Topps Heritage Side by Side: 1962 / 2011

Each year I like to take a close look at the originals and the Heritage cards to see how Topps did.

Topps did a fairly decent job reproducing the original cards. About the only difference I found is that the lettering for the last names on the '62 cards seems slighty fatter than on the Heritage cards. It just seems odd that Topps couldn't come up with an exact match for the font.



You can see on these two the difference in the lettering on the last names.

There were 23 Cubs in the 1962 set, including three hall of famers. I don't think any of the 16 2011 Heritage Cubs are heading to Cooperstown.



The '62s included four rookies (including one white star), while the Heritage set had three rookies (and one white star).



The Cubs had an All-Topps Rookies in both sets, so that was cool to see. I like the big trophy from the old days better than the modern cup used today.




The Rookie Parade also included one Cub each time.



Here is what the '62 team card looked like. It's too bad Topps didn't make one for the Cubs in Heritage. That was a real disappointment.



It would have been ok for Topps to leave a Rays hat on Garza, ala this Bob Buhl card.



Here's a couple of catchers



The two third baseman. One thing I've noticed about Heritage is that you rarely see a position player posed with his glove; its almost always with a bat. They need to get more of these cheesy fake fielding poses.

That should give you a good taste of the two sets. And your favorite of the two is...??

T206: Two More

It's been well over a month since I last had posted some Cubs from the T206 set. I got side tracked with inserts, Opening Day, Heritage, Factory team set, etc. But I don't want to let this fall by the side, so here are a couple more:



Catcher Tom Needham is a definite "Who?" among the Cubs in the set. Needham spent six seasons with the Cubs (1909-1914), but his average during that time was .184. Needless to say, it was Needham's glove, not his bat, that kept him in the majors for such a long time. Today we have Koyie Hill doing the same thing.






Orval Overall: One of the aces of the Cubs staff, Overall had three different cards in the set. In six seasons with the Cubs, Overall went 86-43 with a minuscule 1.91 ERA. Arm trouble after the 1910 season ended his career early.

Overall had two different nicknames. One was "Double-O." Apparently Mrs. Wrigley Wax is a big fan of his, because she is always thanking me for the "Double-O", though I don't recall giving her any cards ;)

His other nickname was "The Big Groundhog" because he was born on February 2, Groundhog Day.

SHOCKING!! Topps Made An Error on a Card!!!

There was one more insert I wanted, the black leather Starlin Castro card. I already have the regular glove, but since the blacks were numbered to 99, I thought it would be a nice card to add to my growing Starlin Castro collection.

The card came yesterday. And Topps blew it.

Look at the way the name was stitched into the leather:



CastrA!



They spelled his name wrong. So what if his name is on the card just a half inch below the patch.

So what if Topps hads made all sorts of other inserts and special cards for Castro this year.















Does Topps have any sort of quality control? Do they care?

Just for the heck of it, I emailed customer support, explaining the problem. I suggested that since only 99 of these cards were made, it should be fairly easy to re-make another 99 with the correct spelling. I'm still waiting for a response.

Do you think I'll get one? Even I, the most optimistic of fans (which is what you have to be if you are a Cubs fan) have no hope of a response, much less a corrected card.

If Topps won't correct the card, then I guess I should make my own change to have a matching set:

A New Billy Williams Card

I love finding new cards! Every day I do a search on eBay for Cubs cards. There are usually 30,000 or so cards, but I just look at the newly listed ones. I found today's card through one of those searches.



This is the card the Cubs gave away on September 7, 2010, the day a statue honoring Billy Williams was dedicated. If you've been reading Wrigley Wax for a while, you know that Billy is my all-time favorite Cubs player. And it's great that the Cubs honored the Hall of Famer with a statue.

What I don't understand is how I missed this card. I would assume that there would have been several of these on eBay right after they were given away. But somehow, I never noticed the card until a couple weeks ago. But I'm happy to have found it and add it to my collection.



This picture is from the dedication and it has Billy along with teammates Glenn Beckert, Fergie Jenkins, Ernie Banks, Ron Santo, and Randy Hundley.



Here is a better look at the statue.

Rynos, Andres, Ernies and More

Greg over at Nearlymint was doing some house cleaning and I was able to clean up too! He was kind enough to send me a box full of cards, most of them being Ryne Sandberg and Andre Dawson. What was especially nice was that a majority of the cards are new to me. I collect mostly the "big" sets, and Greg sent a bunch of cards from smaller ones. Wrigley Wax Jr. also gladly accepted any of the doubles.




Here were my favorite Sandbergs....



And the best of the Hawk.....



Plus a few of Mr. Cub himself!

We both thank you, Greg!!

Topps 1969 - 2010 Complete Set Prices

Here is my monthly look at complete set prices, taken from the first five completed sales listings on Ebay on April 1.

Other than a really high end 1969 set ($2,195) and a fairly expensive ($1,625) 1972 set, there wasn't much that stood out.

YEAR	April 1	March 1	Feb. 1	12 Mo Avg
1969	$1,378.50	$1,182.02	$849.95	$960.47
1970	$815.91	$1,525.00	$982.00	$858.04
1971	$745.60	$1,101.00	$707.17	$741.54
1972	$1,206.67	$791.00	$960.67	$853.63
1973	$340.00	$391.00	$360.83	$357.76
1974	$210.44	$266.12	$314.01	$218.52
1975	$366.20	$269.61	$251.92	$288.63
1976	$283.10	$149.28	$161.05	$161.08
1977	$145.45	$120.21	$117.43	$116.54
1978	$105.24	$91.54	$103.59	$90.02
1979	$82.90	$92.33	$94.59	$83.47
1980	$65.85	$60.63	$78.35	$63.92
1981	$25.25	$32.88	$29.30	$27.86
1982	$37.50	$29.74	$34.01	$33.58
1983	$33.20	$37.40	$29.97	$31.58
1984	$25.81	$17.76	$28.63	$22.85
1985	$25.08	$18.79	$30.10	$24.86
1986	$21.18	$12.80	$12.69	$13.09
1987	$7.51	$7.59	$7.29	$7.13
1988	$6.71	$4.80	$11.39	$8.37
1989	$9.09	$4.56	$12.00	$8.80
1990	$7.89	$7.65	$5.15	$9.43
1991	$9.00	$8.62	$4.55	$7.88
1992	$15.81	$6.45	$14.03	$9.59
1993	$18.79	$22.31	$10.31	$18.39
1994	$22.98	$24.01	$18.61	$21.45
1995	$44.09	$30.45	$40.59	$35.00
1996	$24.67	$21.22	$18.19	$19.28
1997	$48.46	$69.39	$62.06	$45.44
1998	$44.21	$43.04	$45.01	$42.22
1999	$38.12	$17.29	$22.80	$23.88
2000	$19.93	$12.30	$15.66	$17.95
2001	$60.53	$61.89	$47.84	$50.82
2002	$33.30	$35.25	$53.01	$36.29
2003	$34.20	$44.40	$37.55	$34.98
2004	$21.62	$25.80	$15.50	$23.77
2005	$22.63	$22.24	$18.59	$23.44
2006	$18.57	$14.25	$15.49	$20.77
2007	$15.72	$15.05	$17.10	$14.83
2008	$17.20	$15.55	$20.18	$21.93
2009	$35.55	$42.00	$34.27	$38.51
2010	$28.73	$43.39	$24.65	$32.35

Coins and Banks

Once I had the Heritage base cards, it was time to work on the inserts. I have all of the Cubs from most of the Heritage inserts since the brand first appeared in 2001. I've got all of the Clubhouse Collection, Flashback, Flashback relics, Then and Now, New Age Performers, Grandstand Glory, and Classic Rendition cards. And I intended to continue the run in 2011.

However, Topps put a wrinkle in that plan. There are no Cubs in any of the regular inserts. They are shut out of Clubhouse Collection, Then and Now, New Age Performers, and Flashback. This is the first year they have ever been completely shut out.

There are some number dual relic and autograph cards, but the price has kept me from chasing those over the years, and I wasn't going to start this year.

But I still wanted one insert card. This one:



It is from the '62 Mint subset. The card has a genuine 1962 quarter, which is a silver quarter worth about $6.00 on its own. The card features Ernie Banks' 300th career home run. The description says that his 300th was one of his most dramatic, a game winning homer.

The homer was hit in the bottom of the 10th inning against Houston on April 18, 1962, the Cubs eighth game of the season. They had lost the first seven (including a three-game sweep by the expansion Colt 45's), so this gave the Cubs their first win of the year. There was a total of 3,318 people at Wrigley Field that day. It seems to me that maybe Topps was overplaying the importance of the homer. I just don't see how an early season home run at an empty ballpark is "dramatic."

And as long as I'm picking on Topps, allow me another. If you look carefully at the picture of Ernie, you'll notice that the jersey is a pullover, not a button jersey. It also looks like a spring training ballpark. The first season the Cubs would be wearing a pullover jersey at spring training was 1973. That would be 11 seasons after the year the card commemorates! Ernie wasn't even active in 1973; he was a coach. If Topps could find a quarter from 1962, why not grab a picture of Ernie from 1962, too!