1992 ProSport Peanuts Classics Series 2

As part of a "non-sport" purchase, I received this pack of cards.  At first, I thought it was a general Peanuts card set.  The more I looked at the wrapper I thought this might be worth checking out as a baseball-related item.  Randomly inserted in packs was a "Stan Musial Hologram Card."  I opened the pack immediately.

Inside, there are 10 baseball-themed Peanuts cards.  The front of each card sports either a gold or silver border and a comic frame from one of Schulz's strips.  I thought that was a pretty cool thing to do to cards in and of itself.  But, when I turned the card over:

I saw that ProSport had printed the entire strip on the back!  Not only do you get the frame on the front, but the context of the frame within the whole strip as well!  What a great idea!

Of course, I did not pull the Musial hologram, but reading through the 10 comic cards was a thrill anyway.  Aside from Bazooka Joe, I hadn't seen cards with comics on them like this.

This is a cross-blog post. Related articles appear on the following blogs:

A Pack To Be Named Later
A Pack A Day
Things Done To Cards

1887-1888 Scrapps Die Cuts

Issued directly after the 1887 season, this 18 card set features 9 players each from the American Association's St. Louis Browns (the modern day Cardinals) and the National League's Detroit Wolverines (a team that disbanded in 1888). These two teams met in the World Series in 1887.

The Wolverines beat the Browns 10 games to 5. The Wolverines won the series on October 21st, but since the games were already sold, the teams played the remaining four games.

St. Louis Browns
1 Doc Bushong
2 Bob Caruthers
3 Charles Comiskey
4 Dave Foutz
5 Bill Gleason
6 Arlie Latham
7 Tip O'Neill
8 Yank Robinson
9 Curt Welch

Detroit Wolverines
10 C. W. Bennett
11 Dan Brouthers
12 Fred Dunlap
13 Charlie Getzen sic (should be Getzien)
14 Ned Hanlon
15 Hardie Richardson
16 Jack Rowe
17 Sam Thompson
18 Deacon White

While there are Hall of Fame players in the set (Dan Brouthers, Sam Thompson and Ned Hanlon), the most valuable and most sought out is the Charles Comiskey. 19th century cards are usually riddled with errors and this set is no exception. Charlie Getzien's name is misspelled.

These die cut cards were popular in its day and were prime candidates to be glued into albums. It's extremely rare to run across examples of these cards today that haven't spent some time glued into an album.

What have we learned from these cards? Despite what revisionists would have you believe the World Series and die-cut cards are not inventions of the twentieth century. They've both been here all along.