1971 TOPPS COINS TEAM SET From 1961 through 1971, Topps issued at least a single one-per-pack insert each year. Here's a complete list, for those of you keeping score at home: 1961 Magic Rub-Offs 1961 Stamps 1962 Stamps 1963 Peel-Offs 1964 Coins 1965 Embossed 1965 Transfers 1966 Rub-Offs 1967 Pin-Ups 1968 Game 1969 Decals 1969 [...]
1963 FLEER ROGER CRAIG No triskaidekaphobe, our Roger Craig. He started the 1962 season wearing number 38, and ended up with a 10-24 record. By August of 1963, Craig was sporting a 2-20 mark. At that point, I suppose he figured that he could break all the mirrors, walk under all the ladders, and cross [...]
2000 PACIFIC ORNAMENTS MIKE PIAZZA For your holiday pleasure, Card of the Week offers you a Piazza in a pear tree. OK, actually it's a Piazza in a 7 ft. pre-lit artificial tree, but that doesn't scan quite as well. Here's wishing you and yours a holly jolly one!
1989 TOPPS/LJN RANDY MYERS On this date in 1989, “We Didn't Start the Fire” by Billy Joel was in its second week at the top of the Billboard charts, having supplanted Milli Vanilli's “Blame It on the Rain” at the number one spot. Christmas 1989 was to see “Another Day in Paradise” become Phil Collins' [...]
1981 PERMA-GRAPHICS DAVE KINGMAN Keeping the Kingman kontent koming at Kard of the Week. And while it seems appropriate to harp on K's when Dave Kingman is involved, for love of Ray Davies I'll give it a rest... I remember when these Perma-Graphics "credit cards" first showed up at the local Ha-Cha stationery store. I [...]
1977 TOPPS CLOTH STICKER DAVE KINGMAN Dave Kingman is as much 1977 to me as Rumours, Rocky, the Ramones, and R2-D2. He brought to the mid '70s Mets something that they had rarely seen before. The franchise-- weaned on essential ineptitude, and brought to maturity by the finesse of a well-pitched game-- now had at [...]
1974 TOPPS DECKLE EDGE FELIX MILLAN What the heck is a deckle? Well, a “deckle” is a frame used when making paper by hand; by extension, a “deckle edge” is the rough, untrimmed edge that results from this process. Head to your local antiquarian book seller for a quick reference... Topps was not seeking to [...]
Just wanted to take the opportunity to share with you my most precious and valued card. Happy Thanksgiving, from my team to yours...
1992 DONRUSS ELITE DWIGHT GOODEN Donruss introduced the Elite insert set in 1991, and for the first few years of production, it lived up to its name. The regular Donruss sets of the era were as overproduced as teenage hormones, but common wisdom holds that the early Elite cards were found just one in every [...]
1994 PINNACLE MUSEUM COLLECTION JOE ORSULAK If Woody Guthrie were alive in 1994, he would have written songs about Joe Orsulak. Orsulak is the MLB version of the common man. He has a common name, a name that sounds like hard work, a name that is democratic enough to include just about every vowel. (There [...]
Happy Halloween from Foul Bill and Card of the Week! Here's hoping that Alderson & Co drop some treats in our bag this off-season...
1997 TOPPS PRO SHOOTERS MARBLES BERNARD GILKEY Back in the late '90s when New York was still my home, I used to haunt the aisles of National Wholesale Liquidators a couple of times a month. My wife liked to follow the rotation of some of the more esoteric food items, and I would head straight [...]