A Junior for All Seasons Part 1: the Kid on the Topps Designs of the 50's

Even if you never collected vintage cardboard, you’re probably still somewhat familiar with the Topps designs of the past.  Just about every brand has embraced the fact that Topps runs the show when it comes to vintage card design.  This fact combined with the card industry’s sea change towards a more classic aesthetic has resulted in a plethora of vintage Topps designs featuring modern players. 

This series showcases by decade those vintage Topps designs that feature a Ken Griffey, Jr. card.  We will start where Topps did - the 50’s:

1951: 

1951 (2002 Topps Blue Backs)

This is an homage to the 1951 Blue Backs, some of the first cards Topps ever made.  These are less a baseball card set and more a 52-card deck of baseball-based game cards.  While the ’52 set is considered the first real Topps set, I couldn’t very well leave this gem out of the lineup (though I am a little resentful about the fact that Junior got an “Out” card).  There were also red backs which were less rare.

1952:

1952 (2007 Topps '52 #DF2)

The first real Topps set, these were not very popular.  Many cases ended up sleeping with the fishes like Luca Brasi which contributed to their relative rarity.  The design is great, though.  It’s no wonder Topps reused it twice.

1952 (2001 Topps Heritage #200)

Which do you prefer?

1953:

1953 (Postcard of painting by James Fiorentino 1999)

Less a card than an oddball postcard, this advertises a print done by baseball artist James Fiorentino.  And I’m pretty sure that’s my backyard.  This design was used in the 2012 Topps Heritage set, but no Griffey was made as he was already retired.

1954:

1954 (2003 Topps Heritage #375)

That’s a strange selection when it comes to color here in ’54, but a great tribute to the original design.  It seems Fleer also liked this design as their Tradition and Update design from 2000 is very close to it.

1954 (Fleer Tradition #222, Update #U23)

It’s not exact, but it’s close enough so that they are clearly referencing the ’54 Topps design.  Griffey changed teams in 2000 so he gets two.  I love that.

1956:

1956 (2005 Topps Heritage #70)

The Heritage designs tend to be really faithful to the original, and this is no exception.

1959:

1959 (2008 Topps Heritage #50)

For this year we have a rare three-for of Junior throwbacks.  First is this sweet Heritage card from 2008, just before Junior made his move to Chi-town then back to the Mariners.  I love this card – it’s a great portrait of our guy and almost rookie-like in vulnerability.  And do I spot a Mona Lisa smile?  Indeed, the Kid is full of mystery.

1959 (Oddball 1991)

There is also this oddball from 1991 with no team logo and no apparent pedigree.  Still, it’s clear what they were going for.

1959 (1989 Baseball Cards Magazine #63)

Finally, the iconic ’59 Topps Sporting News Rookie Stars design as interpreted by Baseball Card Magazine (who made a lot of throwbacks).  This card has an awesome look, bright and colorful with a great patriotic striped shield design.  There don’t seem to be any major stars to come out of the original ’59 Star Rookies set, so the fact that it is paid homage to thirty years later is a testament to this classic design.

Here are the Topps design years of the 50’s for which I was unable to track down any Griffeys:

1955

1957

1958

Join us for Part 2 of this series when we see Junior in the Topps designs of the 60’s.

Conlonoscopy: a Closer Look at the Griffeys of the Conlon Collection

This set can be seen in its completion in part 2 of this post.

1995 Conlon Collection In the Zone #1

In my collection: 1 each of #1, #1 Promo, #3 Promo, #8

Griffey looks: skinny

Is this a good Griffey card?  Yes.  One of the few Griffeys from a set that is iconic among card collectors.

The set: First off, I’ve always called this set “The Conlon Collection,” but apparently “The Sporting News” is supposed to fit in there somewhere, too.  So is it “The Conlon The Sporting News Collection” or “The Conlon Collection from The Sporting News” or “The Sporting News Presents The Conlon Collection TSN?”  Someone who reads this knows better than me. 

Anyhoo, the Conlon Collection was made from 1991 to 1995 and features many baseball stars from a time before the proliferation of cardboard as well a lot of the game’s unsung heroes.  In the case of many long-retired players their Conlon card is their only baseball card.  A behemoth with a checklist of 1400, the Conlon Collection was designed to be continuous year over year so that when they were all combined it made one massive super-set.  I’m sure you’ve seen them.  They look like this:

Now some have gold foil, some are in color, and some have green or burgundy borders instead of black; but they all have this same basic look.

This brand has a cult following among collectors, particularly ones who are really into baseball’s history; and when they decided to make a set of Griffey cards, that cult grew to include Junior collectors (God help them).  In 1995 Conlon made an insert called In the Zone that featured Griffey paired with different ballplayers of yesteryear with whom he shared common traits.  The set was comprised of eight cards, six of which were seeded into packs of 1995 Conlon and the last two which you had to send away for.  Those last two seem to be a little rarer than the other six.  There is also a send-away card as well as a few promos floating around.

Let's see what we have: 

Junior looks skinny in this shot with the Bambino.  Must be some exclusive West Coast diet.  Good for him.

I've always liked the shadowbox effect with the translucent border, a design we've seen used in other sets.  This may have been the ispiration for the 2001 Donruss "throwback" design for 2000.  It frames the card nicely without being intrusive of the imagery.  Plus the logo is reminiscent of the logo for The Twilight Zone.  Don't know what that has to do with the set.  Maybe it's that the similarities between Junior and these old-timers are so unlikely it's scary.

1995 Conlon Collection In the Zone #8

This is one of the send-away cards.  I must have gotten it in an eBay lot because I don't remember sending anything off.  Then again, college is pretty hazy.

I also have #3 but only the promo version:

1995 Conlon Collection In the Zone #3 Promo

That photo of Cobb pops up a lot.  Cool to see it on a Griffey card.

The promo fronts are identical, but here is the back of the promo version of #1:

1995 Conlon Collection In the Zone #1 Promo Back

And here are the Griffeys I am missing from 1995 Conlon TSN Collection In the Zone:

#2 Lou Gehrig

#3 Ty Cobb

#4 Jimmie Foxx

#5 Mel Ott

#6 Joe Jackson

#7 Tris Speaker

Cards #7 & #8 Send-away Card

In case you're a Conlon guy or gal, I also found this fella who seems to be a Conlon super collector (though I see no mention of the In the Zone insert).  So check him out.

Promoting a Group Break - I'm Doing it

Go here and join this sweet group break so I can maybe get a Griffey auto.  There are still a bunch of teams available, and the product is solid.  Plus it's run by an attorney, so you know it's going to be legit.  You know you want to....

Now please enjoy this picture of a duck wearing a raincoat:

2000 Upper Deck Black Diamond Rookie Edition: Fourteen Syllables of Futility (Plus a Crazy Card Rant)

2000 Upper Deck Black Diamond Rookie Edition #83

In my collection: 3 regular, 1 Diamond Might

Griffey looks: sharp in his new duds

Is this a good Griffey card?  Yes.  While the set as a whole is a head-scratcher, the Griffey here is the greatest of all Black Diamond base cards.

The set: This is the second Black Diamond set of 2000, and while I do like it, this is one of those sets that makes you want to sit down and pick the brains of the guys behind the cardboard.  Who at Upper Deck green-lit this?  The focus here beyond the known players of the day was rookie cards, specifically cards and relics from the USA Olympic Team of that year.  So why "Black Diamond?"  The branding doesn't make a lot of sense, and it has made me confused and irritable.  I needed an outlet, so I made a flow chart as to how I believe this set may have come to fruition.  

The snarky graph being shown, I do think the base cards in the Rookie Edition look great.  There’s a bunch of crazy nonsense in the background that I like (though can't decipher), and the dark red with the honeycomb pattern in the foreground gives the illusion of depth.  The nameplate is cool and modern, and those gold foil logos look great against the red.  And is this Griffey a bat-barrel card?  You bet your sweet bippy.

There’s our guy, swinging away, looking sharp in his new Cincy duds.  I’m guessing that was a single up the middle.

2000 Upper Deck Black Diamond Rookie Edition Diamond Might #M4.  Phew.

In case the originality train hadn’t gone completely off the tracks, here is a repeated attempt at the Diamond Might insert.  This very same insert had already come out only months before in the non-rookie edition BD set, and it was better.

For those of you keeping score at home, there are two Diamond Might insert sets in 2000.  Is it hard to make up a diamond-related insert?  I would think the formula would be something along the lines of add appropriate words to “Diamond” - Diamond Power, Diamond Jubilee, Diamond Force, Diamond Crew, Shine on You Crazy Diamond, whatever - then go from there. 

What’s even sillier here is that the final design has nothing to do with diamonds or any theme, really.  It’s just vertical words that say the name of the brand and insert.  They could have called it literally anything mildly baseball or gem related and it would have made the same amount of sense.  It’s green, so they could have gone with Emerald Power.  Vertical Limit would have been clever what with the words being written vertically.  Or forget what the card actually looks like and call it Diamond Focus or Diamond Skills or Diamond Might (oops).  Or anything.  Again, ANYTHING VAGUELY BASEBALL-Y WOULD HAVE WORKED HERE because the design has no theme.  Screw it, let's call it call it Shiny Insert.  Throw us a bone.  We spend money on this.

Here are the Griffeys I am missing from 2000 Upper Deck Black Diamond Rookie Edition:

#83 Gold

Diamond Skills #S3

Just as an exercise, I decided to make a list of ten names for this set that are better than Black Diamond Rookie Edition.  It took no time at all.  Here they are in no particular order:

Upper Deck Rookie Edition - How horrible would this have been?   I wonder if it was even an option.

Upper Deck Olympic Class - You’ve got the 2000 Olympic Team referenced right there in the name.  Makes sense; and you can practically see the bronze, silver, and gold medal parallels right now.

Upper Deck Team USA Edition - Maybe a little too patriotic for the international market, but what international market?

Upper Deck Fresh Faces - Alliterative and references the rookie-centric nature of the set (sounds like a subset I may have seen somewhere).

Upper Deck the New Class - a little too TV reference-y?  How ‘bout this:

Upper Deck the Next Generation - This is genius, and I’d buy cases of this product.

Upper Deck Millennium - Simple, obvious, lots of potential for cool subsets and inserts.  How did this not get made?

Upper Deck 21^st Century - Ditto above.

Upper Deck Century Rookies - You see the pattern?

Upper Deck Iron Apex - Just two words that sound kind of cool together - from my experience this is a perfectly valid system for naming a baseball card brand.  You could have real metal numbered parallels and an insert based on the heavier elements of the periodic table, and you could make analogies as to how each player’s skill is comparable to that element’s chemical properties.  Maybe something about melting points, viscosity, cards with rivets, the word “superstructure” sounds cool, a die-cut rookie set called “Under Construction” with black and yellow stripes….I’m skewing comical here, but there are a lot of different directions we could take this.

I’m going to stop myself there because I could brainstorm a thousand reasonable ideas for this one set, but my point is that card design seems like a really easy and fun job, but poorly thought-out sets still seem to make it into the market.  Does this shit not write itself?  Some sets make me wonder if the industry out of creative people, or are the card companies just not paying them enough?  How hard is it to make a cool set of baseball cards?  SERIOUSLY.  I want to know.  Because it seems really, really easy.

I don’t mean to rant.  I do try to be as positive as possible with my take on cards featured on this blog (finding fault is a lot easier than praising), but I’ll never understand how some cards even make it out of the factory let alone off the drawing board.  Black Diamond Rookie Edition and its inserts seem like a big ol’ missed opportunity, and they drive me nuts.

Let’s end this post on a positive note: Regardless of why it got made, this is definitely my favorite of the three Black Diamond base set designs.  Good on you, UD.

2000 Upper Deck Black Diamond: Inserts for a New Millenium

2000 Upper Deck Black Diamond #76

In my collection: 5 regular, 2 Diamonation, 2 Diamond Might

Griffey looks: spiritually connected to his bat

Is this a good Griffey card?  Yes.  The best base card from an OK set with some bangin’ inserts.

The set: This card features foil and chromium in more structured, geometric textures than that in the previous year’s set.  The horizontal lines, bathroom-floor checkerboard tile, and a sad little nameplate don’t exactly leap off the card, and the whole package end up coming across dark and sterile.  The coloring in the Tetris-tile background helps a little though it doesn’t come out in the scan, and the die-cut parallels are OK; but overall the base design is not a home run.

Tetris, anyone?

Junior appears to be on-deck here, or possible taking a moment in the batter's box.  He is using this time to connect spiritually with his signature black bat like Pedro Cerrano from the Major League movies.  No chickens were harmed in the making of this card.

This set does have one remarkable redeeming quality: the inserts.  They’re beautiful.  Plenty of gleaming holofoil, shiny refracted light, and effects in every color of the rainbow await you in a land of prancing leprechauns and unicorn magic delights.

2000 Upper Deck Black Diamond Diamonation #D1

Look at that.  This is what God had in mind when He created the insert: absurdly cool, shiny, colorful, light-refracting, somehow-still-cardboard works of art.  This thing reflects light in lovely and complex angles on the front like that laser web Catherine Zeta-Jones had to karate through in Entrapment.  You can find this insert at several websites for cheap; go grab one of your favorite player.
 

In case you were wondering, Diamonation means he will dominate you with diamonds.  He will throw diamonds at you until you submit, and diamonds are sharp.  He is a diamonator.  We are dia-submissive-mond.  

2000 Upper Deck Black Diamond Diamond Might #M1

Check out this rainbow sandwich.  Holofoil, cool lettering, gold foil all over the place - this is a seriously fun insert.  And check out Junior calling his shot.  He’s pointing with his bat as if to say “I’m going to bunt, and the ball is going to land right there and hopefully not bounce too far.” Let's hope the infield didn't notice.

Here are the cards from 2000 Black Diamond I am missing:

#76 Final Cut

#76 Reciprocal Cut

Barrage #B2

Constant Threat #T1

A Piece of History #JR

A Piece of History Double #JR

A Piece of History Triple #JR

Only one more set would be made under with the Black Diamond brand.  It would also come in 2000, but late enough that 1) they got a shot of Junior on the Reds and 2) maybe collectors forgot that this set already came out once this year?  It’s all very convoluted.

Join us next time for 2000 Upper Deck Black Diamond: Part Deux.