1982 Police Issue - Milwaukee Police Department

Card Manufacturer: ???

Card Set: Police Department Giveaway

Year: 1982

Card Number: NNO

Card Type: Base

Card Class: Giveaways

As a Brewers fan and a Brewers card collector there are few cards or card sets as iconic as the Milwaukee Brewers Police issues.  The sets started in 1982 and, at least in my home town, were given out at the 4th of July festivities.  The sets continued non-stop up into the early 90's and then every now and then a new set gets issued.  The early 80's sets are fun to store as the cards are larger than the standard size baseball card, by probably a good half inch in each direction.

This card comes by way of a trade with Tony L. over at Off Hiatus Baseball Cards.

He was nice enough to send me the whole team set, which is great, because not only did I get a complete team set, but I get to officially add a new Yount and Rollie Fingers to my player collections.

The Police issues are an interesting bunch of cards for a player collector. Since these cards were printed for each participating department and featured the department's name on the front and back there are literally tens to hundreds of possible variations for any given year.  Depending on how one collects that could mean lots of Younts to chase and since I consider each card from a different department to be a unique card that means I have lots of cards to chase.  And that's the way I like it. 

So thanks Tony for adding a new one to the collection.

2008 Upper Deck Ballpark Collection Quad Player relic

Card Manufacturer: Upper Deck

Card Set: Ballpark Collection

Year: 2008

Card Number: 204

Card Type: Insert

Insert Set: Quad Swatch Memorabilia

Card Attributes: Relic

Relic Type: Jersey

Note: Also featured on card, Prince Fielder, Rickie Weeks, J J Hardy

By 2008 relic cards had become filler fodder for products.  Sure they were hits, but relics were and are now more than ever a dime a dozen.  Seriously you can find tons of relic cards in the dollar bins.  And quad relics can be hit or miss.  Usually it's a jumble of players from different teams sometimes united by a common thread like position, but sometimes it seems the card manufacturers just looked who they had the most swatches for and put them together.

With that being said, I think this might be one of my favorite relic cards in my Brewers team  collection and in my Yount player collection.  

Upper Deck's Ballpark Collection offered a lot of relics. Each box had 2 sometimes 3.

While quad player relic cards can be hit or miss they tend to work out great when the unifying theme is the team.  And this card works well because the swatches are all so different, well mostly.  I mean you get a pinstripe from the Hardy section and a nice gray piece of pants from the Yount.  And with Prince's swatch slightly askew it doesn't look exactly like Rickie's piece.  

I think the only thing that would have balanced out this card and made it better is if there was another retired Brewer on the card like Paul Molitor, Cecil Cooper, or Rollie Fingers.  That way you have the balance of old and new.  But I'm not complaining.

1977 Burger Chef Triple Play Funmeal Tray

Card Manufacturer: MSA

Card Set: Burger Chef Triple Play Funmeal

Year: 1977

Card Number: NNO

Notes: Full intact Funmeal Tray with complete team discs

If you have never heard of Burger Chef I wouldn't be surprised.  But at one time Burger Chef was second only to McDonalds in the number of restaurants nationwide.  Eventually Hardee's bought the company and the last Burger Chef restaurant closed in 1996.

In the mid 70's you get a Funmeal with that featured different teams and 9 player discs.  It's not too hard to find the discs, but finding whole trays, especially ones as clean and intact as this one, can be hard, but not as hard as you think.  The MSA discs are smaller than a lot of the MSA discs issued at the time and feature a few players not featured in some of the other regional sets.

Besides Robin Yount, you got Jerry Augustine, Jim Slaton, Charlie Moore, Von Joshua, Eduardo Rodriguez, Sixto Lezcano, Sal Bando, and Bill Travers.  

Inside the tray there was a baseball game.

2004 Donruss Diamond Kings Legends Bronze Framed Dual Relic card

Card Manufacturer: Donruss

Card Set: Diamond Kings

Year: 2004

Card Number: 164

Card Type: Insert relic

Insert Set: Bronze Framed Dual Relic

Card Attributes: Relics, Serial Numbered

Relic Types: Jersey, Bat

Serial Numbered: 030/100

Here is a set that's going to be featured over and over again here on the blog. That'll happen when you have a gazzlion parallels and variations in your set. It really is an incredible feat if you can keep track of them all. I can't and  I rely on keeping good notes on what I have so when I come across these cards I can figure out which ones I need.

This card comes in a whole rainbow of flavors. I'll hazard a guess without actually looking it up, but there are probably over 30 to 40 different versions of Robin's #164 card if you count all the color variations, relic and auto versions, and framed parallels. It's almost mind numbing.

But here we have a really nice dual relic.  And I really like the dual relics that have different kinds of relics in them like this one.  I apologize for the blurry image. This card is entombed in a screwdown holder and I wasn't going to take it out.  

Serial numbered to just 100. There is also a nice blurb about the artist and Donruss even tells you what years Robin had Diamond Kings issued for him

2007 Topps Triple Threads base card

Card Manufacturer: Topps

Card Set: Triple Threads

Year: 2007

Card Number: 124

Card Type: Base

Card Attributes: Serial Numbered

Serial Number: 0939/1350

Triple Threads is one of those issues that it's the base that changes and the relics and hits seem to stay the same.  Robin has base cards in the first 3 sets issued from 2006- 2008 and then didn't get another base card until 2013.  Early in the brands days the base cards were numbered, but Topps stopped that a few years back.  Robin has card #124 in the set and gets all the associated parallels.

Not a bad looking card and it's an image that Topps didn't use too much. I like the feel of these card. It looks like it would take an autograph well and the red base cards make a pretty bold statement.    

2004 Donruss Throwback Threads Century Stars

Card Manufacturer: Donruss

Card Set: Throwback Threads

Year: 2004

Card Number: CS-48

Card Type: Insert

Insert Set: Century Stars

Card Attributes: Serial Numbered

Serial Number: 1471/1500

Some times I really miss all the different card companies being out there.  I don't mean card companies using old imprints. I mean back when Donruss was not part of Panini, when Fleer was not part of Upper Deck, when O-Pee-Chee use to copy Topps.  And I miss inserts like this believe it or not.  This is a typical insert from the mid-2000 by Donruss.  This base insert is an after thought. It was created mainly for the relic, autographed, and relic auto versions of this insert and that's why I like it. It's an orphan so to speak, the red headed step-child of the group. And even though this card is serial numbered it's still easy and fairly cheap to find.  Robin has all the parallels too. He has an autograph, relic, auto relic, prime relic (which I'm assuming is a patch piece), a prime relic auto, and also the Spectrum foil board parallel numbered to 100.   The relic was placed where the star is and the sticker autograph was run along the bottom part of the card.

I think I covet these base cards more than their parallels simply because I like that Robin gets included.  And for any player collector that's big.  I like the old mid-70's photo of a young Robin with a clean shaven, smiling face and old school Milwaukee hat. But I find it funny that Donruss chose to use the Brewers current logo.

2014 Stadium Club Base

Card Manufacturer: Topps

Card Set: Stadium Club

Year: 2014

Card Number: 171

Card Type: Base

The newest Yount to land on my doorstep.  I just got my order from justcommons.com.  I tend to use the site to complete my Brewers team sets and to pick up cheap TTM cards.  I also pick up Robin's new base cards when I can for cheap. I love that if you spend $10 on the site, which isn't that hard, it's free shipping.  I ended up picking up a couple of these cards, one for my team set and of course one for the Yount Collection.  This year marks the return of Stadium Club and I have to say I like the design. It's pretty classic Stadium Club and while I don't like the price point or the whole 3 mini box per box structure, I like the design and the set size is small enough that it probably wouldn't be too hard to complete, but it's large enough to have a nice mix of past, present, and future stars in it.

Besides the base there are also 5 parallels to chase in this set and Robin has a buy back auto numbered to 5.  So far this is the only card from the set I've picked up, but I'm sure I'll start working my way through the parallels.