, keys, giant cellphone.  Hmm - what am I forgetting?  Ah, towel.  Check."

The last card in the set before the checklists, this one of Bud Black and Steve Decker is an anomaly and bears scanning.  I'd like to have seen more of these from Studio.  Think about the great group shots that might have been.  One extremely obvious one leaps to mind....

Even the managers got in on the fun but were relegated to the checklists except for Jimmie Reese who got his own well-deserved card.  That is by far the smiliest I've ever seen Sparky Anderson.

That's it for the set.  Four-card previews of the Studio set were available in factory sets of 1991 Donruss.  There's a little gold sticker on the plastic wrap to advertise this fact.  Take a look:

Of course they don't tell you two important facts.  First, one of the four cards is a "cover" card of sorts that has no player on it - just a description of what the Studio set is.  This should be good:

Cover Card Front

Cover Card Back

Oh, that's actually pretty apt.  I mean the limited quantities thing is a joke as sealed boxes of this brand are less than ten bucks 23 years later, but the description isn't inaccurate.  Sweet punctuation error in the second sentence, and I really like how it says "you now possess" like they're freaking Gutenberg Bibles.

Anyway, the second thing they don't tell you is that you get four (three, really) cards with each Factory Donruss set, but there are 17 in the preview set.  Imagine the guy back in '91 shelling out hundreds for sealed sets only to break the seals to get all 17 preview cards.  I didn't realize this fact when I bought that box for ten bucks at a card show.  I mean, why 17?  That's just mean.

Anyhoo, I just bought all of them on eBay for around six bucks, so that quest is complete.  Moving on...

1991 Studio #112

Griffey's picture says to me that he showed up to the "Studio" and a guy in a beret told him, "Just be yourself," and Junior, being an upstart youngster, just looked at the camera like a goon, snap snap snap, and then he got the hell out of there, probably in a Ferrari.  With so many Griffey cards being light-hearted and full of smiles, this is a very real, gritty look at the Kid.  It's very humanizing.  Plus if Junior is ever having beers at my house I now know to put on some 90's rap.  I'm thinking Bone Thugs-N-Harmony.  The Kid seems like an E 1999 Eternal kind of guy.

As for that box I broke in the beginning of this post?

Sorted.

I ended up 35 cards short of the 263-card set, a hair below 87% completion.  As of this post I have acquired all but seven base cards:

236 Jose Oquendo
217 Roger McDowell
199 Bill Sampen
167 Barry Larkin
149 John Smoltz
98 Hensley Meulens
77 Franklin Stubbs

If one of these cards comes in the mail and the picture is hilarious, I'm going to kick myself for having already put up this post.

That was a long one, but we got through it.  Thanks for reading.  I'm going to leave you with three of my favorite cards from 1991 Studio.  Enjoy:

We all look awesome.

Griffey Mini-Collections: Part One

It's gotten to that point.  I now have Griffey collections within my Griffey collection.  More specifically these are cards which if I see and I don't think I have, I snap up immediately.  There are a lot, so here are just a few to get us started.  Enjoy!

Father and Son

This is one of the most prolific of all my GMC's.  Junior appeared on a LOT of cards with his Dad, especially in the early 90's.  Many of them feature both in Seattle uni's.  This particular one is a little more rare, featuring the pair in their respective uniforms of the time.  Certainly one of the great stories in baseball history right here.

Best Buddies

It's no secret that Griffey and Jay Buhner are good friends.  They, too, appeared on a ton of cardboard together.  A large portion of those are Buhner base cards with Junior playing in cameo.  This one is the opposite: Buhner on a Griffey.  Also it was a bitch to scan mid-heat-reaction, so don't skimp on the looking.

Cameos

I get really excited when I find out about a new cameo.  One of my favorite attributes of the cameo is when the other player is a relative no-name, making parallels, even really cool ones, super cheap.  Yes, I count these as Griffeys in the collection totals.

Errors

Front

Back

These can get expensive, but they're totally worth it.  This particular one has a flip-flopped Junior on the back of a parallel Bobby Abreu rookie.  It was a pretty nice card without the error.  Many thanks to Dime Box Nick for this one (he sent the above cameo, too - man, I owe that guy).

Variations

You've gotta be sharp to spot these.  I can't tell you how many '90 Donruss Griffeys I've gone through looking for variations in the border speckle pattern.  My go-to on these is that pair of dots to the left of Junior's cap that are a little diagonal from each other.  They're not on the card on the right.  Variant!

I've only found a few, and I've seen hundreds of this card at shows and such.  I can prove it, too.  Go to COMC.com, type "1990 Donruss Griffey," click on the loose base card and find one with a speckle pattern like that one on the right.  I dare you.  COMC scans every individual card for sale, so you're looking at the very card the seller submitted for sale.  This also works for the Diamond Kings from this set as well as the three Griffey base cards from the 1991 Donruss set.  The going theory is that the variations are from factory sets.  Makes sense.

Thanks for looking!

I Got Some Booty From Matt at Red Cardboard

I won a contest for sending the most Reds cards to Matt over at Red Cardboard.  His is one of my "must read" blogs as he has a cardboard lust similar to mine (except team-focused as opposed to player focused), he loves the Reds so there is some overlap our collections, and because he is damn funny.

Matt sent me a couple of lots featuring autos, relics, and a bunch of vintage.  Here are some highlights in no particular order:

Contrary to what you might think I don't just collect Griffey.  I get just as excited about vintage as most other collectors.  I just don't have much, or at least I didn't.  Matt's mailer was loaded with stacks of lovely old cardboard.

Of course there were lots of Reds cards.  Here's one of my favorite Joe Morgan cards with an awesome mis-cut.  Say what you want about dead-on-centered cards - this thing has character.  And how great is that bat barrel shot of Hall of Famer Tony Perez?  He was the reason Junior couldn't keep his #24 when he moved to Cincy - it was retired the same year he moved there.  No worries, though.  Mad respect for TP.

I never read anything about Jim Rice anymore.  The was an 8-time All-Star as finished his 15-year career just a hair below .300.  And how about that mustache?  This is the stuff of legend.

It's about as legendary as George's sideburns.  I don't think I've ever seen them cut any other way that the trademark point.

Just some cool old cards.  That Ray Knight speaks to me with the sun glaring off his ear-less helmet.  It's like one of those modern Topps sparkle SP's but, you know, not really, really stupid.  The background of the Johnny Temple is freaking beautiful, and that Brooks Robinson is as Tatooine as they come.

Out of these nine cards I was most excited about that Piniella RC.  As a Griffey fan I grew up watching him manage the M's through the 90's and to their first division title.  I also saw him scream a lot.

I don't know about you, but I cherish old Rollie cards.  And how many trade packages include a 1949 Bowman card?  Wow.  And of Johnny Vander Meer no less.  The guy threw consecutive no-hitters as a Red, and apart from that glue stain this card is in excellent shape.  I can't promise I'd be as generous as Matt with my giveaways....!

I know a lot of you guys do the TTM thing, so cards like this are a common thing.  Me?  I still get all giddy around autographs, even if they're on 1990 Bowman cards.  Hal's H is a beast.

Those Chasing the Dream cards are well put-together.  Peacock's career is off to a slow start.  I think he's an Astro now which frankly isn't going to help anything.  Motte on the other hand got his ring, but he's also off to a slow start since his Tommy John job.

Amazing prize package, Matt!  Really, thanks a ton!  I already have some cool Reds cards lined up for you, including one from this past card show.  I'll send them....eventually.

A Sort and a Griffey Count Update - Does Anyone Even Read These?

If you were anything like me in high school you were probably playing Drug Wars on your TI-86 during math classes, so I don't blame anyone for skipping over this post.  I guess posts like these are mostly for my benefit to keep tabs on the Griffey counts and talk through collecting/storage strategies.  Also a little bit of bragging (part of being a card blogger: "Look what I got!")

The latest sort was a biggie, and it had a very positive impact on the Griffey count.  The cards came from COMC, card shows, some eBay pickups, and a bunch of trades; so we have a nice mix of sources.  While my eBay pickups used to be all about lots, now they're mostly single cards which has been a boon for the numbers; and the existence of The Beast as a reference has helped keep the purchase of duplicates from COMC and card shows in check.  Enough talk.  Let's get to some hard data.

As a reference, the old counts were 7692 total, 3146 unique, and a 2.445 duplicate ratio.

These are the Griffeys that got sorted.  I updated The Beast on Sunday morning, divided them up by years Sunday night, and sorted them into binders/cases/the overflow box on Monday.  Here are the totals from that sort:

Griffeys Added: 250
New Griffeys: 135
Duplicate Ratio: 1.851

We can tell right away that this will affect the total count favorably due to the lower dup ratio (it stood at 2.445 before the sort).  Here are the results when we merge these with the existing count:

Total: 7942
Unique: 3280
Dup Ratio: 2.421

The dup ratio fell by another 0.024, a step in the right direction for sure.  We also have a new milestone on the horizon for total number of Griffeys.  Perhaps a giveaway is in order...

The overflow box is getting heavy with hard plastic cases.  It's not a problem right now, but as my focus shifts from quantity to quality, this may start giving me trouble.  Not that you'll ever hear me complaining about having too many Griffeys.

Oh, and one last thing: I found a super thick top loader that was the perfect size for that pack of '89 Donruss with the Griffey rookie on the back.  This has little to do with the count - I was just excited to find a storage solution.  Here's how it turned out:

Happy Tuesday!

Foul Bunt Lays Down a Good One: a Trade Post

Will from the great Foul Bunt sent me a sweet stack of Griffeys.  That's something we can all enjoy.

The pile yielded three cards I knew right away I needed.  The first was that September 15th You Crash the Game insert from 1995 Collector's Choice.  It seems to be much rarer than it's July counterpart though I see no indication of such in the insertion ratios.  Maybe it's just luck, and Will has it.  Great find!

While I already have this card, I can't not mention it's inclusion in Will's trade package.  It's just such a cool card.  I want a whole binder page of these to look at.  Sweet picture, crazy sparkly texture, standard dimensions - it's a home run.

I always get a little extra excited when someone sends me a base card I didn't realize I needed.  That Autographics card from Skybox is one such card.  The set was only made for two years, so it's one of those super short timelines that gets overlooked in the shuffle of parallels and inserts that I buy.

And man did Upper Deck make a lot of inserts or what?  This particular one sports a great skyward hero shot.  The vast majority of cards with stadium lights in the frame tend to be great.  The photo here is so good I'd like to see it without the giant team logo.

Thanks for hoarding Griffeys for me, Will!  I've got another trade package in the works for you as I type this.  Hope you like it!

Griffnado!

Saturday was an amazing day on the cardboard front.  The monthly local card show combined with the arrival of a large package from COMC and a few eBay auction wins all combined into a bonanza of new Griffeys of every kind.  It was magical.

I couldn't possibly show you everything, but I'll go over the highlights because I'm just so darn excited about all the newness.

This is a long box filled with just the Griffeys from Saturday.  It's a substantial haul, and includes everything from relics and rookies to oddballs and 2014 inserts and everything in-between.  You might have noticed the sealed pack on the far right.

One of the nice folks at the card show had a huge box of packs for a quarter each.  Being a huge fan of the '89 Donruss set, I rooted through and dug out every pack of it I could find (as you can see I got antsy and opened one in the car).  I ended up with 19 packs total, including this one:

Looks pretty standard, right?  Check out the bottom:

You see it?  That would be good ol' #33, the Griffey rookie card, right there on the bottom of the pack!  Before I started busting I decided maybe I should check the bottoms to see if there was a rookie evident in one of the sealed ones, and here it was on the very first pack I checked.  The "Jr." is obscured by wrapper, but you can clearly see the "No Major League Experience" in the stat box.  This is definitely him.  Not bad for a quarter.  This guy is going in the Griffey box.

One of the sellers had come to the show all the way from Houston (a good 5-hour drive), so I looked extra hard for some stuff to buy from him.  I was immediately drawn to this sealed factory set of '91 Donruss not because I like the set (it kinda blows) but because of this sticker:

I'm nuts about '91 Studio, and here were all four preview cards.  This sticker was clearly meant for me.  The guy wanted $15, but when I explained why I wanted the thing he was a lot more open to negotiation.  We settled on $10 and a handful of loosies:

There are so many great Larkins out there.  That's just one of the six Pete Rose Living Legend cards I picked up.  It's a really nice set.

When I first walked up to the guy's table and inquired about Griffeys the guy was like, "Meh, I don't really have any."  A little digging by yours truly found those two on the left, both of them collection needs.  The Upper Deck card is a little banged up, but who else in this world would give a Griffey card such as that one succor in a condition-sensitive world?  Nobody.  Well, maybe Dime Box Nick.

The mini on the right I got from one seller who only deals in football but who knows I only collect Griffey.  He occasionally comes across one and sets it aside for me.  Thanks, big guy!

What card show would be complete without a visit to the Griffey Guy?

This is what my little box looked like when I left his table.  Again, I'm not going to show everything, but here are just a few of the sweet relics and numbered Griffeys from that box:

These are presented without comment because we haven't even gotten to the Junior Junkie mail bag yet.  First a few eBay auctions that landed yesterday:

I have mixed feeling about the fact that people are still out there making oddballs, but I can't complain too much when they turn out this good.  These show Copyright 2014 Rookie Cards, LLC.  Shady, yes, but that future jersey shot is a big hit with me.

Upper Deck is still making Griffey cards, y'all.  I love that.  The Mr. Turkey Superstar card has a section on the back called "Let's Talk Turkey."  Derp!  And that oddball on the right is as odd as they come.  It has a Glamour Shot of Jose Canseco on the back.  Eew.  Can't argue with that front, though.

This oddball set of sixteen cards is Copyright 1989 by Card Collector's Company, "a division of Nostalgia, Inc."  They look pack-fresh, so I can't guarantee they're really 25 years old.  The price was right, though, and how amazing are those pictures?  It's like a stalker set.

The last thing I got Saturday was a package from COMC.  I'd ordered enough cards to merit shipping them in this little mini-box within the larger box.

 The stack on the right is Griffeys, and the one on the left is everything else, mostly Marquis Grissom.

Here are a few of the choicier Grissoms I picked up.  I won't show any Griffeys from this package as this post is long enough.  There were a lot, bro.  You get the idea.

Griffnado!!