Trade from across the sea

I haven't made a trade with John from England for awhile but I got an email from him last June proposing our usual trade, Red Sox cards for Astros cards. We finally got it pulled off. John writes a card blog "The Pursuit of 80's (ness)" but hasn't posted since earlier in the year. Come on John, let's see something new.

I always get a pretty varied collection of stuff from John and I always wonder where he finds this stuff in Kent.

Let's have a look and some of what he sent.

1965 Milkana Astrodome

This is a real oddball. Milkana is a German cheese company which apparently sold from a location in London. In searching for something about it the only substantial information came from a post John did in 2010. We both are guessing that the card dates from around when the Astrodome opened in 1965. The painting was done by someone who probably didn't know anything about baseball. Milkana is still around. They have a cartoon blue heart with hands as their mascot that goes by the name of Mr. Doo Dhu.

1976 Topps #171 Greg Gross

I don't actually collect Astros from before 1995, but 1976 cards are always welcome as I only have a few and most of them are Phillies. Future Phillie Greg Gross shows off the colorful Astros uniform in full splendor. The Astros have incorporated some of this rainbow goodness in their current unis but not like this. I assume that the '40' on the shoulder was a tribute to someone. His uniform number is on his pants.

1997 Score Reserve Collection #487 Chris Holt

1997 Score wasn't a very attractive set but they made up for it with a series of confusingly named parallel cards. This featured a silver foil background with raised silver foil rays behind the player.

Score Hobby Reserve #370 Brad Ausmus

This one featured an embossed gold shield conveniently placed for Ausmus to sit on.

2002 Donruss Fan Club #160 Lance Berkman

Donruss also issued in 2002 "Best of Donruss Fan Club" which had exactly the same cards as above but were printed on foil board.

2003 Upper Deck 40-Man #369 Octavio Dotel

From 2002 through 2005, Topps issued their Topps Total set which contained every player on each team's 40-man roster. Not to be outdone, Upper Deck did the same thing in 2002 and 2003. These sets were huge, with about 1,000 cards each.

2003 Upper Deck MVP #17 Lance Berkman

This was an inexpensive set which I never cared much for so didn't buy much of. This is now the only Astro from the set that I have. I only had one Phillie as well. This drove me to eBay where I was able to pick up the Astros and Phillies team sets for a couple of bucks apiece.

2008 Upper Deck Goudey Autographs J. R. Towles

As named by the Night Owl, the "Ken Griffey says" set. Pretty forgettable but still an autographed card and much appreciated. Towles (pronounced tolls) hit .375 in 14 games in his 2007 debut year and looked like the next big thing. In 5 total years with the Astros (155 games) he only hit .187.

2012 Topps Gypsy Queen Blue Framed Paper #256 Nolan Ryan

Another much appreciated card from the 2nd year of Gypsy Queen. I didn't get any variation of the Ryan card from that set. This is numbered 147/599.

2013 Triple Play #32 Matt Dominguez

If I were Matt Dominguez, I'd sue over this card.

2015 Donruss Studio #7 Jose Altuve

Panini's not entirely successful attempt to revive Donruss Studio.

Baseball Card Evolution through the 1990s - Bowman

I started collecting cards in 1985. From that vantage point it seemed that baseball cards had been pretty static for years. Sure, Donruss and Fleer came on the scene in 1981, but by 1985, they were pretty set in their ways. By 1990, we had three more major card brands, Bowman, Score and Upper Deck. The stage was set for some changes. In this series I'm going to focus on the brands that were available in 1990: Bowman, Donruss, Fleer, Score, Topps and Upper Deck. Most of these brands lasted the whole decade. Lots of other brands came (and some went) but these other brands were a reaction to the increased competition that was driving innovative design changes so they don't add anything to the story I'm trying to tell.

I'm going to do these in alphabetical order, so Bowman is first.

1990 Bowman #486 Nolan Ryan

Topps resurrected the Bowman brand in 1989 and it almost died in the crib. The cards were taller than 'normal' cards and weren't liked. In 90, Topps shrunk them to normal size. The first three years didn't have much to differentiate them from each other or from regular Topps cards. They tried some innovative stats on the back but nobody liked that either although they did it for most of the decade. Most of the cards featured a static photo of the players.

1991 Bowman #569 Chipper Jones

Although Bowman had yet to establish itself as the "Home of the rookie card", they did include an early Chipper Jones card. But there's not much seriously different about this design compared to 1990. They even have the same stats on the back. They did, however, start to mix some action shots into the selection of photos.

1992 Bowman #127 Carlos Delgado

In 1992, Bowman really upped it's game. Gone was the gray non-glossy cardboard. They went with a nice white card stock and a medium glossy finish on the front, and a color photo on the back. Another innovation was in the use of foil, with some rookie cards having foil borders. Still the same goofy stats however. I remember being in a card store in 1992 looking for Bowman and not finding any. A couple of guys commented "Why would anyone be interested in Bowman"? This Delgado card I got for free in another shop when the owner gave me a free pack for being a good customer.

1993 Bowman #511 Derek Jeter

A nice clean card front and thinner borders make this a nice design. The back features a larger photo. In those days, Bowman didn't get released until about mid-August which gave them a chance to include any rookie players who made a splash earlier in the year. Of course Jeter won't make his debut until 1995 but by 1993 everyone knew who he was and he was featured in most sets that year. Most of the cards in this set feature on-field action shots and the foil-lined cards were again featured for some hot players.

1994 Bowman #75 Cal Ripken

 Two major design changes for Bowman in 1994. Full bleeding printing and gold foil are old school today but it was cutting edge in 1994.

1995 Bowman #293 Roger Clemens

Bowman pulled back from the full bleed edge in 1995 and never went back there. But there are a number of changes here. The use of red foil for the logo will be a feature for several years. Silver foil is used for the player name. To me, this card front is too complicated. The elongated photo along the left edge is similar to what Upper Deck did in 1994 (I didn't like that much either).  Another first for Bowman this year is the use of team logos in the front, which will be a feature right up to the present. Bowman will feature another innovation, holographic foil on some cards.

1995 Bowman #246 Aaron Boone

1996 Bowman #35 Mark Grace

The red foil logo and the silver foil player name are back but the card borders are nicer than 1995. I like the effect of the player extending into the border area. The card backs are brighter as well.  The big change this year is more in focus. By now, Bowman had established itself as the home of the rookie card and a large part of the set was devoted to rookies and prospects.

1996 Bowman #346 Matt Beech

It's also the first year they used the "1st Bowman Card" logo.

1997 Bowman #232 Curt Schilling

This is the first year that Bowman used the black and red motif for veteran players and black and blue for rookies and prospects. This will be the guiding design factor in Bowman cards for the next 14 years.

1997 Bowman #411 Miguel Tejada

1998 Bowman #1 Nomar Garciaparra

Bowman used gold foil on the card fronts this year. They will switch randomly among  gold, silver, and red right up to the present. The next step in Bowman evolution is the addition of a facsimile signature. This will be a Bowman feature until 2009.

1999 Bowman #262 Dante Bichette

This year Bowman added a semitransparent signature block on the card. Most sets will have this up to 2009, except it will be at the bottom of the card. Some years it will be very obtrusive. They also dropped the performance against teams stats and opted for just showing the player's previous year and career total stats.

That's it for 1990s Bowman. Quite a lot of changes throughout the 1990s but by the end of the decade, the Bowman design will be pretty much set, with the exception of green and black cards for prospects in a few years, through 2011.

The best of the rest from that repack

Last week I made a post about 3 cards I pulled from a recent repack I had bought. There were 100 cards in the box and I needed 42 of them. That's a pretty good ratio. Of course most of them were just cards to fill in holes in various sets and nothing special. But I believe every cards is special in it's own way. Since I know most of you may not agree with that, I'm just going to post some of the cards that a just a bit more special than the rest.

1978 Topps #244 Expos

I have almost no cards from 1978 Topps that aren't Phillies so a team photo/checklist card is special. The card has some creases but still worth keeping.

1979 Topps #646 Rick Sweet

I'm gonna just go ahead and say it, "What a sweet card!"

1988 Topps #388 Wade Boggs

I'm pretty near to completing the 1988 Topps set through repacks so it was nice to pull this card that I needed. I always like the 1988 All-Star cards.

1989 Upper Deck #438 Bob Walk

A two-fer. A 1989 Upper Deck card I needed and Bob Walk (no relation although I did have an uncle named Bob Walk).

1991 Stadium Club #258 Kenny Rogers

A 1991 Stadium Club card I needed. Too bad it's got some condition issues. This is a sour reminder that The Night Owl beat me to a post I'd been thinking about making.

1992 Donruss Coke Ryan #15 Nolan Ryan

This was a 26-card set honoring Nolan Ryan, available with Coke products in 1992. It uses the 1992 Donruss base card for the design. Although I never got one of these in 1992, I did pick up from a local store a poster featuring all the cards. I wish I knew what happened to that.

1994 Upper Deck Minors #190 Steve Gibralter

 This guy didn't have much of a career but it wasn't for being afraid to get his uniform dirty.

2010 Topps 206 Bronze #2 Willie Stargell

In my opinion, you can never go wrong with a WIllie Stargell card.