I can’t really say that I haven’t enjoyed 99% of the baseball card issues I’ve seen over the years. I even enjoyed most of these card issues, which weren’t that popular with the hobby overall.
- Mini Cards (remember the Topps mini cards from the 80s?)Mini Cards with the built in plastic stands.
Jumbo Cards (the oversized cards that Topps put out in the 80s?)
Topps Big – the glossy, slightly larger than normal sized baseball cards
Sportflics – I really liked these actually. My brother really hated it when I scratched my fingernail along the ribbed front of the card.
Score – these card were nice, not sure what happened to them.
The cards of past Hall of Famers – not reprints per se, but pictures of Hall of Famers like Ty Cobb, with their bio and stats on the back, all with the same front design (not sure what card maker put these out; I’d have to dig through my old card boxes to find out, and I’m not up to that right now.)
Pop-up cards – remember these cards which you could punch out the perforations on and then stand the card up?
Reprinted Topps Cards – okay I kind of don’t like these, mainly because they faked me out when I was a kid.
Kellog’s and Drake’s Cakes cards (and those of other companies,) that were put in products – there are really some nice collectibles in these issues.
The K-Mart sets – my wife’s mother recently found a whole set of these in a playing card box that the cards came in. Mint condition. Nice set.
Most of these cards would be welcome in my collection.
The one I hate the most out of the list above were the Topps Big cards. Didn’t those come out in three series too. What the heck for?
I miss the old Kelloggs 3-D cards and I have a bunch of those KMart sets.
Yeah, Joey, those K-Mart sets were actually pretty cool.
Wasn’t there a baseball card set that resembled a puzzle? I’ve been digging into the vast wasteland of my brain trying to recollect whether something like that was produced. It had to be from the 80′s and for some reason I think it was by Leaf or Donruss?
My vote for this worst cards were those cards with Cansecos shirt off. That just made me feel dirty. Also, I think they were scented with Steroid juice….
Yeah, there was a puzzle set inlcuded by Donruss in the 1980s. I think it was called “Hall of Fame Diamond Kings” and they included three puzzle pieces per pack.
My favorite set to this day is ’92 Score. I love the simple design to it, the awesome photography, and the wealth of stats on the back of the cards. I was going through some of my stuff the other day and was just amazed at how much I still care about that set.
Yeah, the Score sets were actually pretty nice. I particularly like the 1988 set. The traded version includes the Craig Biggio rookie card, which is a pretty sweet one.
Score was part of Pinnacle Brands, which went bankrupt ten years ago. Pinnacle’s assets (including the rights to the Score name) were purchased by Donruss-Playoff.
Donruss-Playoff continues to produce NFL cards under the Score name, but never made any Score baseball cards.
Interesting, thanks for the heads up on that Chris. Now that Donruss is back in the baseball game, almost in the MLB baseball game, I wonder if Score will come back for baseball cards?
yes scott…i have a pack of the dondruss pop-up major league all star pop-up puzzle and card set with a stan musial puzzle in it…unopened..
Wow, the memories. I have a corner in my basement with boxes of these things. My then girlfriend now wife and I would take one day each summer and go around to all of the toy/thrift/drug stores and pick up all of the small box sets offered by those stores. Some years we came home with close to 10.