Ok, here is my attempt at a card by card look at the 1983 Topps Baseball set. I have been inspired by some pretty cool blogs out there, especially Night Owl's on the 1975 set.
Why 1983? Well I took a look around and found that this set wasn't well represented in blog-land and thought I'd give it a shot. In 1983 I was 8 years old and this was one of the first sets I collected. These cards are vintage to me. I remember going to the convenience store a few blocks away and buying a pack or two when I could scrounge up some change.
First things first. Topps issued 792 cards in this set. These cards are the standard 2.5" x 3.5". They have a little "cameo" photo at the bottom of the card. This allowed Topps to use more action photos in the full size picture which made these cards different from Topps previous efforts. (The idea was repeated in '84 when Topps used the inset head shot feature again but used a squared frame.) The back has an orange background with black ink on the usual grayish/brown cardboard.
Each post I'll examine and describe each card. I'll have some reoccurring features such as observations about the picture, facts about the player, any quirky factoids from the back of the card, interesting links I may have found, and a note about the featured player's place in baseball history.
Fifteen card wax packs were available for 30 cents and the 28 card cello pack for 49 cents. Check out the Tony Gwynn rookie on top!
Come back tomorrow for the break down on card #1...Tony Armas Record Breaker
Look forward to reading your blog... the 83 Topps set is one of my favorites. Also love the cello pack with the Gwynn on the front. He's my all-time favorite player.
ReplyDeleteah you're doing fine work here sir!
ReplyDeleteI'm really enjoying going through these nostalgia-stirring cards! The 1983 set is particularly memorable for me because they were the first Topps cards I'd ever seen. Growing up in Montreal, Quebec (I was born in 1974 and started using my allowance money for cards instead of candy in 1980), I had had to make do with O-Pee-Chee's subpar variants of the Topps sets (they usually reproduced less than half of the full Topps sets, if I recall correctly and never had any of the special "record breaker" and super veteran type cards, not sure if they had team leader/checklist cards either) Anyway, in 1983, my uncle rented a summer cottage in Montgomery Centre, Vermont, and we spect pretty much all of June, July and August there... Naturally, being on vacation didn't prevent me from needing baseball cards, and I was delighted to get a look at the real Topps cards for a change! I wound up getting about 600 individual players (many of whom would never have made the cut in O-Pee-Chee land), including exotically subpar performers like Guy Sularz, Champ Summers (well, Champ actually did have a good year or two, but everything about him was unimpressive by 1982, except for his awesome name), Joe Pittman and Preston Hanna
Keep 'em coming!
Dave
Thanks for the feedback Dave! I appreciate hearing your background.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy.
Brandon