Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Goodies From Reader Chad - Ballstreet Journal

 It's becoming a highlight of December for me.  Each year since 2014, loyal reader Chad has sent me a box of two of Cubs cards.  He always includes a nice Christmas card too and thanks me for another year of the blog.  I am the one that needs to do the thanking, because the cards he sends me are always awesome.  So thanks Chad!!!

What makes the cards so awesome is that they are usually from sets that I don't have.  I've got over 250 different sets in my collection yet he always seems to find cards that are new to me. I'll be taking time over the next few weeks to show the different cards and sets that he sent.

Today I've got a real oddball, cards from 1992 Ballstreet Journal.  Ballstreet Journal was a card pricing magazine, with its name being a cut play on the Wallstreet Journal.  There were often cards included in the magazine.

Here's a look at the first edition from January, 1991.  They call themselves a pocket guide, so the magazine wasn't the standard magazine size.  It was much smaller.


Cards were printed on heavy paper and you'd remove the page and cut out the cards.  There are a few Cubs in the set, but those aren't what Chad sent me.  


He sent this full sized sheet of nine cards.  He wrote me that he found this in a magazine that he was getting rid of.  I wonder what magazine it was?

Did they make sheets like this for all of the teams?  Has anyone ever seen one before?  The standard catalog has no listings for any cards from Ballstreet.  There are checklists on the TCDB, but no further information.  

I'm not brave enough to cut the sheet up to make the cards.  I'll keep the sheet intact but create digital cards.

There are seven players among the nine cards as Ryne Sandberg got three different cards.  Maddux and Sosa are the other big names in the set.  Oddly, Mark Grace was not included.  How do you include Frank Castillo and Steve Buechele but not Mark Grace?

 

 

 

 


Chad's gift spurred me to get the other Ballstreet Journal Cubs cards and I hope to have them within a week or so.  It also sent me down a rabbit hole for more price guide cards.  More on that tomorrow.

3 comments:

  1. Very cool oddball issue. I've seen the Ballstreet magazines before, but never picked one up. Although I might have some of the singles floating around my collection.

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  2. I never knew what Ballstreet was. I have a Sandberg in my collection that I remember I got for Christmas as a kid along with a Shaq rookie.

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  3. I have a variety of Ballstreet Dodgers, haven't bothered to look into them more.

    Out of curiosity, I started counting up how many different sets are represented in my collection, beginning in alphabetical order. I surpassed 250 with Jose Altuve ... so you've got a lot of collecting to go!

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