1993 Stadium Club Master Photo

In order to get one of these you either had to buy a box of of 1993 Stadium Club or get a mail-in redemption card which were inserted 1 in 24 packs. The mail-in card got you 3 of the Master Photos.There were 30 of these in the set, of which I have 11. In Beckett, they don't carry much of a premium over the regular card. Beckett lists the Nolan Ryan card at $3 and the Master Photo at $5. These are big, 5" by 7". The 'Master Photo" card features the same photo as the player's regular card but the photo area is a bit bigger. The regular card is cropped at the on-photo gold foil border. Here's what the regular Ryan card looks like:

These are available on eBay. Someone is offering 25 copies of the Mark McGwire for $4 plus $6 for shipping. The McGwire books at $3 so its a pretty good deal. Someone else is offering two packs of these with Bonds, Strawberry, Clark, Canseco, Boggs and Tartabull for $99.99. I'm temped to ask him a question. "Are you kidding?"

1993 Stadium Club First Day Issue

This is an early example of baseball card companies trying to create scarcity in a product this is produced like a commodity. In 1993 through 1995, and again in 1998 to 2000, Topps put a foil label on the Stadium Club cards they made on the first day of issue. I have no doubt (not much anyway) that the cards so labeled were actually made on the first day but really, what difference would it make. I'm sure Topps got this idea from the postage stamp collecting world where first day covers are a big collecting item. In that world, a big deal is made of the first day issued stamps as usually they come on a post card or envelope which is canceled with a special stamp showing the date.

Topps idea in 1993 was to put the FDI stamp on 2,000 cards. Beckett lists these as being worth 8 to 20 times the base card. It also says to beware of transferred FDI logos. I know mine are genuine because I got them in a pack. They were seeded into packs a 1:24. Did they really only produce 2,000 sets on the first day?

In the 1998 to 2000 run, they upped the ante on these. In addition to the FDI logo, the cards were numbered, for example, to only 200 in 1997. Did they really only make 200 sets on the first day? Are these the first 200 sets made? Who knows? Who cares? In 2000, there were also Stadium Club Chrome cards, and FDI Chrome cards. I actually have a First Day Issue Stadium Chrome Refractor card, numbered to 25. Unfortunately, it's only Ryan Klesko, but Beckett says it's worth $20. The 2000 cards don't have a gold foil logo like the earlier cards. It has "First Day Issue" printed in gold foil. Probably harder to counterfeit.

1993 Topps

There isn't really anything that unusual about 1993 Topps and I actually really like the design from that year but I wanted to feature this odd-ball card from the set.

In 1992, the Angels apparently drafted three Russian players.

Each of them played for the Angels rookie level teams in 1992 and 1993, and then I guess they were deported.

Rudy Razjigaev was a pitcher who appeared in 15 games, pitching 13 innings. That's not a lot of work for two years. He had an ERA near 6.

Yevgeny Puchkov was an middle infielder who appeared in 52 games with a .208 batting average.

Ilya Bogatyrev was a 3rd baseman who appeared in 44 games and hit a lusty .241.

I wonder what happened to these guys?

1993 Ted Williams Pogs

In 1993, the Ted Williams Card Company produced a set of rather unique items. Anyone remember "pogs?" Pogs were the thing to have and collect in the early 90's, a throwback to the milk caps kids played with the 50's or 60's or whenever it was that "Wii" meant either something was tiny or one had to use the facilities. In any case, the were little round discs.


What the TWC did was to print the circles on cards, then have the cards die-cut and perforated so that one could punch out the pogs. You can't see it in the scan, but there was a thumb-like indentation on each pog. I have no idea how to play the game, other than you stack a bunch up and try to knock down the stack with your pog. Like a cardboard version of a cross between marbles and Jenga, I guess.


There were twenty-six pogs in all. Some featured vintage team logos and other featured players such as Yogi Berra, Lou Gehrig, and of course Ted Williams. These were laid out two to a card and could be found as inserts in the 1993 Ted Williams baseball card packs.


The checklist can be found on page 1725-6 of the 2007 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards (16th ed). The first photo above is from my personal collection, but the others were found on theBay as a complete set. They make interesting conversation pieces, and your kids can Google and Wikipedia "POGS" to see what kids did before X-Box, World of Warcraft, or Yu-gi-oh...

1993 Diamond Marks (When a card is a bookmark)

Like many of the oddball items in my collection, I have no idea how I came about these little gems. I'm sure they were bought online, but just how I even found them is a mystery for another time.

These are 1993 Diamond Marks baseball cards, er, bookmarks. They are long and skinny (much like I was 20 or so years ago). The feature the player's name at the top, a nice, big photo, then the team logo at the bottom. There is also a DM logo in the upper left corner of the player's picture.


The back features a "book border" with a couple more player pics, a team logo as its own bookmark, and little blurb about the player on the right-hand 'page.' There are also various other company IDs: The Colla Collection, (c)BCP, and "designed by Terry Smith Creations." Since Colla put out all kinds of oddball/non-mainstream cards, I'm sure it is safe to assume the pictures came from their photographers.


The cards, er, bookmarks, themselves were sold in sealed foil packs, just like cards. I have a feeling that by marketing them as bookmarks instead of cards, there were some kind of legal loopholes they were able to fit through. That's complete speculation, of course, but what fun is it to simply accept them as bookmarks!? :-) There was a test set done with 10 players and there are inserts of about 10 players... Ironic - bookmark set with inserts, considering you INSERT the bookmark... Is that irony? That whole Alanis song confused me as to what was or was not irony... (Which, by the way, you can look up on youTube and a teacher actually does show which things were or were not ironic in the video, though I digress...)

Believe it or not, a search on your local auction site may yield plenty of "1993 Diamond Mark" results, including unopened boxes for... $2.99!? Complete test sets for $.99!? Seriously? Wow...

1993 Milkbone - Brett Butler

Puppies for sale. Two rambunctious dachshunds who love to play and cuddle. Named after a little cartoon blond boy and a sea serpent.

This is a cute idea for a card. Major League players and their dogs. What could be more American? Brett's mom needs to be behind the chair holding an apple pie to be more kitsch.

This reminds me of the WGN Sunday Afternoon Family Classics set from the early eighties. Somehow I can picture Brett hosting the movie at commercial breaks.

"And now we return to 'For The Love Of Benji' on Family Classics."

Somehow, when I think of Brett Butler, I don't think of cardigan sweaters, leather chairs and wood paneling. I think of a pesky slap hitter, who was a thorn in the side of many National League teams.

I can definitely see a reason for the product to exist. What better way to showcase a dog biscuit than to show cards of dogs. Cards of cute dogs doesn't really grab people. Let's put some baseball players on the cards and they can hold their dogs. Brilliant!

This was clearly the way to go with this card set. I really can't see a card set of famous dogs. Would there be two cards of Higgins? One for Petticoat Junction and one for Benji? How many Lassie cards would there be? One for each dog or one representing all the dogs who played Lassie. Would they draw the line before the set would include Santa's Little Helper, Astro and Dyno-Mutt?

Baseball players and their dogs was the way to go with this set. Now, we have a kitschy oddball set of some of our favorite players from the early nineties. Included in the set are Brady Anderson, Craig Biggio, Brett Butler, Ken Caminiti, Will Clark, Rob Dibble, Tom Foley, Joe Girardi, Tom Glavine, Wally Joyner, Barry Larkin, Ben McDonald, Mark McGwire, Paul Molitor, Rafael Palmeiro, Cal Ripken Jr., Bill Swift, Larry Walker, Matt Young and Todd Zeile. Not too bad for an oddball set.