30 Years of Collecting Surprises and Oddities

The strange and wonderful things that have come out of my packs in three decades

As I’ve mentioned before, this all began exactly 30 years ago with an uncut sheet of 1984 Topps.  From there, things have kind of snowballed into everything you see here and a whole lot more that’s waiting for a turn in the scanner.  Those stacks of cards are filled with rookies, stars, nobodies, and Hall of Famers.  But through all of it, one thing has remained constant – you never know what is going to come out of a pack of cards.  Usually it’s nothing.  Sometimes, it’s the card you were hoping for.  And every once in a while, well, you’re not really sure what it is.  And that’s what we’re looking back on tonight.

1986 Fleer All-Star Team

These days, inserts are a given in pretty much everything.  Base cards, not so much.  But back in 1986, inserts were as oddball as Quaker Granola Bar and Kay-Bee or Toys ‘R Us cards.  The first insert I ever pulled was this 1986 Fleer All-Star Team Gary Carter.  At the time, I had no idea what it was or where it belonged.  It wasn’t part of the set, that was for sure.  The concept of an insert was completely foreign to me and it wasn’t like the card was valuable at all.  It was just different and confusing.

1990 Upper Deck Reggie Jackson Baseball Heroes Header

It wasn’t until 1990 Upper Deck High Number Series that an insert set made an impact on the hobby.  What certainly helped was the big “Find the Reggie” logo on every pack, making the inserts much less confusing.  Except for this one that is.  No name on the front, no number on the back, what the heck?  While this was the first of one of the most ambitious sequentially-numbered multi-year insert sets, it also featured the first of ten unnumbered header cards.  It was an odd choice, but at least it kept things interesting.

1996 Topps Mickey Mantle Sweepstakes Entry

Topps celebrated the life of Mickey Mantle in 1996, retiring his number 7 in the base Topps set and releasing reprints of his cards as inserts.  And then there were these.  I think I pulled the 1951 Bowman and got the 1952 Topps in a cheap lot.  Or maybe it was the other way around.  Or maybe they were both pack pulls.  In any case, they were quite the oddity at the time.  Unlike the regular reprints, they lacked a foil stamp on the front.  And on the back…

A sweepstakes entry form?  I suppose there must have been quite the dilemma in 1996.  Do you send it in for a 1-in-2500 or better chance at the card on the front or hope that these cards become rare enough to be worth a decent amount as-is?  I got these four years later, so I guess I dodged that bullet.

2000 Upper Deck Hank Aaron Piece of History 500 Club

The hobby was changing quite a bit in 2000.  After three years away from the hobby, I got back in with a box of 2000 Upper Deck Series 1.  I was hoping to pull one of those newfangled memorabilia cards and my wish came true just a few packs in with this Jose Canseco jersey card.  And then a few packs later I got something quite unexpected.  The Upper Deck Game Jersey cards were featured prominently on Upper Deck’s promotional material, but the Aaron?  I had to check the back of the pack to be sure of what I had.  Limited to just 350 copies, this was a huge hit in the day and is still a big deal today.

2001 Topps Chrome Albert Pujols

Albert Pujols took the sport of baseball by storm in 2001, coming from relative obscurity to run away with the NL Rookie of the Year Award in a unanimous decision.  Along the way, there was a rush to release his first Rookie Cards.  To get one into 2001 Topps Chrome Series 2, Topps skipped the chrome treatment and used foil instead.  It certainly doesn’t fit in with the rest of the 2001 Topps Chrome set, but I don’t think anyone was going to complain about getting one of them from a pack.

2011 Topps Allen & Ginter’s Code Symbol

When it comes to the odd and bizarre, nothing beats Allen & Ginter’s.  In 2011, Topps went the extra mile with these symbol cards that may or may not have been part of breaking the Ginter code.  Each card has a number handwritten on the back in one of a variety of numeric forms.  If it weren’t for the copyright block at the bottom, this would look like some sort of mistake.  Instead, it is just strange and kind of creepy.

2011-2012 Topps Allen & Ginter’s Red Backs

When you’re used to the strange things in Allen & Ginter’s, a John McEnroe mini card isn’t all that notable.  When sorting this one though, the red back and handwritten serial number (out of 25) became apparent.  Such a low-numbered card should be something special.  But a baseball card of a tennis player?  I’m not sure what to make of that.  A year later, I went through the same thing with this Al Unser Sr.

2012 Topps Allen & Ginter’s Kirk Herbstreit Tie

And our final entry from Allen & Ginter’s is this memorabilia card featuring a piece of tie worn by Kirk Herbstreit, who is apparently a college football analyst.  Just what I wanted from a pack of baseball cards!

2012 Topps Archives Bryce Harper Autograph Redemption

11 years after Albert Pujols hit the hobby, Topps was faced with the challenge of getting the first Bryce Harper Rookie Cards into circulation.  The first target was 2012 Topps Archives, which featured bonus short print Rookie Cards and autograph redemptions featuring the eventual NL Rookie of the Year.

2013 Topps Opening Day Prince Fielder Play Hard

Ever get that feeling that something is missing from a card you just pulled?  That’s what happened when I got this Prince Fielder insert from a pack of 2013 Topps Opening Day.  For some reason, the Prince Fielder and Miguel Cabrera Play Hard inserts were pulled from the production run and destroyed.  Somehow, a few of these still made it into packs, mostly.

2014 Donruss Masahiro Tanaka Wrapper Redemption Japanese SP

Wrapper redemptions are all but extinct, but Panini announced a last-minute one for 2014 Donruss.  24 wrappers would get you a pack of three Rookie cards.  I got mine and set it aside, thinking it strange that they would use kanji for Masahiro Tanaka’s name.  Months later, I would find out that this was not the normal version and was instead a rare variation.  Topps had done something similar in 2001 with Ichiro’s Topps Gallery rookies (issued as redemptions), but those were about as common as the English versions.

And there you have it, some strange, some valuable, and some now commonplace cards to come out of packs I’ve opened in the last 30 years.  It’s nice to get what you’re expecting, but sometimes the unexpected helps to keep things interesting.

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