Showing posts with label 1980. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1980. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 1, 2020

1980 Topps/MSA Pepsi-Cola All-stars (The oddest of oddballs)

First off I need to preface this post by saying I do not own this card and will likely never own a copy of this card.  This is one of those cards of urban legend like the 1977 Reggie Jackson Topps card featuring him as an Oriole and not airbrushed as a Yankee.  The story goes that Mike Schechter Associates (MSA), you know the guys responsible for almost all the early 70s and 80s unlicensed baseball stuff, and Topps put together a prototype to submit to Pepsico for a possible promotion.  According to the story they produced 3 full, front and back, sheets of cards to present to executives at Pepsi.  However the deal fell through and the set was never released and, except for the 3 sheets, never fully produced.  As the story goes, only 2 of the sheets were returned to Topps and supposedly destroyed, however the remaining sheet was cut up and the cards made their way into the public.  So if Topps and MSA produced full size sheets they would likely have 132 cards on them and since the set is 22 cards that would mean there should be only 6 cards of each player in the set floating around.

A recent auction at Mile High Card back in Oct 2019 sold a SGC 9.5 example for just shy of $2,500.  Interestingly enough there aren't any Topps or MSA copyrights or logos anywhere on the card.  But the card does use the same photo from the 1980 Topps set and some of the same front and back elements.  It's too bad this was never fully produced it's a good looking card and sadly one I know I'll never add to the collection.  




Monday, March 12, 2018

All About the Base - 1980 Topps

Year: 1980
Manufacturer: Topps
Card Set: Flagship
Card Number: 265
Card Type: Base

Welcome to the 80's!  The Topps design team didn't shake much up for the start of the new decade.  The 1980's design pretty much was just a continuation of the styles from the late 70's.  Like most of the designs not terrible just not memorable.  But I will say I can spot a 1980 Topps' card from a mile away.  Back is the facsimile auto on the front and I like the banners with a shadow for the team and position.  

The card backs are also typical and well done.  The card number is a little small, but very readable and high on the back of the card.  As a set collector and one that stores most of his sets in card boxes the placement of the card number is key for easy collation.  Full career stats and the comics are back.  And once again Robin's brother is mentioned.  At the end of this series I'm going to go back and see how may times Larry Yount is mentioned on the backs of Robin's cards.