2002 Vintage Cubs

Since Upper Deck wasn't using their own past designs for Vintage, they were free to pick and choose whatever they wanted.  They were not bound by chronological order, so they skipped ahead from last year's 1963 Topps to 1971 Topps.  They gave us 2020 Heritage 18 years early... sort of.

 

Moving the labeling from the top of the card to the bottom doesn't really hide the fact that they stole the 1971 Topps look.  UD also replaced the dot between the name and position with a diamond.  But otherwise, more flattery for Topps from Upper Deck.

 

 

 

 

2001 Vintage Cubs

Over the next few days I'll be showing the Cubs sets from Upper Deck Vintage.  It was one of the brands that I picked up because of some cards given me by reader Chad at Christmas.

While some collectors lament the lack of competition in today's baseball card market, I'm not one of them.  Yes competition can lead to innovation.  But it also leads to copy-cats.  For me, that is not a good think.

Case in point: in 2001 Topps came out with Heritage and Upper Deck issued Vintage.  Both mimic the same concept - cards in the style of a set from many years ago.

Topps had a big advantage here.  They could go back 49 years.  Upper Deck couldn't. 

But somehow they did.  The first Vintage set uses the design of Topps 1963.  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, they say.  UD was flattering Topps. 

 

They didn't make exact duplicates, but the design was pretty close.  UD would continue to "borrow" Topps designs and eventually Topps got tired of being ripped off. In 2009 Topps sued UD and an agreement between the two companies put an end to UD's borrowing.

Back to 2001, now, and the first Vintage set.  There are 400 cards in the set and fourteen are Cubs cards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Topps 2020 T206 Cubs

Today's post is a result of too much time on my hands.  Let's put Topps 2020 together with the classic T206 set and see what we get.

 

Five Random Cubs Cards

I've got 17,981 Cubs cards from 218 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1970 Kelloggs #43 Glenn Beckert  Freak me out!  The RNG gives us a card of Glenn Beckert, who passed away a week ago today.

1980s: 1985 Donruss #604 Dave Lopes The shadows on his face make Lopes look very old and kinda sinister.

1990s: 1998 Topps Chrome #108 Kevin Orie  A shiny card of a bust of a player.

2000s: 2000 Topps Chrome #207 Prospects Roosevelt Brown / Corey Patterson  The RNG picks another shiny card of more busts.

2010s: 2018 Heritage Minor Deckle Edge #19 Adbert Alzolay  Hopefully Adbert can pitch better than he can sign an autograph.

Rolling the Dice

I'm rolling the dice with this one.

Robel Garcia has been include in many (too many!) sets this year.  He has autograph cards too.  If he plays in a game for the Cubs this year, he'd qualify for my autograph collection.  So I took a chance and picked up one of his autograph cards.

My gamble is that
a) there will be a 2020 season
and
b) that Garcia will see time with the Cubs.

Honestly, I wouldn't be upset if b) doesn't happen, but a) is amust!

1974 Fleer Baseball First Addition

Five years ago I put together my Cubs team set from the 1974 Fleer release, Baseball Firsts.  This was a tricky one because my usual source for team sets at the time, Teamsets4u, didn't have a listing.

I went to COMC and read the backs of the cards to see which ones would be considered Cubs cards.  I came up with three cards and purchased them.

However, as I was entering my collection on the Trading Card Database, I came across a fourth card. That was a couple months ago and it has taken me that long to find the missing card.

In 1876, the National League's first season, Cubs second baseman Roscoe Barnes became the major league's first .400 hitter.  He hit a robust .429.  The next closest hitter was 63 points behind him!

Missed A Barney 1/1

One of my saved Ebay searches is for "Barney 1/1."  While I have most of his cards, there are still many 1/1 parallels that I don't have, for obvious reasons.

A week and a half ago I was notified that a 1/1 was listed, this 2012 Woodgrain card. 

I already have ten different versions of the 2012 card, but I thought I'd take a stab at adding #11.

There was one bid that came in almost immediately after the card was listed.  Then nothing.  I set my sniper at a price I felt was fair but not outrageous for a 1/1 card.  The auction ended during the afternoon on Easter Sunday and I was busy so I didn't have a chance to check on it until it was finished.  I optimistically hoped for the best.

I was shocked when I saw the closing price. Yikes, one hundred bucks!  That was not my bid....  my bid wasn't anywhere near that!

My 2012 Flying Barney rainbow remains at ten.