Tuesday, May 20, 2008

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.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I have an uncut sheet of this 1980 Phillies Burger King card set. Any idea how much that is worth? I have a buyer and the intrinsic value to me makes them priceless but want to be sure I'm getting a fair price.

Matthew Glidden said...

Already link back to this set profile from my #5 blog and mention that its Dallas Green's only card that year, since they didn't do separate managers in 1980 Topps.

Just learned today that Lonnie Smith's card is also unique to this set. Although Topps put him on a 1979 multi-player card, he didn't get a regular 1980 Topps card.

More details at Baseball-Reference's Card of the Week blog:

1981 Fleer Lonnie Smith