He was the image on the box of cards?

predatorkj · Jul 18, 2013

I know some people hate on Pence but that dude plays the game the same way Mike Trout or Bryce Harper does. Full speed. I wish he were still in Houston. He's a very decent player and I'd say he has panned out very well.

Topnotchsy · Jul 18, 2013

predatorkj said:
I know some people hate on Pence but that dude plays the game the same way Mike Trout or Bryce Harper does. Full speed. I wish he were still in Houston. He's a very decent player and I'd say he has panned out very well.

The person who mentioned him is not wrong in saying that he's far from a huge popular national star, so his appearance is surprising although he's not nearly as obscure as some of the prospects that graced the boxes of rookie-focused sets. Of course that is the risk with every prospect which is why we have so many "legends of AA" who graced the outside of the box..

uniquebaseballcards · Jul 18, 2013

Topnotchsy said:
The person who mentioned him is not wrong in saying that he's far from a huge popular national star, so his appearance is surprising although he's not nearly as obscure as some of the prospects that graced the boxes of rookie-focused sets. Of course that is the risk with every prospect which is why we have so many "legends of AA" who graced the outside of the box..

Awesome name for a set!

smapdi · Jul 18, 2013

Stars sold cards back in the 80s. Yes there was "prospecting" on base cards, but it was much different in that they were nearly all already in MLB before they had cards. When you spent your hard-earned $4 on 10 packs of cards, you liked seeing the Schmidts, Jacksons, Ryans and such way more than the dreaded 3-headed "prospect" cards (or, even worse, team cards and checklists). I stopped collecting in 1983, but in 1985 if I had opened packs of cards to find Olympians in there, I probably would've rather had a "real" player card. You had to go real deep to know about some 17-YO hitting .320 in rookie league, or find out about the top 500 draft prospects and such. And Bowman wasn't "Bowman" until 1992, and even then it was scoffed at for the first few months after release.

Dale Murphy was a 2-time MVP. Gary Carter was the (oversized, personally disturbing) face of 2 franchises. Not as glamorous as, say, Shawn Abner in 1984, but probably way more effective in selling cards.

Eh, actually I probably would've hoarded the 1985 Olympic cards because I'm special like that. But I'd probably have had 2 McGwires and 20 of everyone else.

Bill Menard · Jul 19, 2013

I somewhat disagree with the above... ANY RC card was desirable back in the 80's and card shops, which was really the only place to sell your cards, aside from an occasional card show, bought all the rookies from customers upon a products release. It is true, they were pretty much all major leaguers (aside from OLY cards). But you could easily move your RCs to the shops (as well as the star players). People understood the concept of a RC carrying far more potential for an increase in value than a second year or beyond card of a player, so that is what people went after. I truly don't recall how desirable the OLY cards were in 85 upon release, but I do know there was always a lot of discussion around what was a true RC card back then and there was debate between whether 85T or 87T was Cory Snyder's RC just as much as there was over McGwire! Same could be said regarding the XRC in traded sets vs. the main line issue that came out the following year (people were just as hot for an 87T Will Clark as they were for an 86TT).

I know this is a tangent from the point of the thread, but think it is related to what post above stated.

Also interesting back then is that you could sell star cards. People actually wanted an 87F Don Mattingly (believe it or not, I remember a local shop paying $3 for that card!).

predatorkj · Jul 19, 2013

Bill Menard said:
I somewhat disagree with the above... ANY RC card was desirable back in the 80's and card shops, which was really the only place to sell your cards, aside from an occasional card show, bought all the rookies from customers upon a products release. It is true, they were pretty much all major leaguers (aside from OLY cards). But you could easily move your RCs to the shops (as well as the star players). People understood the concept of a RC carrying far more potential for an increase in value than a second year or beyond card of a player, so that is what people went after. I truly don't recall how desirable the OLY cards were in 85 upon release, but I do know there was always a lot of discussion around what was a true RC card back then and there was debate between whether 85T or 87T was Cory Snyder's RC just as much as there was over McGwire! Same could be said regarding the XRC in traded sets vs. the main line issue that came out the following year (people were just as hot for an 87T Will Clark as they were for an 86TT).

I know this is a tangent from the point of the thread, but think it is related to what post above stated.

Also interesting back then is that you could sell star cards. People actually wanted an 87F Don Mattingly (believe it or not, I remember a local shop paying $3 for that card!).

I agree even though I was young and had limited experience going to shops, this is what I remember. Also, while rookies were the big thing, I also remember second year cards being worth money, just not as much of course. And then third year cards were worth a little less than second year and so on and so forth. And it varied by set. I had to pay $5 for a Griffey Jr. from 1992 leaf whereas a fleer was closer to $2.50. Upper deck, stadium club, and 87 on back for donruss always seemed to be more expensive. Also, 87 fleer and 91 studio were a little higher too.

SouthSideSluggers · Jul 19, 2013

predatorkj said:
I agree even though I was young and had limited experience going to shops, this is what I remember. Also, while rookies were the big thing, I also remember second year cards being worth money, just not as much of course. And then third year cards were worth a little less than second year and so on and so forth. And it varied by set. I had to pay $5 for a Griffey Jr. from 1992 leaf whereas a fleer was closer to $2.50. Upper deck, stadium club, and 87 on back for donruss always seemed to be more expensive. Also, 87 fleer and 91 studio were a little higher too.

I remember this as well. The 2nd year cards for Griffey and Thomas always sold for @$3-$4 and even more depending upon the price of the set it came out of. I remember when these cards came out that I would want a RC, 2nd Yr, 3rd Yr etc. I really think this is why there are so many people with hoards of these base cards as they actually had value at one point in time (no sadly they are worthless). It's disappointing that there is really not much value in a pack of cards anymore especially with these crazy price points. Hardly anyone besides us hard core collectors even cares about the image, the card backs, etc...now it's just people looking for the hits or over-hyped Single A-AA RC auto Refractor, super etc, and the rest is pretty much worthless.

Really sad thing is that I don't see it changing anytime soon. Sorry for getting off topic of the original post.

predatorkj · Jul 19, 2013

SouthSideSluggers said:
I remember this as well. The 2nd year cards for Griffey and Thomas always sold for @$3-$4 and even more depending upon the price of the set it came out of. I remember when these cards came out that I would want a RC, 2nd Yr, 3rd Yr etc. I really think this is why there are so many people with hoards of these base cards as they actually had value at one point in time (no sadly they are worthless). It's disappointing that there is really not much value in a pack of cards anymore especially with these crazy price points. Hardly anyone besides us hard core collectors even cares about the image, the card backs, etc...now it's just people looking for the hits or over-hyped Single A-AA RC auto Refractor, super etc, and the rest is pretty much worthless.

Really sad thing is that I don't see it changing anytime soon. Sorry for getting off topic of the original post.

Well the sad thing is you have too many sets out. Even now with it just being topps. Back in the 80's and 90's you had your base sets and that was it. Maybe an update set. Now there are so many sets that it's too hard for any one set to be worth much let alone base cards. The whole landscape for collecting changed.

RNCoyote · Jul 20, 2013

Let me add Delmon Young and Scott Williamson

PoseyBuster · Jul 20, 2013

Sly said:
Oh the hell you just didn't. OH NO YOU DIDN'T!!!!!

Central damn it, CENTRAL Washington University. Not Eastern!!

Yes, as you can tell, I'm also a Central grad Kitna graduated my Freshman year.

Excuse me, Does CWU have a Football National Championship???

uniquebaseballcards · Jul 20, 2013

smapdi said:
Stars sold cards back in the 80s. Yes there was "prospecting" on base cards, but it was much different in that they were nearly all already in MLB before they had cards. When you spent your hard-earned $4 on 10 packs of cards, you liked seeing the Schmidts, Jacksons, Ryans and such way more than the dreaded 3-headed "prospect" cards (or, even worse, team cards and checklists). I stopped collecting in 1983, but in 1985 if I had opened packs of cards to find Olympians in there, I probably would've rather had a "real" player card. You had to go real deep to know about some 17-YO hitting .320 in rookie league, or find out about the top 500 draft prospects and such. And Bowman wasn't "Bowman" until 1992, and even then it was scoffed at for the first few months after release.

Dale Murphy was a 2-time MVP. Gary Carter was the (oversized, personally disturbing) face of 2 franchises. Not as glamorous as, say, Shawn Abner in 1984, but probably way more effective in selling cards.

Eh, actually I probably would've hoarded the 1985 Olympic cards because I'm special like that. But I'd probably have had 2 McGwires and 20 of everyone else.

This was definitely true for a long time - mostly because nobody wanted cards of players they did not know or were unlikely to stay in the bigs.

Rookie cards, especially of guys that didn't stick around were worth less than common cards of below-average veteran players - these "common" rookie cards were always worth the least in Beckett (check it out) and on the streets. MiLB players simply weren't on the covers of Beckett, Tuff Stuff, etc as I remember.

The only people who hoarded new rookie cards (in bricks!) were certain kinds of dealers and investors who placed ads in the magazines and sold at shows - and this was in the late '80s/early '90s, but with few exceptions everything was about established stars.

Things have changed somewhat now in that it's easier to sell the unknown and to get out without having any real skin in the game.

EDIT: The above was true in the '80s, some of the other posts in this thread are about '89 and later.

Sly · Jul 20, 2013

PoseyBuster said:
Excuse me, Does CWU have a Football National Championship???

No! That's why we have to lay claim to Kitna!! We have nothing else.

PoseyBuster · Jul 20, 2013

Sly said:
No! That's why we have to lay claim to Kitna!! We have nothing else.

EAGLES!!!!

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He was the image on the box of cards?

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