Let Go My....Baseball Cards??

Some ebay sellers get creative with their packages.  Earlier this week, I got my most unusual one yet...

....Yup...he used an old Eggos box.  This type of packaging isn't the sturdiest, and you can see that the box got mangled a bit in transit.  Luckily, the cards inside were OK.

So what came from this unusual package?  An unusual team set...

 

...this 1996 Topps Factory Cubs Team set.  I've got all the current factory team sets that Topps has put out since 2006, but I had no idea that they had something similar ten years earlier.

The product was called "Team Topps" and each card has that logo...that's the only difference between these and the regular base set.  The team set has 15 Cubs cards plus this bonus...

....a Big Topps card.  Other than being big (3" x 5"), its not much of a card at all.  You see a picture of the regular base card and that's about it.  The back is very plain and it's not even numbered.  Big Topps was not a very big deal.

If you've never heard of or seen this set before, join the club.  There's a couple reasons for the scarcity.  First, it wasn't widely distributed.  The only place the sets were sold was at Walmart.  Topps also didn't produce a set for all of the MLB teams like they do now.   Only nine teams were made...Orioles, Cubs, White Sox, Yankees, and Rangers were all part of Team Topps.  Topps also put out sets for the AL Champion Indians, AL West Champ Mariners, World Champion Braves, and a Dodgers set commemorating their 35th year at Dodger Stadium.

The 1995 Cubs weren't much to brag about, so don't expect to be dazzled by what follows: