The Archives Archives

With three years under their belt, I though it would be interesting to take a look at the Archives archives.  Let's look at all the different designs that Archives has used and compare them to the original.  I'm just going with cards in the base set, though other years were used in some of the inserts.

I've got them shown in chronological order according to the original design.

1954 - Used by Archives in 2012

 

The size of the Archives obviously won't match the size of the larger cards made through 1956.  The fonts for the name and team name don't match either.  And too bad Archives didn't use the original logo.

1971 - Used by Archives in 2012

 

The font for "Cubs" and the color are mismatched.  It looks like the name and position are a bit smaller, too.

1972 - Used by Archives in 2012

 

 The most glaring change is that the pink on the original is replaced by a bright red.  The stars on top are smaller and in a different position.  Finally the font size for the players' name is smaller, too.

1972 - Used by Archives in 2014

 

Most of this is pretty good except that all the Cubs cards in 1973 had the players' names in red and the team name in blue.  It never varied.  The Archives version has different colors for different Cubs.  Kyuji Fujikawa's card has the correct red and blue but not Ernie.

1982 - Used by Archives in 2012 and 2013

 

The Buckner cards give us the chance to compare an Archives with the original of the same player.  The design is pretty close, though the fonts on the original seem to be a little bolder.  Big change with the autograph.  Its a different signature in a different location.

1984 - Used by Archives in 2012 and 2013

 

The most glaring difference is with the color of the Cubs and players name.  They are a deeper purple on the original.  And again, the fonts for the player and position don't match.

1986 - Used by Archives in 2014

 

Why was the team name and position circle changed from red to blue?  That's a pretty significant design element to alter.  The black border on the top of the card comes down a bit lower on the Archives card.  No one have a ruler?

1989 - Used by Archives in 2014

 

This was probably the best job of matching up the design.

1990 - Used by Archives in 2012 and 2013

 

Fairly close match again, though the original has a slightly wider border.  Again, no one at Topps owns a ruler?

Five Random Cubs Cards

I've got 12,379 Cubs cards from 88 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1965 OPC #220 Billy Williams The front of the 1965 OPCs are identical to Topps cards.  The backs were different, though.  I've got an entire post on this card here. 

1980s: 1986 Donruss #510 Steve Engel  Only a super die-hard fan would recognize the name of Steve Engel.  I must confess that I have no memory of him at all.  His only major league experience was in 1985, when at one point in the season the Cubs entire starting rotation was on the disabled list.  The injuries created opportunities for young guys like Engel.  But clearly he wasn't a major league arm.  He went 1-5 with a 5.57 ERA while being used mainly as a starter.  His 1986 season was spent with AAA teams for the Cubs and later the Astros as he was traded in June as the player to be named later from a deal the two teams made in December.

1990s: 1995 Fleer Traded #130 Ozzie Timmons This is a card from his rookie season, 1995..  Rookie card, yes, but valuable, well, no.  Ozzie made the team out of spring training and played in 77 games as a reserve outfielder.  He had a strong finish to the season, batting .337 in his final 25 starts.

2000s: 2004 Leaf MVP Winners #2 Ernie Banks  Mr. Cub was the NL MVP in 1958 and 1959.  To commemorate this, Leaf used a picture from either 1968 or spring training 1969.

2010s: 2103 Cubs Team Set Giveaway #22 Aramis Ramirez This card comes from the second of four sets of card that the Cubs and Topps gave away at Wrigley Field last season.  This was the second time a card with the 1961 design was made for Ramirez.  He was also a Cub in 2010 when Heritage was using 1961.

Archives 2014...Some Good Photos, Some Not So Good

I was really excited about some of the pictures on the Cubs cards in Archives 2014.  Yeah Topps.

Then again, I was also really ticked; Boo Topps!

Let's start with the good stuff.

One thing I constantly harp on is the re-use of pictures on cards of the retired guys.  While I understand that there is a limited pool of pictures to choose from, I wish Topps would stop using the same pictures over and over.

Well, with two of the three retired Cubs in Archives, Topps used pictures that I have never seen before on any card.  That is fantastic!

Look at this picture of Ernie Banks at Wrigley Field.  Home whites, scoreboard in the background...this picture is awesome.  And its not on any of the 371 cards of Ernie Banks in my collection.  This is a great find for Topps....just please don't have it show up on the next 20 Ernie Banks cards.

Fergie's card is another new find.  I have 84 cards of Fergie and none have this picture.  I can say without hesitation that the picture is from 1971 and that it was taken in Candlestick Park.  Look over his left shoulder and you can see the expansion project at Candlestick.  The same thing showed up on many cards in the 1972 set.

  

These cards show a few other angles of the in-season construction at Candlestick as the ballpark was expanded to accommodate the '49ers.

This is the picture that Topps chose to use for the 1972 set, a shot from spring training.  I like the Candlestick picture more that what they used.

So, now that I've shown Topps some love, it's time to do some bashing.  Sadly, its the modern players that they messed up; messed up big time.

Take a look

 

The picture on the Archives card is the same one that's on the factory team set, and presumably will be on his card in series two.  The different cropping isn't fooling anyone.

 

Lake's got the same picture from both Turkey Red and Heritage.  

 Why on earth would Topps be reusing pictures of any modern player?

The only two reasons I can come up with aren't flattering: cheap and lazy.

Can anyone come up with a flattering reason for Topps to be reusing pictures?

2014 Archives Cubs

We are now in year three of Topps Archives, aka Heritage Light.

While Heritage dedicates itself to just one year form the past and only active players, Archives includes designs from several different years and has both active and retired players.  Archives is also a smaller set, with only 250 cards compared to Heritage's 500 card checklist.

Seven Cubs made the 2014 Archives checklist, four active and three retired.

 

  

Here's the active players.  Topps continues to put out cards of Kyuji Fujikawa despite the fact that it has been quite a while since he's pitched anywhere.  His Tommy John surgery was just about one year ago.  Junior Lake is also a bit of a head-scratcher.  He's been in several products this season.  Topps was hoping he would be a breakout player this year after a promising start last year.  I was hoping for the same thing.  I'm disappointed.  Is Topps?

Including Castro and Rizzo was expected.....same old same old.

Now on to the retired players...

 

Two hall of famers and...

...one hall of shamer.  Sammy hasn't been seen in too may products the past couple years. so his inclusion was a bit of a surprise.  In fact, a quick search over at Beckett shows that this is his first full-release Topps card since he had a card in Heritage in 2008.

Topps made some interesting photo choices with these cards...more on that tomorrow.

The Pencil Scribbling On My 1941 Scorecard

Yesterday I mentioned the scribbling on the front and back cover of my 1941 scorecard.  If you looked carefully at it, you noticed that it isn't scribbling.  It autographs!

They are all in pencil and over the past 70+ years they have faded some.

Are the autographs real?  I'm no expert, but they all seem to be in a different style of handwriting.  It doesn't look like someone just started signing names.   Plus there are some pretty obscure names, which I doubt would have much of a forgery market.  I'm going to say that they are the real deal.

The bad news, at least for me, is that all of the autographs are from the Cubs opponent, the St. Louis Cardinals.

The good news is that there is one very famous Cardinal name.

....Stan the Man!!

Musial was a 20-year-old rookie in 1941, which makes this even cooler...a rookie auto of Stan Musial.

So is it real?

Here is mine side by side with an authenticated signature.  The S on Stan is definitely different.  All of the autographs I've seen have an S that looks more printed that the cursive S that I've got.  Then again, this is from a 20-year-old Stan.  It is entirely possible that he shifted to a printed S as he got more famous and signed more autographs.

The Musial looks pretty good.  I may be prejudiced, but I'm going with authentic.

So who else signed?

Pitchers Lon Warneke (a former Cub) and Harry Gumpert

Coach Bubba Wares

Infielder Jimmy Brown

Shortstop Marty Marion....Marion always made a big dot above the I in Marion, so this looks good.

Pitcher Max Lanier

There are others that I couldn't make out.  But with just the Musial alone, my outlier 1941 scorecard is pretty awesome!

My Outlier From 1941

I'm just about finished with my run of scorecards from 1949 - 2014, but I also have an outlier.

I kinda forgot about it because its not in my binder in the front with the other.  Instead, its in the back...for a couple reasons.

Here's the card...a 1941 scorecard.  This was given to me a few years ago by a friend of a friend.  He knew I was a Cubs fan and had some stuff from his grandpa laying around.  This came to me.

Reason #1 for the card being in the back is that it is from 1941 and my cards start with 1949.  I can't stand to have such a gap, so I moved it to the back.

Reason #2 is that this is not so much a scorecard  as it is a scorebook.  All of my other scorecards are the four page on heavy card stock cards.  But this is actually a 15 page book with the scorecard stapled into the middle.  It is also smaller than all my other scorecards. This comes in at 6" x 9" while the Cubs scorecards I know are 8.5" x 11".

The pages in the book are all ads for Cubs vendors  or for the Cubs themselves.  There's only one page of pictures of the players, otherwise its all ads.

The actual scorecard is even tinier.  Though its on a card that is 9" x 12", the actual area for scoring is only 5" x 6.5".   I don't know how you could keep a neat scorecard with this tiny thing.   The modern card is much easier to work with.

Let's go ahead and take a look at the pages in the book:

If you look again at both the cover and back page, you may have notices some scribbling in pencil.  I didn't notice it right away when I got the book, but when I did look it over...wow.  More on that tomorrow.

Topps Complete Set Prices 1969 - 2013

Here is my monthly look at Topps complete set prices for all the years in which I own a set, 1969 - 2013.  The prices are from Ebay sold listings taken on May 1.  The prices do not include shipping.

• The 1970 set was the winner this month.  It's price was double over May and nearly $500 above the 12 month average.
• I don't understand the Buy It Now people.  Someone bought a 1988 set at a BIN price of $31.95 while a patient buyer got the same set at auction for $0.99.  The same thing happened with a couple 1998 sets.  A BIN sold for $79.95 while an auction ended at $0.99.
• If you want one of each set, have $6,868.08 in your piggy bank.  The price is about $200 above May.

YEAR	June 1	May 1	April 9	12 Mo. Avg.
1969	$1,254.40	$1,449.60	$1,233.71	$1,031.51
1970	$1,461.41	$776.00	$884.80	$973.09
1971	$864.21	$1,023.20	$1,010.00	$794.56
1972	$1,031.00	$1,279.60	$856.20	$926.63
1973	$374.30	$338.31	$319.79	$389.88
1974	$289.27	$216.20	$196.76	$226.84
1975	$325.50	$263.50	$523.99	$295.13
1976	$152.91	$180.20	$157.67	$162.07
1977	$117.50	$135.60	$150.42	$148.12
1978	$111.89	$100.92	$96.60	$96.65
1979	$111.62	$100.70	$133.30	$89.16
1980	$48.79	$70.40	$71.79	$65.95
1981	$27.76	$21.91	$28.51	$26.41
1982	$41.19	$33.00	$29.19	$41.13
1983	$32.99	$29.63	$29.59	$33.55
1984	$28.04	$14.40	$17.89	$18.89
1985	$16.85	$19.99	$16.24	$22.86
1986	$15.12	$9.49	$15.28	$15.34
1987	$11.04	$9.82	$12.34	$10.01
1988	$11.48	$6.39	$14.97	$9.15
1989	$9.09	$6.39	$10.24	$8.18
1990	$4.80	$10.10	$22.83	$8.94
1991	$6.89	$11.30	$7.78	$8.13
1992	$10.39	$10.29	$9.89	$11.93
1993	$20.05	$15.11	$23.29	$19.98
1994	$11.50	$17.61	$20.36	$21.46
1995	$28.51	$39.89	$24.29	$32.33
1996	$12.11	$19.38	$14.30	$18.83
1997	$39.00	$33.19	$28.02	$41.36
1998	$31.58	$38.51	$26.73	$35.04
1999	$23.02	$16.41	$24.49	$22.72
2000	$19.79	$20.39	$15.30	$21.57
2001	$29.94	$36.60	$36.30	$41.97
2002	$25.99	$39.20	$34.53	$36.29
2003	$44.38	$31.74	$28.70	$35.55
2004	$31.45	$28.36	$29.05	$25.72
2005	$27.41	$30.59	$27.55	$30.05
2006	$26.70	$29.45	$19.54	$26.93
2007	$18.00	$18.19	$14.89	$21.77
2008	$26.19	$29.80	$21.91	$27.49
2009	$30.13	$28.92	$38.55	$33.44
2010	$18.82	$28.57	$22.29	$22.75
2011	$23.08	$16.80	$19.40	$24.04
2012	$22.00	$20.05	$22.28	$25.60
2013	$31.02	$31.74	$40.11	$37.75