I've got 21,904 Cubs cards from 317 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades. 1900s - 1970s: 1958 Topps #135 Moe Drabowsky It's easy to spot a picture of a Cubs player taken in 1957, as this one was.  That year was the only season that they had white piping on their hats. 1980s: 1987 Fleer #575 Chris Speier He really is getting down low to make this throw.  He almost looks like a pitcher. 1990s: 1993 Baseball Card Magazine #88 Sammy Sosa The magazine did ..read more

 A few weeks ago I had the discs from the Chicago-area potato chip company, Jays.  And last week it was a disc set from 1985. Today's set combines both of those as we have a potato chip disc set from 1985.  It is from another local chip company, not a national brand.  KAS was big in the St. Louis area, with their products made at a factory in Centralia, Illinois. Their 1985 set was also produced by MSA.  It was smaller than the Jox set, with just 20 players on the checklist.  However, the KAS set has the same two Cubs as the bigger Jox set.  ..read more

 I've got 21,901 Cubs cards from 317 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades. 1900s - 1970s: 1974 O-Pee-Chee #584 Ken Rudolph The career back-up is shown at Candlestick Park, and that is where he spent the 1974 season as the Cubs traded him to the Giants in October, 1973. 1980s: 1980 Topps #381 Cubs Team The 1980 team was not very good and it started at the top.  Preston Gomez, who hadn't managed since being fired by the Astros during the 1975 season, was hired as mana ..read more

When the running craze hit America in the 1970s, running shoes became the thing.  And they had to have stripes on them like Adidas shoes.  America's biggest shoe retailer at the time, Thom McAn, launched their own athletic brand to capture some of the market. They called their line "Jox," but you don't have to be one to wear them.  And yes, they had stripes on them. Thom McAn took a one year plunge into the card market and issued a disc set in 1985.  It was an MSA produced-set so there were no logos on the pictures. The back of the disc was the same on each of the 47 in ..read more

 So what do the three levels of this year's Finest look like?  Let's see them side by side. Each of the levels has a slightly different background.  Also, the player name in the first level is right justified, and then it moved to the left in the second and third levels.  You can also see that for players with cards in multiple levels, different pictures were used for each card. The backs have the same template in all three levels.  As I mentioned in previous posts, the level name is below the card number.  For players with multiple cards, the paragraphs were ..read more

 Today's cards are the rare cards in this year's Finest set.  The rare are seeded one every three packs and are #201 - 300 in the set.  Initially I wasn't sure if I wanted to pick up the five Cubs cards because I thought they would be too expensive.  That wasn't the case, luckily, and I paid in the range of $3-5 for each. Again, you can tell which subset a card belongs to by looking just below the card number.   Bellinger and Steele's only cards in the set were rare, while these are the second for Morel and Imanaga and Crow-Armstrong's third ..read more

 I wrote last week about the 2024 Finest and the three 100-cards levels in the set.  I got the common cards pretty easily.  It took a little time but I now have the cards from the second level, which Topps calls "uncommon." Topps made it pretty easy to tell which of the three levels a card belongs to by putting the level name under the card number.  A less-easier way is by the design of the background on the front of the card.  I'll show all three of the different fronts in a couple of days. I don't know if this was done with any of the other teams, but there are exac ..read more

 We are at the end of the line with these posts as the 1996 edition was the last one for Sportflics / Sportflix.   These are the only two Cubs among the first 96 cards in the set that featured the dual picture technology. Sammy Sosa was the lone Cubs card among the 30 that have the UC3 technology.  These cards have a 3D look to them.  The set also has 24 rookie cards, but none of them are Cubs cards. The producer of Sportflix cards, Pinnacle, decided to end the line after the 1996 set.  I'm sure the cost of the cards was a factor.  Within two years, P ..read more

 I picked up two more cards off of my Most Wanted List.  They are the third and fourth I've gotten this year.  Four cards in nine months is much worse than last year's card per month, but I'm happy to be able to take care of anything of of the list at any time. They are both from the 1985 TCMA 1949 Play Ball set.   Look at the scene behind Jeffcoat.  The bleachers look so bare.  There's not addition, no ribbon screen, no video board, not advertising.  The apartment building has no rooftop seating either.  It's a totally different look now, and I ..read more

 I've got 21,895 Cubs cards from 317 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades. 1900s - 1970s: 1942 Play Ball #40 Stan Hack  This isn't really from a 1942 set, but from a TCMA 1985 release.  They created a set as if Play Ball did have cards in 1942, using a design similar to the 1941 cards and players from that era. 1980s: 1986 O- Pee-Chee #384 Steve Trout Some times when the RNG picks a card from OPC you have to just take my word for it that the card is an actual OPC ca ..read more