Five Random Cubs Cards

I've got 15,813 Cubs cards from 133 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1969 Jewel RIch Nye  Most of the pictures in this set are posed shots at Wrigley Field.   Recently acquired players had head shots.  But Nye had been with the Cubs since 1966, so its odd that he got a head shot.

1980s: 1982 Cubs Team Issued Al Ripley  This set is the Cubs first ever giveaway set.  It looks like the Cubs are playing the Braves.  But the Braves bullpen is on the third base side.  I believe there was a short time when the bullpens were swapped.  The idea was that the manager could look move easily across the field at his relievers warming up.  It didn't last very long.

1990s: 1991 Star Gold #10 Ryne Sandberg  This card gives a nice look at a smiling Sandberg and at the felt press-on C the Cubs use on their batting helmet.

2000s: 2008 Bowman Prospects #24 Jeff Stevens Stevens ended up pitching in 33 games for the Cubs over three seasons.  His career ERA is 6.27.  Ouch!

2010s: 2011 Topps Chrome #164 Matt Garza  He was 10-10 in 2011, his first season with the Cubs.  Two years later he was sent to the Rangers and two members of the 2016 World Series team were picked up, Carl Edwards and Justin Grimm.

Baseball Card Price Guide Cubs Cards 1991 / 1971

The 1991 version of the SCD Baseball Card Price Guide cards used a design from 20 years earlier, the 1971 Topps set.  There are 60 cards in the set and again, three are Cubs.

 

They went with three of the bigger names on the team.

It was a pretty decent copy job.  The team name is a little off, but not two bad.  The colors of everything match.  

Baseball Card Price Guide Cubs Cards 1990 / 1957

In 1990 SCD Baseball Card Price Guide became a full set, going from 15 cards to 60 cards.  The Topps design they copieds was from 1957.  Three of the 60 cards were Cubs.

 

 

When the design is nothing more that some basic fonts for name, team, and position, it isn't too hard to duplicate.  So how did SCD do?

Not bad at all.  It was a good recovery from the horrid job they did with the 1964s.

Baseball Card Price Guide Cubs Cards 1989 / 1964

After wrapping up the Baseball Cards Magazine Cubs cards, I'm moving on to another brand of magazine cards, Sport Collectors Digest Baseball Cards Price guide.  They put out cards from 1989 to 1993 and they too used the same idea of ripping off Topps designs.

The first release came in the October 1989 issue and the set consists of 15 cards using the 1964 design.  There is one Cub among the 15....

.... Ryne Sandberg.

And how did they do with their recreation?

Not very good.  Not very good at all.... team name not even close, wrong color for the  box around the players name and position, wrong color with the position name.

We'll see if they improve with practice tomorrow when we take a look at the 1990 cards.

The 34th Cub

Last week saw the 34th different player to get into a game for the 2018 Cubs.  Pitcher Randy Rosario was called up from Iowa on May 17th.  The next day he was sent back to Iowa.  He didn't get in the game on the 17th, so I didn't think I'd have to make a card for him.

The next day, though, the Cubs had a double header and he was again recalled.  This time he did get to play.  He pitched two decent innings in the first game of the double header, striking out two and allowing no runs. The next day it was back to Iowa again.

Wrapping Up Baseball Cards Magazine

I'll wrap up the Baseball Cards Magazine sets today:

Years run: The sets ran from 1989 to 1993, smack dab in the junk card era.

Topps Designs Used: They started with 1959, and then spent most of the time in the late 60's, using 1966, 1968, 1969, and 1970.

Number of Cards:  The first three sets had 72 cards.  The last two were 88 and 95.  That gives us a total of 399 cards.  Couldn't they have added one card somewhere to give us a round 400?

Number of Cubs:  The Cubs end up with 19 cards.  That is 4.7% of all the cards.  If they were divided evenly among the 26 teams at the time, it comes to 15 or 16 cards, so the Cubs were above average.

Most Popular Cub:  Ryno got the most love from the magazine with four cards.  Andre Dawson came in second with three cards. 

Baseball Cards Magazine 1993 / 1968 Cubs

Baseball Cards Magazine finished its set with the 1993 release, mimicking Topps 1968. This is the burlap set that was done by Heritage last year.  Oddly, this final set was also the largest, with 95 cards.  Usually as sets come to an end, their checklist has dwindled.  Baseball Cards Magazine went out with a bang.

Four Cubs were included

 

 

This was a pretty decent effort, after two pretty mediocre years.  They even did two versions of the burlap, just like Topps.

The narrow burlap was pretty close.  They still had trouble matching the orange, though.  And the name font wasn't quite right either.

The wide burlap was way too wide.  Heritage was almost spot on, but the magazine needed to shrink their's down.