Stadium Club Then and Now

Some of the retired players I pulled from my box of 2014 Stadium Club had significant parts of their careers overlap with the main run of Stadium Club (1991-2003). So I thought it would be fun to compare and contrast 2014 Stadium Club cards with the Stadium Club cards of the same players from the past. I'm going to do them in number order from the 2014 set.

Todd Helton 2014 Stadium Club vs 2000 Stadium Club Chrome

Of the retired players I pulled, Helton was the most recently retired, after the 2013 season.

I didn't buy much regular Stadium Club in 2000 because I bought a hobby box of Chrome. The 2000 Chrome set was outstanding.

Rickey Henderson 2014 Stadium Club vs 1994 Stadium Club

Robin Yount 2014 Stadium Club vs 1992 Stadium Club

 

  The 1992 card is the "Members Choice" subset

Mark McGwire 2014 Stadium Club vs 1996 Stadium Club Power Packed

 

 

I don't have any Stadium Club McGwire base cards from other years of Stadium Club scanned, so I'll go with the mad card which multi-coloree foil stamping on the front.

Jeff Bagwell 2014 Stadium Club vs 1991 Stadium Club

 Stadium Club premier set and Bagwell's best rookie card. In 1991, Topps put the player's rookie card on the back, even if it was 1991 Stadium Club.

Tony Gwynn 2014 Stadium Club vs 1995 Stadium Club

 

Tony always wielded a big bat.

Cal Ripken 2014 Stadium Club vs 2001 Stadium Club

Cal retired after the 2001 season.

1991 - A turning point in the baseball card collecting hobby? Part 2

Picking up where I left off with my collection of 1991 John Kruk cards with some speculation on my part about the historical significance, if any, of each set.

1991 Stadium Club #227

Of all the issues in 1991, Stadium Club was certainly a game changer. It was the first main-stream set to feature full-bleed printing, glossy finish on the front and back and gold foil stamping. These features will become standard on nearly all cards in the future.  It was issued in 2 series of 300 cards each.

1991 Topps #689

Another last for 1991. The last year Topps will use non-white card stock for their base set.  It was also Topps' 40th anniversary. This is a favorite set of mine, especially considering how terrible 1990 Topps had been. I always liked the 40th anniversary logo.

1991 Topps Desert Shield #689

 

Although we're still a few years before the time when parallel cards will become common, there are several parallels of 1991 Topps. The Desert Storm cards were produced for US soldiers involved in the Desert Shield Operation in Iraq. The talk in the hobby at the time was that cards were being sent back to the US but were pretty scarce. I paid $6.00 for this on eBay. Beckett.com warns that forgeries are common.

1991 Topps Micro #689
This was a parallel of postage sized cards sold as a complete set. They were available only in 1991 and 1992. I have the entire set from 1992 but never saw them in 1991. I will have this card. I can get an individual Kruk for 99 cents plus $2.50 shipping. Or for a little more I can get the whole boxed set. But then I found someone selling just the Phillies cards from the set for about what just the Kruk was going for and put in a bid.

1991 Topps Tiffany #689

Topps had been producing this glossy parallel set, which was only available as a boxed set, for a number of years. I believe this was the last year for this. I recently bought this card for $2.51. They are not hard to find today but I imagine individual cards would have been scarce in 1991.

1991 Topps Triple Headers #NL-8 John Kruk/Lenny Dykstra/Dale Murphy

This, of course, is not a baseball card but Beckett.com listed it anyway. It's about the size of a ping pong ball but of thicker plastic and has baseball seams molded in. Three players are featured. There is one for each of the 26-teams then in existence. They could have easily gotten four players on this. It came packaged in a little box complete with a small stand. It was only $3.95 on eBay so I got it.

There is a checklist on the back side of the box. The box also conttained a little bag containing 0.4 oz. of, I'm sure, delicious candy. Candy made in China!

I am not eating this.

1991 Ultra #266

Another first for 1991. Three major card sets made their debut in 1991: Leaf, Stadium Club and Ultra. 1991 Ultra is a full bleed card like Stadium Club but it doesn't have the glossy finish or the foil stamping. That will come in 1992.

1991 Upper Deck #199

 Upper Deck, which pioneered the whole concept of premium baseball cards just 2 years before, by 1991, is starting to look a little tired, considering the Leaf/Stadium Club/Ultra releases. It will take Upper Deck until 1994 to catch up.

1991 US Playing Card All-Stars 

I got this in a trade with blogger Night Owl a few years ago. Playing card sets featuring baseball cards used to be fairly common.

1991 US Playing Card All-Stars Silver
This wraps up the Beckett.com listing for 1991 Kruk cards. I have no idea what the silver version looks like and couldn't even find the regular card, much less the silver, on eBay.

2014 Stadium Club - Parallels and Inserts

In Friday's post I reported that I'd gotten 75 base cards and 15 inserts and parallels. My count was a bit off, I actually pulled 16 inserts and parallels. I pretty much got all the inserts and parallels I should have based on the odds given in baseballcardpedia.com. The parallel insert cards have pretty long odds and I only pulled two of them. There are severel autograph insert cards but no relic cards.

The inserts are nice, although there are too many die-cut cards for my taste. If you're at all familiar with the run of Stadium Cards you'll recognize some of the inserts from earlier Stadium Club sets. There are no "First Day's Issue" cards of which there seemed to be too many in 2008 Stadium Club.

Stadium Club Golden Rainbow

The Golden Rainbow parallel is inserted one per mini-box, so I got my quota of 3. The scan does not do justice to the 'Golden Rainbow" quality of the foil stamping. These are actually pretty hard to tell apart from the regular cards except that the background of the player's name is black instead of silver.

Stadium Club Gold

These are inserted 1 in 3 mini-boxes (therefore 1 per box). I got my one. The gold foil stamping is easy to differentiate and the background for the name is also gold color.

Stadium Club Electric Foil

These are inserted 1 in 9 mini-boxes, so 1 in every three hobby boxes. This one of the longer-odd cards I pulled. Even in the scan it's easy to see the difference in the foil. It reminded me of the old "Electric Diamond" parallels of 1994-1995 Upper Deck.

That's it for the parallels I pulled. There is also an "Foilboard" parallel (numbered to 25) inserted 1 in 11 mini-boxes and a "Members Only" parallel, which are a 1of1, inserted one per 36 mini-boxes.

Stadium Club Beam Team

This 10-card insert is inserted 1:3 mini-boxes. The lines on the front are of holographic foil so the card is quite attractive in person.

Stadium Club Triumvirates Luminous

This is a 30-card set inserted 1:3 mini-boxes. These cards come in sets of three that interlock. The Mauer cards is the right-hand side card. It fits into the Miguel Cabrera card, which in turn fits into the Troy Tulowitzki card. There may be some rhyme or reason for the groupings but I don't feel like figuring it out. The finish on this card is very much like Topps Finest.

Stadium Club Triumvirates Luminescent

This is a parallel to the Luminous set, inserted 1:12 mini-boxes. The card finish is like Topps Finest Refractor. There is another parallel to this called Illuminator, inserted 1:36.

Stadium Club Legends Die Cut

This 10-card set, inserted 1:3, has a holographic foil board background. It scanned nicely. I'm always happy to get a Nolan Ryan card, especially in an Astros uni.

Stadium Club Future Stars Die Cut

Another 10-card, inserted 1:3, die-cut set.

Stadium Club Field Access

This is a 25-card set inserted 1 per mini-box. I got there. The other two are Hank Aaron and Stan Musial.  There is also an McGwire base card. Is Big Mac making a comeback?

Stadium Club Autographs

There was an on-card autograph card in each mini-box. The autograph cards are also available in the Golden Rainbow, Gold, Electric Foil as well, serial numbered to 50, 25 and 1 respectively. I didn't get any of those. Here's what I did get.

By the way, this is the second on-card auto I got this year fir Johnson. Earlier I pulled a Topps Chrome Rookie Autographs Refractor card. I sure hope this guy becomes a big star. Hard to tell from his major league record so far.