Chef Boyardee Cubs Cards

As a kid I remember two competing spaghetti-in-a-can companies, Franco-American and Chef Boyardee.  Our family went with Franco-American.  I loved my Spaghettios. 

But Franco-American didn't put out baseball cards.  The Chef did. I guess that makes things even.

Chef Boyardee put out a set of cards in 1988.  You had to mail in some proofs of purchase and you were sent an uncut sheet of 24 cards.  The checklist included all of the big names from 1988 and two were Cubs.

 

As with many of these types of sets, they were licensed by just the players.  These don't look very good without the logos.

Five Random Cubs Cards

I've got 16,491 Cubs cards from 177 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1977 Jewel Manny Trillo  Manny doesn't look very happy here.  His 1977 season should have put a bigger smile on his face as he made the All Star team for the first time in his career.

1980s: 1981 Fleer #301 Lenny Randle  Fleer shows Lenny with the Cubs but he was just with them for the 1980 season.  Granted free agency, he hooked up with the Mariners for the 1981 season.

1990s: 1992 Topps Traded Gold #102 Gary Scott  That is the look of a man that hit .160 over two seasons with the Cubs.

2000s: 2004 Bazooka #288 Matt Creighton  Creighton never made it to the majors.  He spent 2004 in AA and AAA, then 2005 in AA and A.  He was released after 2005 and played a couple more seasons in independent ball.

2010s: 2017 Topps Salute #80 Kris Bryant  It never dawned on me until now that the card shows Bryant playing in the outfield.  I'll have to check and see if there are other cards that show him playing a position other than third base.

A Third Trade

Here's the results of my third trade this year.

Yes, three trades, which probably triples my number of previous trades/

Billy put in a claim for the 1992 SCD Mario Lemieux and Karl Malone cards.  They went his way and he send me...

 

These are reprints from the 1933 Goudey set....

.... a Turkey Red Rogers Hornsby...

... Addison Russell's 2017 Museum card....

.... and a 2016 Bowman Chrome of Anthony Rizzo.

Though I already had most of these, the doubles will find a good home in the hands of the students at my school.  Extra Cubs cards never go to waste!  Thanks Billy!!

I still have one more of the 1992 SCD cards left - Ken Griffey Jr.  Anyone need it?  Send me some Cubs and it's your!

A Turkey Card That's Not Turkey Red

On Thanksgiving Day the past several years I've posted a picture of all of the Cubs Turkey Red cards.  This November I'll have something different to post.

This is the lone Cub in the 1992 Mr. Turkey set.  There are 26 cards in the set, one player from each team.  The cards were available on the boxes of Mr. Turkey products.  You could also send in for the complete set or for an uncut sheet with the 26 cards.  My card is from the complete set.

The set has only a MLBPA license, so there are no logos.  They did pick a pretty decent picture of Ryno for the card.  The way he's swinging covered most of the logos.  Its not bad looking for logoless.

2019 Cubs Schedule

I added my first 2019 schedule to the collection, though it should have been done a long time ago.

This is the early schedule that the team gives out starting in the late fall.  While it does have all the games, it does not have any starting times for the away games.  Also, there is a disclaimer that says the times of the home games are subject to change.

Contreras, Baez, and Lester are on the front.  Bryant and Rizzo are not, which is interesting.

The second schedule was given out at the Cubs Convention last week.  I'm working on getting one of those.  The third and final schedule comes out in mid-March.

More Hostess

I picked up all of the Cubs Hostess cards back in 2011.

Or at least I thought I did.

I bought all of the 1970's cards that came of the box bottoms of Hostess products.  I put them in the binder and was done.  But as I recently started looking over the smaller products from the '80s and '90s, I found out that Hostess has some cards in the '80s and '90s.

And you know me -- I can't stand to have holes in a collection.  Luckily, the missing Hostess cards were very easy and inexpensive to pick up.

This odd looking thing is the 1987 Hostess product.  Its a small sticker, measuring just 1 3/8" x 1 3/4".  The set was actually put out by Hostess of Canada, so Ryno is not only a second baseman, he is a deuxieme but.  There are 30 stickers in the set and he is the only Cub.

This card is from Hostess' 1993 set.  It is from Hostess USA and a regular-sized card.  He is the lone Cub among the 32 cards in the set.

And NOW I can say that I am done with Hostess!

Five Grand???

I have most of the 2016 Cubs cards from Topps Now, thanks to Matt at Once a Cub.  The two missing cards are early-season cards of Addison Russell and John Lackey.  I'll see them pop up occasionally, but they are priced higher than I'm willing to pay.

The Russell card had a print-run of 331 and it was 244 for Lackey's card.  Those are low numbers for Topps Now, and has led to high prices for the cards.  Yet a couple weeks ago I picked up a /10 Triple Threads card of Ernie Banks for ten bucks.  

That leads us to the title of the post.  Recently a John Lackey Topps Now card was listed on Ebay.  As an added bonus, it was graded and is a Gem Mint 10.  Free shipping is included too!  

And what will it take for this little beauty?

It can be yours for the low, low price of $4,999. 

Is there anyone insane enough to pick up the card for this price??