Maxwell House Coffee Mug

Manufacturer: Maxwell House

Set: Maxwell House Mugs

Year: ???

Type: Stadium Giveaway

I featured this one back in November 2012 as part of my Yount drinkware post. You can find it HERE.

I'm sure I'll feature each one of those again here separately.  But I've never been able to find much out about this mug. There is no date anywhere on the mug. On the bottom it's stamped with the maker, Eagle, and a Made in the USA, but other than that it was a total mystery.  I even asked the guru of all things sportscards, Bob Lemke, if he knew anything about them, he didn't.  So now it's time to put on my deerstalker cap and channel my inner Sherlock Holmes as I play the Yount Detective.  

First lets have a look at the mug. Notice the clear handle, that's a clue.

After doing some research on the interwebs and combing threw ebay auctions and other sports related sites. I really couldn't find any good information on the origin of these mugs. But I did discover a few things. One there were two types of mugs. Ones with clear handles like Robin's here and one's with white rounded handles like this one..

featuring Gorman Thomas.  That's a clue.
Some of the mugs feature the 94 FM WKTI Logo on them. WKTI was a local Milwaukee radio station.. WKTI stopped using that call sign in 2008, but used the WKTI and WKTI-FM from 1974 to 2008...Ah.

But not all the mugs feature the logo, but both the clear plastic and white handles have some players that feature the logo.  Yount's does not feature it and I could find no version that does.

When I first got the Yount mug I had thought that these were possibly send away items you could get from Maxwell House, but the more I looked into it, it now appears that these were more likely stadium giveaways. Unfortunately I can't find any information on past giveaways from the 80's.

Searching the web I found the other players featured on both kinds of mugs.

The white handle mugs
- Manager George Bamburger -WKTI
-Gorman Thomas
-Rollie Fingers
-Brewers Logo

The clear plastic handles
- Robin Yount
-Paul Molitor
-Cecil Cooper - WKTI
-Jim Gantner - WKTI
-Dan Plesac

There might be a few others I missed, but these are the versions I could find.  From these people we can narrow down possible years.  First we have to assume that players that were featured were current or at least recent team members. If we do that we can place the first four mugs, the white handled mugs in the 1985 to 1986 realm. And I'm leaning on 1986. First George Bamburger was manager from 1985 to very close to the end of the 1986 season. Gorman Thomas came back to the Brewers in 1986 for his final year and while Rollie retired in 1985 I think that his mug might just be a carry over or a tribute.

The clear plastic handle mugs look to be about from 1987 or 1988 and I'm leaning on 1987 for a couple reasons. One, in 1987 everyone featured was on the team. 1987 was Dan Plesac's rookie year with the team and it was also Cecil Coopers last year. Two, it would seem plausible that the mugs were a continuation giveaway from the year before if the white handle mugs were from 1986.

Of course it's very possible that mugs were given out over multiple years.  And while I'd like to say that these were definitely stadium giveaways from the late 80's I just don't know. If anyone from the Milwaukee area remembers these and knows anything about them I'd love to know. Leave a comment or drop me an email.

2003 Leaf Shirt Off My Back Relic Card

Card Manufacturer: Donruss

Card Set: Leaf Baseball

Year: 2003

Card Number: 12

Card Type: Insert Relic

Insert Set: Shirt Off My Back

Relic Type: Jersey/Pants

One of the things that the early 2000's brought us was the flood of relic cards featuring not only current stars, but HOFers and retired stars.

This 2003 Leaf Shirt Off My Back relic card is from that onslaught and no one was happier than me that Mr. Yount was featured in the set. A great looking card with bright colors and a huge classic Brewers logo.  Not only that, but on the back there's even a picture of what we are led to believe is the actual jersey the relic came from.  This issue was numbered to just 500 cards and I'm wondering just how many little swatches can you get off of one jersey? 500? There is another relic insert in this set that parallels this one called Number Off My Back. Those cards are numbered to 50 and feature a piece of patch, I'm assuming a piece of the number. The few I've seen on ebay and COMC  have  huge price tags on them. So until I find a decent priced card this issue will have to do.  

2003 Leaf Shirt Off My Back Relic card #12 Serial Numbered  123/500

1990 Fleer Award Winners

Card Manufacturer: Fleer

Card Set: Award Winners

Set Type: Box

Year: 1990

Card Number: 44

Card Type: Base

Another Fleer box set from the era of box sets. 44 cards in this set as well and you also got 6 stickers. Stickers were Fleer's thing.  Of course the award that Mr. Yount is being recongnized for is his MVP season from 1989.  Overall a nice simple design with a trophy shaped window and an appealing light blue background.  The back is pretty simple with the basic personal stats and career statistics. Fleer didn't get all wordy back there that's for sure. The photo on the card is from the 1988 season and we can tell that by the commemorative Havey Kuenn (H/K) patch on Robin's sleeve.

2004 Donruss Classics Legendary Jerseys - Jersey Number relic

Card Manufacturer: Donruss

Card Set: Classics

Year: 2004

Card Number: LJ-39

Card Type: Relic Insert

Insert Set Legendary Jerseys - Jersey Number

Relic Type: Dual Jersey

Card Attributes: Dual Relic, Serial Numbered

Serial Number: 12/50

As I've been going back through my Younts, I bounce back and forth from the classic issues, which I designate as cards issued during Robin's playing career and modern issues, which is anything issued after he retired.  There is a three year gap 1996-1998 that Robin had no cards issued and I usually lump the few 1994 and 1995 cards that were tribute cards in the first category.  I have two large storage "shoeboxes" that I keep the bulk of my standard card collection in.  And it's broken up basically with one box holding everything from 1975 to 1999 and the other holding everything from 2000 onward.  

Sorry I was rambling a little there. My point was I've been bouncing back and forth from classic to modern and that means I go from one box to the other.  Recently I've been spending time in the modern box and I've come to realize that Donruss in the mid 2000's was trying to kill us player collectors.  For some of it's mid decade issues there are literally sometimes close to 50 parallels of a card if you count autos and relic versions.  It's pretty insane.  Things haven't gotten better today, but I don't think we'll see the insanity of those years again.  

As I've been sorting though my modern issues and scanning for posts here and my own personal image database for insurance purposes and inventory I've come to really like Donruss Classics.  The more cards I pull out, the more I research, the more I like. Sure there are a ton of parallels, but I've found most of these insert just have a great overall classic look.  I think Panini should consider bring back the Classics line especially with all it's Hall of Fame issues it's been putting out.

This insert ,Legendary Jerseys, has a base card that has a ton of parallels, parallels that I can't tell apart other than the serial numbering on the back is different. Within 2004 Donruss Classics there are a bunch of these Legendary inserts: Legendary Jerseys, Legendary Hats, Legendary Leather, Legendary Jackets, and Legendary Lumberjacks. Whew.

Within the Legendary Jersey insert there are a few variations as well as all the other parallels.  This one is call the Player Number version. It features the die cut player number on the front.  It's pretty obvious this is not a dual relic, but just a relic under the two numbers.  I think the worst part about the cards from this series and other series like it is the numbering.  All of Yount's Legendary Jersey cards are numbered LJ-39 regardless of what's on the front or the serial numbering.  It would have been nice if they had some kind of different designation on the card or in the numbering system. But alas they do not.  

Alright enough babbling. Let's look at the card. The card features a nice black and white photo of our great Mr. Yount and a photo of what might have been the jersey the swatch came from.  The card is serial numbered to 50 and features a nice plain one color baby blue swatch. There are a number of other relic cards in this set for Mr. Yount, but I do believe this is the only one that features the die-cut 19 player number on the front.

2004 Donruss Classics Legendary Jerseys Player Number Relic LJ-39 serial numbered 12/50.

1990 Bowman Lithograph

Card Manufacturer: Topps

Card Set: Bowman Lithographs

Year: 1990

Card Number:NNO

Card Type: Lithograph

Serial numbered: 222/500

Ah the good old 1990 Bowman Art sweepstakes insert.  Back in 1990 when you bought a pack of the second year of the new Bowman you got one of these art card inserts, that were really just an entry form into a sweepstakes for a set of art lithographs of all 11 of the players featured on the lithographs.  I was able to pick up this signed and numbered example a few years back. I have no idea what I paid for it, but I know it wasn't too expensive.  Craig Pursley was the artist that did the paintings. Here is an interview with the artist as he tells the story of the paintings and the giveaway.

Supposedly there were 500 sets produced for the contest and another 500 produced for distribution to hobby shops.  There seems to be some confusion to whether or not the hobby shop sets were signed or numbered at all. Craig seems to remember that all the lithos were signed, but only the contest sets were numbered.  So it appears I have a contest litho. And if I remember correctly the seller of this litho stated he had won the set back in 1990.

Craig Pursley is still cranking out art although it doesn't look like he specializes in sports over any other subject and looks like he does a lot of portraits. You can visit his website HERE.

Below we have one of the original art contest cards. There are two versions of this card too, with a tiffany version inserted with the Bowman Tiffany sets.

1976 Linnett Portraits

Card Manufacturer: Charles Linnett

Card Set: Linnett Portraits

Year: 1976

Card Number: NNO

One of my favorite oddball items from the 70's. The Standard Catalog lists these as 1976 Linnett Portraits. I've seen them listed on other websites for sale as 1973-74 Linnetts.  The Standard Catalog also has a 1975 set and the 1976 Linnett Superstars set. There really isn't too much other information out there about these great cards.  The portrait measures 8.5x11 inches and has a blank back. A perfect piece for framing. I do believe there were about 175 of these you could get in the baseball issue. There are also Hockey and Football series as well. The Standard Catalog says these were available by mail for fifty cents a piece, but how they were advertised I'm not sure. I have seen a few the ads for the Reds and Bruins issues.  I'm sure there was probably an ad in a sports magazine or something similar.  In my web search I found out the Charles Linnett, the artist, has two daughters that are both artists as well and run a graphic design company. I believe that Mr. Linnett is still alive and kicking since I found his address and phone number or at least someone with the same name living very close to his daughters. I had thought about giving him a call, but that's kind of weird and really I'm happy to just call this Yount the 1976 Linnett Portrait.  

Charles Linnett put out a ton of different Portraits from multiple sports back in the 70's. All you need to do is search ebay or Google to see the variety and selection.  I picked this Yount up a few years back.  And if I ever get my man cave back it might even get framed and hung.

1986 Dorman's Cheese

Card Manufacturer: Dorman;s Cheese

Card Set: Dorman's Super Star Limited Edition

Year: 1986

Card Number: NNO

Card Type: Food Issue

If you've read any of my blogs you know I'm a huge fan of oddball food issue cards of all types.  Dorman's was the first cheese company to put pieces of paper between the slices of it's package cheese slices. 1986 marked the year that Dorman's was bought by Beatrice Foods. I'm not sure if these where issued before the company was bought or not. I do believe the Dorman's name now rests with the DCI Cheese Company in Richfield, Wisconsin.

According to the Standard Catalog these cards were available in specially marked packaged of cheese slices. Each panel had two players and are perferated down the middle.  There were 20 players featured on these unnumbered cards with 10 panels to collect.  The set also inlcuded Reggie Jackson, Don Mattingly, George Brett, and Ryan Sandberg to name a few.  Robin shares his card with Willie McGee.  The cards were produced by MSA and they used the same airbrushed photo for a lot of their food issues.