Thursday, May 22, 2008

Baseball Card Reference Wiki

I've completed entires for 1980 cards at my new Baseball Card Reference Wiki. It turns out that a wiki makes a lot more sense for this sort of think than a blog.

Please check it out and leave me comments telling me what you think about it.

This will be a long term project. I hope to add a few new card sets per week.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Under Construction

I took down the link to this on Capewood's Collections. One of the bloggers I asked to review this site for me suggested I do this as a Wiki. I had no idea how to do that but I found a free hosting site. So I'm playing around with that now. Hopefully I'll have that working soon.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

1980 Topps

Card Set Name: Topps

Manufacturer: Topps Chewing Gum Company, Inc.

Set Count: 726

Front: No gloss, white border, facsimile signature. Most cards are portrait. Some subsets are landscape. The color scheme for each card features a colored banner with player position, different colored banner with the player's team and a third color as a frame for the photograph. Each team had a different color scheme. This is similar to many Topps sets in the 1970s and 1980s.

Back: No finish. Landscape. Features player game and personal statistics. Also features a cartoon with some fact about the player. Pale blue and black color scheme.

Subsets: All-Star, 1979 Highlights, Team Future Stars, 1979 League Leaders, Team Photo/Checklist, Set Checklist

Parallel Cards: None

Top Cards (April/May 2008 Beckett Baseball Card Plus):
# 482 Rickey Henderson (RC) - $50.00
#580 Nolan Ryan - $15.00
#390 Ozzie Smith - $10.00
$540 Pete Rose - $8.00
Inserts: None

Comments: I started collecting baseball cards seriously in 1985. At first I only bought new cards, and then I branched out into older cards that I found at flea markets and card shows. This is, of course, way before eBay. Around 1990 I set my collecting goal to owning every Phillies card issued. Consequently, my 1980 Topps cards are almost all Phillies because I've made no other attempt to acquire them. I only own 46 cards from the set.

According to Beckett, a full set is worth $120.

Base Card


All-Star Card Not a true subset. A bar is added across the top of the player photo indicating if player was a 1979 NL or AL All-Star.

1979 Highlights

Future Stars There was a card for each team featuring prominent rookie players from each team.

1979 League Leaders Each card featured the NL and AL player to lead his league in a specific category.
Team Photo/Manager/Team Checklist

Set Checklist These were pretty consistent with designs from the 1970s.

1980 Burger King Phillies

Card Set Name: Burger King Phillies

Manufacturer: Topps Chewing Gum Company, Inc.

Set Count: 23

Front: No gloss, white border, facsimile signature. Cards are portrait. Cards feature the same color scheme and design of the Phillies cards in the regular Topps Phillies cards. A yellow ribbon on top left has the player position, a purple ribbon at bottom right has the team name and the photo has a red border. The cards have the same photos as the Topps cards with the exception of cards 3, 8,14, and 21, which feature the same player but a different pose. Card #1 features Phillies manager Dallas Green. The Topps set did not feature a separate manager card.

Back: No finish. Landscape. Features player game and personal statistics. Also features a cartoon with some fact about the player. Pale blue and black color scheme. Has a Burger King logo. The 1980 Topps set did not feature a Topps logo.

Subsets: Manager, Set Checklist

Parallel Cards: None

Top Cards (2007 Sports Collector's Digest Catalog):
# 4 Pete Rose - $2.50
#6 Mike Schmidt - $2.50

Inserts: None

Comments: Topps produced team sets for Burger King in selected markets starting in 1977. This was the second Phillies set (the other in 1979) and the first to feature the Burger King logo. It was also the last Burger King team set. The checklist card says you get a pack of 3 cards with the purchase of large fries. I hardly ever eat in Burger King and was unaware of these cards until I saw them, probably at a card show, in the late 1980's. I bought the entire set but I don't remember what I paid for them.

As of this posting, a pack of these cards, with Pete Rose on the top, sealed and graded 9.5, is going for $9.99.

Base Card


Manager Card - Topps did not issue manager cards in their regular set. There were team photos with a picture of the manager in an inset.
Checklist Card - the only place in the set where the Topps logo appears.