1998 Upper Deck Craig Biggio

This is one of the cards I recently received from Spiff over at the Texas Rangers Cards blog. It was one of a hefty box of Phillies and Astros he sent. I'll be refilling the box with Rangers cards for him.

I have other examples of cards like this but this one was at hand.

I love these cards where the back photo is a continuation of the play from the front of the card. Biggio was a great at second base. You can see the concentration as he throws the ball to first to complete the second half of a double play as Wally Joyner bears down on him.

I imagine for this type of card, the photographer has his camera on autowind and just holds the shutter button down until the play is over.

I know I have a two cards where the one card features the fielder and the other card features the runner with different shots of the same play. I think it's in the 1993 Upper Deck set. If I ever find them I'll post them.

1998 Pinnacle Dare to Tear - Really, I dare ya!

Over on "A Pack A Day," I posted an article that talks a little bit about these gems. I first heard about these cards on "Cardboard Junkie" and knew I had to create an article, as it were, for TDTC! I mean, come on - cards inside cards!? What crazy fool would buy a baseball card only to rip it open and see what was inside!? Evidently, a lot of us!

Each pack has three 5x7 cards. The cards feature player pictures, a Zenith logo, the player's name in foil (gold/silver), and the team name. On the back is a different player pose, the card number, player's position, a short 'greatest stats' paragraph and some bio info. There is also an instruction sheet on how to best rip the card without ripping the little guy inside.

So what happens when you rip one?


Well, I tore off Ken Caminiti's head to find that inside Ken was Juan Gonzalez "Raising the Bar" insert. It's shiny!

Since my ultimate goal is to see which Tribers I can pull from these cards, I have a whole box that I'll be tearing into... Well, unless I save a few for trade fodder....

1998 Pinnacle Inside

In 1997 and 1998 Pinnacle produced cards which they sold in a collectible steel can. You actually had to use a can opener to get the cards out.

There were ten cards in the can (they were packaged in clear cellophane) and the can cost $2.99.

There were 24 different players featured on the cans. Checking on eBay I see, you can buy any number of the cans for a buck. I've got 8 of these (one from '97, the rest from '98). Although they are 10 years old, they've held up well, by which I mean they are not rusting.

On the back of the can are Product Facts giving "% Daily Value"

Collectability 100%, Top Players 100%, Inside Info 100%, Cool Inserts 100%

The rest of the product facts give the odds on inserts: Stand Up Guys (1:1). This was a two piece thing with slits cut up the center of the pieces. If you slide the two pieces together it would stand up! On each interior face a different player could be seen across the two pieces. I hated these.

Club Edition (1:7). This was a gold Dufex finish version of the base set.

Behind the Numbers (1:23). I don't have any of these.

Inside Gold Can (1:47). I don't have any of these either. It says this is a can. Was the inside of the can gold plated?

Diamond Edition (1:67). None of these either.

On the side it says "The Only Baseball Card in a Can"!

The cards were ok. They were glossy with silver foil on the logo and player name. There weren't many subsets, just a rookie subset and checklists cards with a player featured on the front.

Ultimately, I didn't really like the cards which is why I don't have many of them. I think I've seen the cellophane packages recently in repacks.

And as a collectable, the cans are a pain in the neck. They are about 4 1/2 inches tall and a little wider than a card. I've got mine in a box in the closet.

I already had the Ripken can scanned (that was an adventure). I pulled out the Scott Rolen can to look at details. I'll probably leave it on my display shelf with other Phillies stuff.

1998 ProTalk Griffey

Baseball cards that talk!

Well, maybe it doesn't exactly talk but it does play a recording when you press the button on the front. The recording is an announcer making the call of a Ken Griffey Jr. home run. The recording runs about 45 seconds. The quality is about what you get from one of those singing birthday cards. There is no information about the recording, like when the home run was hit, where, who's making the call, or anything.

The card is the size of a regular baseball card but considerably thicker. It comes in a plastic case which has a space for the 4 button batteries it takes to play the recording. The case also has a little plastic tool to get the batteries into and out of the card.

I got this in 2005, so it was already 7 years old. It came as a bonus in a box of repackaged cards. The batteries were starting to corrode but I cleaned them up and the darn thing worked.

The card and its case were packaged in a blister pack with a Griffey stand up figure which is about 6 and a half inches tall. The stand up comes with a base which attaches to the stand up with a piece of double-sided tape. I could never get the base to stick on properly, so the thing is always falling over on my other non-baseball card stuff.

The ProTalk Griffey set had 4 Griffey cards. There was also a ProTalk set with 12 cards featuring other players. You can get the McGuire card right now on eBay. That will give you an idea of what the packaging looked like. There are also some NASCAR cards available on eBay as well.

The card was produced by Telestar Interactive Corporation. This company is apparently still in business making Point-of-Purchase advertising displays and doing $4.1 million in business in 2007. They're headquarterd in Cincinnati. I found references to them on sites which give business information but they apparently don't have their own web site (or at least Google couldnt find it).

Inaugural Cards

It seems that every new team that has popped up since 1993 has gotten their own parallel set of cards by Topps. They commemorate each teams inaugural season. This example is a 1998 Topps Harold Baines Tampa Bay Devil Rays Inaugural parallel card. Say that five times fast!

These cards look exactly the same as the base card, except for one small minor detail. A foil logo somewhere on the card designating it as an inaugural card. I've heard that these cards were limited to a print run of 5,000, but I haven't found anything concrete to back that up.

I can understand wanting to celebrate something as special as a brand spanking new team. These cards make it very difficult for the team or player collector to complete their collection. I wasn't into the hobby in 1998, so I'm not sure how these cards were distributed. Were they in packs or were they available only at hobby shops?

If I have the correct print run information, it would seem that seeding these cards into packs would be the best way of distribution. I could be wrong though. 1998 saw the parallel cards of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and the Arizona Diamondbacks. I think this is a pretty cool idea. I just hope that the next team to switch cities or the next new team introduced gets a reception like this. I'd hate to see something more than a parallel set.