1992 LK "L and K" Decals

In the early 1990's (1991 or 1992) Moore Sports Ltd. distributed a series of mugs, steins and other random glassware which included various baseball player decals produced by LK Sports. I've never been a big fan of collecting glasses or commemorative plates, so I didn't pay much attention to these, that is until Beckett produced their "official" checklist, and this item (1992 L and K Decals 17) was on the list.

The story is that in the mid to late 1990's a dealer obtained about 40-50 uncut sheets of both the front and back of these decals. These were obviously never meant to be sold as "cards" (and don't even get me started on why Beckett would include this on their list and leave out other more legitimate cards), but now I had to see if I could track one down. It took quite a few years, but I finally found one on eBay a few weeks ago for a fairly reasonable price.




This is the front and back of the decal, which overall measures about 3 1/2" square. These were printed separately, since unlike cards, these were meant to be physically applied to some sort of glass collectible.


Such as a mini plate...


or a coffe mug...


or a beer stein...


or a clear drinking glass...


and a large beer mug.



Most of the items feature a 1992 copyright on the front, and a 1991 copyright (with stats through 1990) on the back. But, there is a variation of the decals which includes a 1991 copyright on the front, and a 1992 copyright on the back, but still has stats through 1990.

I want to thank fellow Rickey collector Scott and Ken for providing the pictures of all of the other LK items, none of which came from my collection. Most of the background information came from BAM! Cards, more of which can be found here. If anyone happens to have anything that isn't shown here, just let me know, as I'd love to have as many listed as possible.

1994 Target A's Pogs Giveaway

Here's another odd Rickey items that I was finally able to obtain. Back during the pog craze of the early- to mid-1990's, the A's decided they wanted to get in on the act.


These sheets of 6 pogs (or Collector Kaps in this instance) were given away at three separate A's home games (series I, II, and III), or so I thought. Since there were 20,000 given away at the first game, I always wondered why I was never able to track down the Rickey sheet (and still haven't, the pictures of the full sheet are courtesy of fellow collector Scott).


It wasn't until much later that someone brought to my attention the anomaly that was the 1994 baseball season. A strike ended the season early, with the A's last home game occurring on August 11. The sheet featuring Rickey was scheduled to be distributed during one of the A's final homestands, and thus was never given away. So, the few sheets that have surfaced were probably snagged by A's employees or randomly given away before they were ultimately probably all discarded.


Here's a close-up of the Rickey pog, complete with facsimile signature.


It's interesting that the pack includes a Pepsi logo, since the front of these were sponsored by Target.

If anyone out there has a complete sheet, or even more singles of the Rickey pog, please don't hesitate to send me an e-mail. I know of quite a few other Rickey collectors who'd still love to get their hands on one of these!

1995 Classic Phone Card

This 1995 Classic Phone card is one that I've been trying to track down for quite some time. It was a fairly limited release, and I don't recall ever actually seeing any back in the late 1990's. I don't even think I knew that it existed until I saw it listed on the Beckett checklist.


There were a total of 57 $10 phone cards in the set, which included everyone from Cal Ripken Jr. to Denny Neagle. There was also an autographed Ripken version, which I can realistically assume was nearly impossible to find.

The cards are a little smaller than normal (about 2 1/8" by 3 3/8"), and are printed on a credit card like plastic with rounded corners. It was an interesting idea, but I don't think it really caught on.


The back of the card included the instructions on how the phone card could actually be used. I'm curious as to the price point on these, if they were sold for $10, or included some sort of "collectible" premium. I believe that the phone number at the top was at one time covered by a little scratch-off panel, which would indicate that this card was actually used. But, since the card expired in December 1996, that doesn't really matter.

Overall, a great addition to the collection, and the final card I needed to finish off the 1995 official Beckett checklist, with all 70 cards now in-hand and accounted for.

1992 Yankees WIZ All-Star and Yankees of the 80's

After over 20 years, I was finally able to obtain the final piece to this Yankees oddball sets from the 1980's!


These sets were given away as sheets of cards by the WIZ (a New York/New Jersey electronics chain) during Yankees home games in 1992. The All-Star set was one of 6 different sets given away in 1992, which also included a Hall of Fame set, as well as sets featuring stars of the '50s, '60s, '70s, and '80s. These mini cards feature perforated edges, and are only about 2" wide by 3 1/4" tall.



The back of the cards were pretty basic, just indicating the set that it was from, as well as the years during which Rickey played on the team.


This is the card that I was finally able to get my hands on, and when I first looked at it, I thought I'd made a mistake, and bought the wrong one. The "Yankees of the 80's" set does look exactly like the All-Star set, but is just missing the logo in the upper left hand corner.


Although similar to the back of the All-Star cards, this set also includes some very brief statistics.

As everyone knows, I love all things oddball, especially those from the 80's and 90's. It's nice to know that I can finally cross this one off my list, and allow it to replace the placeholder in the binder that has been there for so long!

1988 Fleer Sluggers / Pitchers "Baseball's Best" Box Bottom

During the late 1980's, Rickey was quite frequently included as one of the players selected to be included on the panel of cards on the bottom of hobby and retail store boxes. Most of these are fairly common, with some of the O-Pee-Chee Canadian boxes being a little harder to find. But, none are as rare as the 1988 Fleer Sluggers/Pitchers (also known as "Baseball's Best) box bottom. After searching for over 20 years, I finally came across one of these!


Here's a close-up of the card in question. I'm still looking for a nice "cut" version of the card, as the one that I picked up is still attached to the entire display box. Until I came into contact with a few collectors through this blog, I wasn't even sure if this card actually existed!


Here's what the complete panel looks like. I really want to attempt to "free" Rickey from the rest of the panel, but I know I won't be able to cut it accurately enough for my liking.


Until I received these cards in the mail, I'd never actually seen the back of one of them before. The Rickey is one of 6 cards in the set,and is number C-2.


Here's the top to the Sluggers /Pitchers sets display case, which were only available in large retail /drug stores, and contained 24 individual box sets. As a result, most of the display boxes were thrown out, and very few have survived today. Plus, since they were sliding around on store shelves, most of the panels include some surface wear, as well as various mounts of creasing.


The front panel of the boxes actually features a nice image of some of the superstars of the time. Although Rickey is not included, Don Mattingly, Mark McGwire, and Roger Clemens are some of those represented.

A Few Inserts, Parallels, and Oddballs

Sorry about the lack of posts lately, life has been getting in the way of the blog. Plus, within two days of each other last week, both my printer and scanner decided to stop working. A new one is on the way, but it's taking longer than expected.

These were some of the last scans that I made before the thing decided to blow up. Some of them are pretty random, but I'm excited about every one of them getting added to the collection.


1998 Leaf Fractal Materials Die Cuts NX 34 #/500 -- These are serial numbered to 500, but only the first 200 are die-cut. I'd never even seen one of these for sale until recently, but managed to get this one in a trade with another collector


1999 Ultimate Victory Parallel 100 69 #/100


2000 Pacific Prism Premiere Date 93 #/61 -- I found this one on someones random trade page while searching Google for a different card. It's always a nice surprise to stumble upon a nice Rickey parallel hiding someplace


2000 Pacific Omega Premiere Date 132 #/77 -- I got this in a trade for a couple of extra Topps U&H Legends that I'd acquired


2000 Private Stock Gold Portraits 92 #/99


2003 Playoff Portraits Promo 13 -- I found this in an eBay auction along with a similar Hideo Nomo card. The front is the regular 2003 Playoff Portraits, and it also can with the separate card saying it is a promo. For one reason or another, this one is not listed on the master Beckett checklist


1991 Star Home Run Promo (print run of 300 sets)
1991 Star Platinum Promo (print run of 200 sets)


1991 Personality Comics ("Stop the game, I just broke a record")
1991 Personality Comics ("Swoon over my hammy")

I really enjoy adding oddball cards to the collection, and they don't get any odder than this! These were included inside specially marked issues of Personality Comics. I think these were the only cards that 'spoofed" Rickey, but do to the odd nature of this set, I really can't be sure. Either way, I'm definitely glad to have them!

2002 Red Sox Poland Spring

This is the last of the cards that I got in the trade which I featured in my previous post, but I figured it deserved a post of its own.

As anyone that follows this blogs already knows, I'm a big fan of oddball cards, as well as weird regional sets. It used to be that anywhere you went (Kaybee, Toys 'R Us, Woolworth's, etc.) you'd find their own set of baseball cards. These have definitely gone by the wayside, along with including baseball cards on/in packages of food such as Mother's Cookies or Granny Goose potato chips.


This card was produced for the Red Sox in 2002, and I can only assume that it was as a game-day giveaway, although I can't confirm that it was actually the case. The official Beckett description of this cards is "2002 Red Sox Poland Spring 10," and it's one of Rickey's last cards not produced by one of the major manufacturers.


Although not a "high value" card, this is one of my favorite recent acquisitions. It was produced by Grandstand, which is more well known as a producer of minor league team seats, but must also produced regional issues as well.

1992 High 5 Reusable Decals

It's been awhile since I've showcased some of the oddball items in my collection, and since I just recently found out something interesting about the High 5 decals, I thought now would be a good time to share.



The High 5 decals came on sheets with 5 player cards and a logo. There are two different types of sheets, team sheets (5 players and the team logo ago), and "Superstar" sheets (with 5 players and the "Superstar Collection") logo.



Shown above is the Rickey decal from the A's team sheet, described as "1992 High 5 105" by Beckett.


The back of the sheets include a bonus "5 x 7" of a particular player (in this case Ken Griffey Jr.), as well as the checklist of the full 130 card set.



On the sidebar on the back, it describes the "Superstar Assortments" that are also available, with Rickey being included in the A.L. outfielders set.



You may have noticed on the upper corner of the package, that there was a different looking Rickey card included as an example of how the decals were "reusable and removable." When the A's sheet was the only one that I had, I assumed that this must be the Superstar variation that is referred to on the back. But, I have never seen this decal, and I don't believe it ever existed.



I eventually came across this set of decals, which is actually the Superstar Collection, featuring the same decal as in the base set (at least that's what I thought, until this past week)



Here's a close-up of the Superstar version of the decal, labelled "High 5 Superstars 19."



Based on a question from a fellow Rickey collector about the difference between the two decals, I pulled out both of my sheets. I then noticed that the decal from the A's sheet on the left spells his name "Rickey," while the decal from the Superstars sheet on the right is spelled "Ricky." Followers of this blog know of my disdain of those that can't spell "Rickey" correctly, but at least in this instance it actually helps collectors determine the difference between two variations. This won't help collectors of other players, however, as the Canseco decal, which also appears on both sheets, looks to be the same in both instances.



This last picture is of the back of a prototype decal that I also have. The front looks exactly like the Superstars decals, which can be determined due to the "Ricky" spelling. Since even the prototype doesn't feature the picture used in the upper corner of the sheet, it's just further proof that the decal never existed.

1983 Topps Foldouts

Just a quick post today, as I realized I hadn't posted any Rickey-related items in awhile. I've been working on quite a few Oakland A's trades recently, and haven't had time to put any Rickey posts together.

In 1983 Topps issue a set of five "foldout" sets, which featured career leaders in five major statistical categories.



Although Rickey had only been in the league a couple of years, his 319 stolen bases were already enough to get him included in the set. The above "card" measures approximately 3 1/2" x 5 1/2" and was cutout from one of the accordion style foldouts.



Here's a complete and unopened booklet of all 17 stolen base leaders, number 5 of 5 in the set. I'm not sure why they decided upon 17 (probably something to do with the way it was folded), but they used it consistently across all 5 subsets.



Career Wins leaders and Career Home Run Leaders were included as Sets 1 and 2 respectively.



The last two sets were Career Batting Average (set #3) and Career Saves (set #4).

Topps seemed to put out a lot more interesting sets in the past than they do today. Yes, there are more different sets of cards, but they definitely don't release as wide a variety of items as they used to.

Cadaco Discs

There have been quite a few baseball games in the past that have included cards of the individual players. Most of these statistics based games, such as Statis Pro, Strat-o-Matic, and Replay Games, had cards with just the players name, and a bunch of "random" numbers. The Cadaco game discs started out the same way, but in 1989 they started putting the players pictures on the discs, which made them much more interesting.



This first disc is what the Cadaco discs used to look like, with the players name and position on the front, and the game related numbered section around the rim. These discs were blank-backed, and I was told that this was the 1984 version, which I don't really have a way of verifying. I've already shared my disdain about Rickey's name spelled "Ricky," but I think this is the only card I have where it's spelled "Rickie." I actually find that to be quite amusing for some reason.



This next disc is the 1989 version, the first year that Cadaco started putting the players pictures on the cards. The cards are also no longer blank-backed, and do contain the typical stats and biographical information. Although the copyright on the front of this card says 1988, the stats on the back include 1988, which would make this the 1989 version.



Speaking of the back of the discs, there are actually two different variations to this disc. The one on the left is the initial version, which contains the team name and league underneath the player's name. Subsequent releases of the 1989 set omitted this information, which was also omitted in later years. My guess is it had something to do with a licensing issue with Major League Baseball.



Unlike the previous years release, the 1990 Cadaco discs copyright on the front actually corresponds to the stats on the back. Rickey was traded to the A's in 1990, hence the new "A's" (at least, that's the color jersey and hat he's wearing) picture on the front of the disc.



The 1991 discs features the same picture as the 1991 version. The only difference being the copyright on the front, and the new year of stats on the back.

According to Beckett, there's also a 1993 Rickey Henderson Cadaco disc, which I don't yet have. But, if anyone out there does, I'd love to get a hold of one.

As far as Beckett is concerned, they only recognize the 1989 version, the 1991 version, and the 1993 version. I can understand why the earlier years weren't included, as the player's pictures really make them a "card." I can also understand why they would leave out the 1989 variation, but it really doesn't make sense that the 1990 version isn't included. There's no point in trying to make sense of it, however, as they leave out a lot of Rickey cards that I think should be on their checklist.