Topps and the "chrome" name

Hard to imagine the hobby without a chrome branded product, but it could have happened.

From 1991 to 1993, Wild Card produced basic football and basketball cards, but in late '93 they produced "Super Chrome" football cards.

No, they weren't extra large chrome cards despite the name, just basic sized cards using Chrome stock.

And they were blazing hot selling for at least triple the srp of $3 a pack, Until the NFL announced that they were not licensed.

Long story short, Wild Card license
was revoked right before this was released and in a world which lived and died by a price guide, these cards no longer were listed thereby killing interest.

Now, had there been no problem and wild card continued to make these cards, Topps would not have named their cards "Chrome" so as to avoid stepping on a
Competitor and risk a law suit.

So maybe the hobby would have Topps and Bowman Prizm instead.

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The original chrome. Look at this on eBay http://www.ebay.com/itm/111746209327

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I know I'm in the minority but I've never been a big fan of the chrome cards.
With that said I love the refractor versions, but give me the crisp clear images of 1993 Flair or the old Topps Gold Label cards along with Stadium club.

I didn't know about the Wild Card Chrome cards. I remember the flashy full-page Wild Cards ads plastered all over SCD, Tuff Stuff and other mags in the early '90s. They were the first cards that made me think of gambling, with the big 500, 1000, etc. printed on the front of the cards. Cool thread.

David T. said:

I know I'm in the minority but I've never been a big fan of the chrome cards.

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I LOVE chrome cards but I'm not a fan of Topps' current chrome cards. I miss that Topps took away that enhancement effect on edges of various things in a photo.

My favorite "chrome" right now is Panini's prizm as they do that edge enhancement effect with their cards.

Can you guys post examples of what you mean by "edge enhancement"?

goobmcnasty said:

Can you guys post examples of what you mean by "edge enhancement"?

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Etching

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The etching in the details of the picture. Topps used to do that to some extent, highlighting the figure and a few details. Or the signature if it had a repro sig on it. This is the best I could find quickly.

Somewhere along the line they stopped mostly. A couple sets I think had just a completely flat image, which kind of defeats a major purpose of the chrome process.

Panini still does this. Ignore the circle background, but look at the wrinkles in the jersey. This card is probably a great example of it.

Sometimes I think they go overboard. I've had a couple Prizm refractors cards that have so much etching it detracts from the overall image, imho.

But yeah, the Chromium process opened a whole new area of design. Different effects could be designed, giving things a metallic finish or creating more of an illusion of depth. What would Finest cards look like in regular paper? They'd probably never exist (or they'd have been printed by Fleer). And of course all the different 'fractors, which really began the rare parallel segment of modern collecting that hadn't taken off before.

When you think about it, this technology probably spurred exploration of other printing processes. Playoff sure threw everything they could at the wall with their experiments in packaging and printing. I wonder why they never did an all-Dufex base set, seeing how popular it was. And Pacific with their die-cuts. While UD spurred improvements in printing quality, better paper, etc., it wasn't until Chrome cards that people started thinking about these other materials for cards. Plastic cards had been around for a long time in some form or other (XOGraph cards, Permagraphics "credit cards", Collector's Edge rubbery plastic), but nothing really stuck. Bright colors and 'metallic' finishes might have been the key.

Finest was probably a bit of a gamble for Topps. The 1992 football set was met with a giant 'meh,' as I recall, and doing a full pack-based, expensive baseball set as the top-end super-premium product was risky. But as soon as the promos became huge items the anticipation was there. I doubt anyone anticipated what the reaction would be once it went live, though. If Topps produced a box set for baseball like they had with football, maybe no refractors, there's a chance it would have gone into that niche with other box sets, a curiosity for completists but kind of outside the mainstream.

Actually another thing was the inclusion of the Piazza card. As #199, it surely was added late as a separately printed card. He was so hot at the time, and as pretty much the only rookie (player if not strictly RC) in the set, he surely drove demand in some part. His base card got up as high as $50, IIRC, and the refractor hit $1000. That combination of refractor finish and hot rookie is still a model for a successful product today.