Happy Vito Day

 Dodger and Mets bloggers have it easy.  They can post cards of Bobby Valentine on February 14.  It's a little trickier for this Cub fan.

This is the best I can do.  Happy Vito Valentinetti Day!

Five Random Cubs Cards

   I've got 19,748 Cubs cards from 300 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1972 Topps #612 Joe Decker Decker spent most of 1972 at AAA Wichita, making just five appearances for the Cubs.

1980s: 1988 Score #244 Jim Sundberg  The RNG picked a card from the first Score set.  The borders were made up of several colors.  This red card and the blue ones were the only colors that looked decent on Cubs cards.

1990s: 1992 Conlon #344 Jimmy Lavender I don't have an autograph of this Cubs no-hit pitcher.  He tossed his a bit before my time!

2000s: 2005 Donruss #132 Derrek Lee This card is from the last set put out by the original Donruss, the one that had an MLB license.

2010s: 2018 1983 Topps #54 Anthony Rizzo Ah, the good old days, when the Cubs had several players in all of the insert sets!

70s Saturday - 1975 - 1977 Kelloggs Cubs

 Once the 1969 Cubs players were gone, things go a little thin at Kelloggs.  From 1975 through 1977 there was just one Cub player in each of the sets.

Jose Cardenal was the lone Cub in the 1975 set.  Too bad they could have made a better 3-D effect with his gigantic afro.

Bill Madlock was the only Cub in both the 1976 and 1977 set, and Madlock wasn't even on the Cubs in 1977.  Some lean years here!

Almost All of the Rest of the 1950 Callahan Cubs

 One of the best of the goodies I got from reader Chad was this ...

...card of Joe Tinker from the 1950 Callahan set.  It was a set I was unfamiliar with so I did some research.

The maker of the set is B.E. Callahan of Chicago.  The set was initially released in 1950 and consists of Hall of Fame players.  Sold as a boxed set, it was available at the Hall of Fame and a few ballparks.   From 1951 through 1956 the set was updated as additional players were inducted into Cooperstown.  It ended up with at total of 82 players.

There are eight cards in the set considered to be Cubs cards.  In addition to the Tinker, six of the remaining seven are below.

 

 

 

The card I'm missing belongs to Gabby Hartnett.  He was elected into the Hall of Fame in 1955, so his card would be in one of the later sets.  Unfortunately for me, those later sets are not as plentiful as the earlier ones, which makes the Hartnett cards both scarce and expensive.  Right now just one is listed on Ebay.  It is a PSA 6.5 with a Buy-it-Now price of $415.  That is one BIN that I will not be hitting.

1985 Topps 3-D Cubs

 A few weeks ago I saw a post where a collector was working on getting all the different Topps 3-D cards.  That intrigued me.  

I know all about the Kelloggs 3-D cards.  In fact, I have all of the Cubs cards.  I was also aware of the 1968 Topps 3-D test set, which contains no Cubs.  But I had no idea that there were other Topps 3-D sets.

It turns out that Topps put out sets called 3-D Baseball Stars in 1985 and 1986.  Each set consists of 30 cards. There are two Cubs in the '85 set but none in the 1986.

I assumed the cards were the Kelloggs lenticular 3-D type.  But boy was I wrong.  I bought both Cubs cards and was very surprised when I open the packages.

The cards are printed on formed plastic sheets. They are 3-D because the body of player is coming out of the card.  it's hard to see the effect on the front side.

This scan of the back gives you a better idea.  You can see how the body comes out at you for the 3-D effect.  The cards are also larger than a traditional card as they measure 4¼" x 6".

They are also a bit more difficult for me to store.  I can't put them into any pocket page because that would cause them to flatten out.

This is what I came up with.  I used a full-sized page sleeve. Into it a slid a piece of paper with some foam strips attached.  The strips are thicker than the raised part of the card, so the card won't get smashed.

1998 Pinnacle Performers

 Pinnacle's XPress debuted in 1997 and I showed the Cubs yesterday.  The set returned in 1998 under a new name, Performers.  It too has 150 cards, divided into subsets like XPress was.  The only difference is that Peak Performers was changed to Far and Away.

Performers was the last baseball set released by Pinnacle.  It came out in July and the company filed for bankruptcy in September.

Five Cubs cards were in the set. 

 

 

These are the four active players.

Kerry Wood was the Cubs lone rookie.  Kudos to Pinnacle for including him.  He made his MLB debut in April and shows up in a set released in July.  

1997 Pinnacle XPress

 Today's set started for me with a throw-away card.

An Ebay seller included this Mark Grace card as packing around the actual card I bought.  I appreciate when sellers toss in extra cards as protection and even more-so when they are Cubs cards.  Most often, though, they are cards that I already have.

But not this one.  It comes from Pinnacle's 1997 XPress set.  The set debut this year, and consists of 150 cards.  There are four subsets that make up the complete set.  The first 116 cards are active players, rookies have slots 117-137, followed by Peak Performer at 138- 147, and at the end are three checklists.

There are a total of five Cubs in the set.

Grace, Sandberg, and Sosa are the active players.

Two of the 21 rookies are Cubs, though neither of the two had a significant career.

The five cards I needed to complete the set all came from Sportlots and I was able to get them from a single seller.  Sandberg costs a quarter while the others were the Sportlot-minimum 18¢.  This was an easy one!