My Virtual Card Collection

One of the coolest features that I've seen on blogs is "Cards That Should Have Been". Being a player collector, it's great to see Steve Garvey in mocked up Topps trading cards from 1969 to 1988. This is especially true if he didn't have a card in a particular set/subset in the first place (though Topps I wish you'd make another All-Time Fan Favorites set). The author of one of the blogs that I read regularly, GCRL, is particularly adept at creating these.

One of my favorites is his CTSHB of the 1977 Dodgers 30 Home Run foursome on a 1978 Topps Record Breaker Card.

He's also designed 1985 and 1986 Topps All-Star cards of Steve Garvey.

In my opinion the two coolest concepts in CTSHB are cards that pre-date a player's actual rookie card (assuming the player did actually play in a year prior) and final tribute cards so that you can see the players final stats.

In the case of Steve Garvey, he played for the Dodgers in 1969 and 1970 prior to his 1971 Topps rookie card being issued. He played his final game in 1987 and never had a final tribute card in 1988 from Topps (newbie Score eased that pain somewhat).

The Internet has helped me fill in those holes and led me to start a virtual collection of Steve Garvey cards. Here are the mockups cards of Steve that I've found so far that use 1969, 1970 and 1988 Topps designs.

The first one I found has a 1969 design and was created by Bob Lemke.

The second one I found has a 1970 Topps design and was created by Mr. Mopar.

The third one I found also has a 1970 design. Unfortunately, I don't remember who designed it (I believe I sourced it from a PSA message board). If anyone recognizes this, leave me a message with a link and I'll update this post.

The fourth one I found has a 1988 Topps design and was created by Punk Rock Paint. Unfortunately, a back to the card was never created so you don't get to see Steve's complete career stats.

With that said, I'm assuming this can't be it so I was wondering if I could get your help. Are any of you familiar with any other Cards That Should Have Been for Steve Garvey from his playing career? Also, does anyone know if Baseball Cards Magazine (or any of their competitors) back in the 1980's ever produced a mockup Steve Garvey card using a Topps, Fleer or Donruss design?

Thanks in advance

The Next Verse.....The Same As The First

I figured I'd take a break from my Steve Garvey collection to write about about a couple peculiar trading card quirks that I've noticed through the years. The first has to do with former NFL Star and sometime actor Bubba Smith (who actually was a College Football teammate of Steve's at Michigan State).

I'll be the first to admit that I don't have any recollection of Bubba Smith the football player as he stopped playing just as I was getting into trading cards. I remember him as a thespian and his great work in the Miller Lite commercials, Police Academy movies and guest appearance as Al Bundy's high school football rival on Married with Children.

One of the reasons I've always enjoyed collecting Baseball Cards (and even Basketball cards) as a kid is that Topps was able to include almost all the players on each team in each of the sets I collected as a kid (i.e. mid-70's to mid-80's). With football cards, there were too many players on each team for Topps to feature them all in a set. However, they always seemed to include Offensive Skill Players and Pro Bowl caliber defensive players in their sets.

Bubba Smith ended up being one of Topps' chosen ones as they included him in everyone of their sets from 1970 to 1976 Topps (sans 1974) and even going so far as to give him three cards in their 1972 set. With that said, photos of Bubba must have been scarce as Topps was extremely lazy in their photo selection as you'll see below.

1970 Topps

1971 Topps

1972 Topps All-Pro (High #)

1975 Topps

1976 Topps

Blame it on scareness of sourcing his photos or Topps' laziness but five of Bubba's eight Topps cards used the exact same photo. Incredibly the first and last cards were released six years from each other. That wasn't the extent of this photo on trading cards as Kellogg's used this photo on their 1970 card (see below).

1970 Kellogg's

The only Topps cards of Bubba's that didn't use the photo above were his 1972 base, 1972 In Action and 1973 base. You'll see below that Topps didn't exactly go out of it's way to make up for their repeat used of photos in 1970 & 1971 in terms of creatively as their 1972 and 1973 base cards were most likely taken from the same game.

1972 Topps

1973 Topps

Bubba Smith is one of those old-time football players that makes the rounds signing autographs at card shows. For whatever reason, he isn't a name that would make me want to attend a card show alone. However, if he just happened to be signing at a card show that I was attending, I'd like to ask him how he felt about Topps providing an extremely limited photo selection on his NFL cards.

My guess is that he'd have liked more cards like his 1972 Topps In Action.

1972 Topps In Action

Garvey or Not Garvey?

In building up my Steve Garvey baseball card collection through the years, I've accumulated quite a few cards of his. If I ever create a master list of every card I have of his, I'll have to include a Roger Maris type of asterisk (i.e. 61*) on the ones listed below because each of them for one reason or another isn't actually a licensed Steve Garvey card. With that said, I'm actually interested in acquiring more of these type of cards because of their uniqueness.

1971 Topps Steve Garvey Reprint/Counterfeit #341 (front)

One of the advantages of today's hobby is that the valuable cards produced in new packs are much more difficult to reproduce because of the crash numbering, fancier printing technology and inclusion of game-used relics and signatures on the cards. The same can't be said for the desirable cards from yesteryear.

Case in point is Steve Garvey's 1971 Topps cards which was first counterfeited over twenty years ago. While it's not easy to see, the photo quality of the 1971 Topps card above isn't as clear as the actual card and the card stock is slightly thinner.

1971 Topps Steve Garvey Reprint/Counterfeit #341 (back)

While collecting in the 1980's, I remember that counterfeiting of trading cards reached a point where 1) one of the publishing companies produced a guide on how to spot certain trading card counterfeits and 2) law enforcement ended up getting involved to curtail the problem. 

For some unknown reason instead of actually destroying the counterfeited cards, someone (i.e. law enforcement?) actually just stamped "REPRINT" on the cards. You can see this on the back of Steve's 1971 Topps card above. Besides Steve's 1971 Topps cards, I remember that in the 1980's counterfeits were produced for Pete Rose's 1963 Topps Rookie Card and Tom Seaver's 1967 Topps Rookie Card and "REPRINT" stamps were added to the card so that they could be re-introduced into circulation. Note: I'm sure this happened to other cards but I don't have examples offhand.

1972 Topps Steve Garvey Reprint/Counterfeit vs. Regular #686 (front)

Above are the fronts of a poorly trimmed 1972 Topps Reprint and a regular version. You'll notice the difference in the two when the backs are compared.

1972 Topps Steve Garvey Reprint/Counterfeit vs. Regular #686 (back)

I acquired the reprint version of this card already trimmed so I don't know if the word "reprint" was ever found on this card. The fonts on the back of the counterfeit and regular versions are very different.

1976 Topps Steve Garvey/Bill Robinson Miscut vs. Steve Garvey Regular #150 (front)

On a more positive note, miscuts and diamond cuts were commonly found on 1970's and 1980's baseball cards. In almost all cases, I usually ended up disposing of these cards because of they didn't conform with the rest of the cards in my collection.

Thirty plus years later, the world now has taught us to appreciate individuality and as a result I've learned to like Topps' mistakes.

1976 Topps Steve Garvey/Bill Robinson Miscut vs. Steve Garvey Regular #150 (back)

In case it wasn't apparant that Steve's cap was underneath Bill Robinson on the front of the card, Topps made it easy for collectors by including Steve's #150 on the back of the card.

I don't have these listed on my want list found on this site but if you have any Counterfeits/Reprints or Manufacturer Mistakes (i.e. Miscuts/Diamond Cuts) of Steve's that you'd like to trade, I'd be interested in making an offer.