Baseball Cards Magazine started making cards and inserting them into their magazine in 1984. Early on the cards were replicas of actual cards. They later went the Heritage route and used old Topps designs for modern players. I wonder if they had permission from Topps to use their cards and designs? I'm guessing that they did not. But Topps shouldn't have been too upset because the magazine was good for their business.
Though the cards started in 1984, the first Cubs didn't appear until 1985.
The Banks card is a replica of his 1955 Bowman while the Connors cards uses the 1952 Topps design and imagines what a card of the future Rifleman would have looked like.
The magazine continued to include cards though the rest of the decade, but only one year saw some Cubs.
In 1989 the magazine created cards using template from Topps 1959. The magazine did a pretty decent job, especially when you consider that this was before Photoshop was available. Did they have Illustrator on a Mac II?
I have no idea what they used for others, but the first "Repli-Cards" I remember seeing in that magazine were 1953 Topps-style cards of Dale Murphy and Ted Williams. They had an interview in the magazine with one of the artists who worked on the original set, Gerry Dvorak, and he actually painted the two cards for them.
ReplyDeleteMy Chuck Connors cards came with a note from the magazine that says that the card was also done by Dvorak.
DeleteI should ask my sister. She started her graphic design business back in the late 80's and she used a Mac. I wonder if she had the ability to create custom cards back then.
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