2003 Topps Shoebox

2003 Topps Shoebox was similar to the Topps All-Time Fan Favorites but took the idea to a complete concept.

The cards were sold as a complete set and came in a box which was shaped like a shoebox. There were 12 8-card packs, 3 packs for each decade from the 1950s through the 1980s. Each pack came with a generous piece of gum in a plastic wrapper.

Inside the box were 4 bays, with the decades separated into separate bays. Sitting on top of the bays was a plastic holder with four original cards, one from each decade, inside. The cards are surrounded by a black frame such that you can see the front and back of the card. The frame is held together by screws. The holder is as long and wide as the box. There was the possibility of getting a rare card in this holder but the best card I got was a 1987 Tom Seaver card that I already had.

The frame is wrapped in tissue paper, so when you open the box, it's like you've opened an actual shoebox with brand new shoes in it.

The selection of cards is excellent. If you owned the originals of these cards it would be the a great baseball card collection.

Most of the cards are either reproductions of rookie cards or, at least, cards from early in a player's career. The reproductions are very good and except for the gold shield on the front and a little strip on the back which gives copyright info, they look like the original cards.

That being said, there are some quirks. Many player's rookie cards have them appearing with one or more other players.



Use the Mike Schmidt card as an example. Schmidt appears with Ron Cey and John Hilton on his rookie card. What Topps did for the Schmidt Shoebox card, is to take just the picture of Schmidt and make it into the whole card. This is the one thing about the set I don't like.

There are a number of cards from the 1960s and 1970s where they did this. In some cases, the small picture of the player doesn't enlarge well (especially if the original photo wasn't very good) and the Shoebox card looks a bit blurry.

Right now, a lot of these cards are being offered on eBay for about a dollar. I paid about $40 for the set when it was new. There are several complete sets, with unopened packs, selling in the $40-$50 range. These are pictured as opened boxes on the auction pages so I expect you won't find a great old card in the holder.

My set is missing a card (I don't remember which one) but I got a double. I'll have to look through these auctions to see if I can get my missing card. I've kept the whole set together, including the wrappers, the gum (still in their wrappers), the card holder, the cards and the tissue paper in the original box.

1992 National Enquirer

As I mentioned in another post, I buy a lot of repackaged cards. Before last December, I never saw or heard of these cards. Since then, I've gotten 4 packs of them which have netted me more than half the set. These have also been featured over the past few months on various blogs, including my own.

I got a pack the other day with this card in it.

For those of you who don't remember the early 1990s, this is Deion "Prime Time" Sanders. He was a two-sport man, playing both football and baseball.

Deion wasn't the first to do this. That honor goes to Bo Jackson.



This card is a parody of a 1990 Score Bo Jackson card that, in its time, was notorious in the hobby. One thing that Bo and Deion had in common were egos. As in outsized egos. Maybe you need this to play two major sports at the same time. Bo appeared in a series of ads for Nike, called "Bo Knows". He'd appear in any number of sports or other settings. The first of the series set the tone with Bo appearing in a number of sports with stars from those sports saying "Bo knows...". At the end of the spot Bo attempts to play the guitar to which Bo Diddley says, "Bo, you don't know diddley."

This post turned out to be more about Bo Jackson then this National Enquirer card but I always like Bo better than Deion.

My question is, where did all these recent packs of The National Enquirer come from? Where have they been for the past 16 years that all of a sudden they seem to be everywhere?

1990 Classic Update - Nolan Knows Bo

Garish
Images
Meant to
Mock the
Industry by
Creating
Kitsch crap.

And boy do these gimmicks work! I remember when this was the hot card that everyone had to have. Gimmicks always work the same way. They start high.

Everyone has to have this new thing. Everyone will pay outrageous prices for these things, so they can have them first. Or they will pay for the privilege of having one of an assumed low quantity. Then, the bottom drops out.

This card has a high price of $2.00 on Beckett right now. People were paying big bucks for this card when it first came out. Now, it's almost commonplace. This is the problem with gimmicks. There's only a small window of opportunity, in which to make your money back. After that, you're stuck.

My card came in a set, so I paid under 10 dollars for this card and 49 others in the set. If I sold every card for Beckett high value, I might make my original investment back. Might. Who am I kidding about investment? I was a kid and this was the most talked about set. I wanted my superstars in pictures that would never make it onto a major card companies cards at the time. Yes, I was suckered in by gimmicks too.

Now gimmicks are everywhere. There's no stopping them. There are computer manipulated cards, "pulled" cards, "leaked" cards, one of one cards, red cards, blue cards. It's maddening! Everything is a gimmick now. There can't be a release without a gimmick. It's pathetic.

I can trace the intentional gimmick card back to this card. There have been others before it and plenty since. This is the first instance in which a gimmick card was featured on a gimmick card. My brain hurts just thinking about that.

I am reminded of the Billy Ripken profanity laced bat knob card. I would classify that as a mistake, not a gimmick. I am also reminded of the Bo Jackson 1987 Classic card, which is the card featured in this Nolan Knows Bo card. I call that more of an opportunity, than a gimmick.

This is the card that started the innocent trend of kitschy cards down the wrong path. It led to a path of mayor's involved in a World Series celebration and deceased star players watching from the dugout. It is not a pretty path. It is dark and treacherous. I will respect the card company with the least amount of gimmicks in any given year.