1985 TOPPS TRADED PROTOTYPE ROGER McDOWELL
I’ve pretty much always been a collector.
There were the animal figurines that occupied an entire bookshelf in my childhood bedroom– brass horses, polished marble elephants, blue glass monkeys, and the like.
Monthly trips to the Gregory Museum in Hicksville netted me countless small rocks, nestled in square cardboard boxes lined with prickly white cotton.
And my heavy metal collection was the envy of the neighborhood. Mind you, this was not Sabbath/Zep/Heep metal, but actual scraps of metal that I found on the streets and by combing through the backlots of local factories.
So none of the shenanigans on display here at Card of the Week should come as any surprise. Not the yellowed superballs, not the uncrimped bottle caps, not the Bernard Gilkey marbles…
But you might well pause and consider the status of my own marbles when I tell you that I was happy to spend $20 on a 1985 Topps Traded Roger McDowell card a couple of weeks ago.
If it helps my case at all, I should note that this version of that common issue is a rare blue-backed prototype that was discovered on Long Island earlier this summer. Two partial sets turned up in boxes labeled “Acme Varnished” and “Fuchs Varnished”– not sure which varnish this McDowell is, because truth be told, I never could tell my Acme from my Fuchs…
Hi Doug,
I’ve only been visiting this site since earlier this season. I honestly had not been clicking on your posts because I assumed that they were solely about collectibles. But I read a recent essay and loved it and now want to read more. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to figure out how to find them. I don’t see your posts in any of the links at the top (history, perspectives, etc.) and searching by your name did not reveal any of your baseball card posts.
Any suggestions?
Signed,
A new fan.
On this article, click on his name. That will bring up his author archive and you’ll be able to see all of Doug’s posts.
This works for any author at the site.
Thanks so much for the positive feedback! Here’s a quick link to the archive of my pieces: https://mets360.com/?author=10
I have no first-hand experience but I watched an awful lot of Saturday morning television that had Acme products and those things never worked as advertised. For your sake, I hope this is the Fuchs version…
For Fuchs’ sake!
As always. Super interesting!