2012 Topps Archives 1980 Topps design.

  

A set that featured in the early days of this blog was the 1980's Topps set. As I explained back then, the 1980's Topps cards were the first baseball cards I owned -EVER.  Cards #101-150 from the 2012 Topps Archives are in the 1980 design. So there is no better way to celebrate collecting all 726 cards from the original 1980's set but to try and collect the 50 cards available in the same style.

1980 George Brett

2012 Archives George Brett

2012 Topps Archives
1980 Base design
101 Adrian Gonzalez
102 Dee Gordon
103 Ricky Romero
104 Yovani Gallardo
105 Torii Hunter
106 Alex Gordon
107 Josh Johnson
108 Cliff Lee
109 Catfish Hunter
110 Jose Bautista
111 John Axford
112 Todd Helton
113 Ryan Howard
114 Jason Motte
115 Gio Gonzalez
116 Alex Avila
117 George Brett
118 Desmond Jennings
119 Yu Darvish
120 Tim Lincecum
121 Heath Bell
122 Dustin Pedroia

123 Ryan Vogelsong

124 Brandon Phillips

125 David Freese

126 Rickie Weeks

127 Evan Longoria

128 Shin-Soo Choo

129 Darryl Strawberry

130 Mike Stanton

131 Elvis Andrus

132 Ben Zobrist

133 Mark Trumbo

134 Chris Carpenter

135 Mike Napoli

136 David Ortiz

137 Jason Heyward

138 Joe DiMaggio

139 Ivan Nova

140 Buster Posey

141 J.P. Arencibia

142 Ozzie Smith

143 Marco Scutaro

144 Ike Davis

145 Howie Kendrick

146 Jarrod Parker

147 Justin Masterson

148 R.A. Dickey

149 Dustin Ackley

150 Clayton Kershaw

28/06/2012 48 to go 130, 149 from packs
10/08/2012 42 to go 121,122,125, 137,147 from The Angels, in Order.
16/10/2012 33 to go 102, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 124, 135, 144 from Home of the Toddfather
19/11/2012 24 to go 105, 108, 117, 118, 120, 136, 139, 141, 145 from packs
24/01/2013 19 to go 101, 103, 104, 106,107 COMC
12/02/2013 14 to go 110, 109, 116, 119, 126 COMC
25/03/2013 8 to go 128, 132, 133, 134, 142, 149 COMC
11/04/2013 0 to go 123, 127, 131, 138, 140, 143, 146, 150 COMC

Completed  11th April 2013

1980 Topps Baseball Vacancy List

The 26 cards I need are: (updated 8th August 2009)
390 Fregie Jenkins,
435 Don Gullett,
437 Joe Niekro,
448 Jim Wohlford,
485 Mickey Rivers,
492 Todd Cruz,
493 Jerry Martin,
496 Silvio Martinez,
500 Tom Seaver,
501 Rennie Stennett,
507 Leon Roberts,
512 Jose Cardenal,
514 Steve Ontiveros,
519 Steve Nicosia,
520 Steve Rogers,
577 Bob Mattick,
578 Scott Sanderson,
580 Nolan Ryan,
587 Garry Templeton,
630 Larry Bowa,
637 Joe Simpson,
659 George Bamberger,
667 Martin/Paschl/Qsnbry,
676 Macko/Geisel/Pagel,
684 Frazier/Herr/O'Brien

Update 26th September 20 cards from e-bay ~ 178, 185, 190, 192, 196, 202, 204, 214, 227, 228, 230, 241, 244, 532, 533, 556, 565, 573, 602, 621
Update 30th September 50 cards from e-bay ~ 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 32, 38, 39, 42, 44, 47, 49, 50, 51, 56, 57, 60, 68, 69, 71, 73, 76, 78, 79, 84, 87, 89, 95, 97, 99, 101, 102, 700, 704, 705, 722
Update 3rd October 20 cards from e-bay ~ 104, 203, 235, 244, 281, 305, 315, 321, 459, 570, 589, 605, 615, 620, 644, 646, 688, 705, 715, 719
Update 11th October 25 cards from e-bay ~ 25, 30, 42, 46, 50, 53, 55, 56, 65, 75, 80, 89, 90, 91, 111, 114, 118, 121, 249, 565, 597, 619, 649, 706, 713
Update 21st October 25 cards from e-bay ~ 76, 84, 85, 106, 170, 175, 185, 196, 204, 227, 228, 237, 272, 298, 299, 434, 490, 533, 537, 555, 558, 617, 622, 635, 636
Update 1st November 20 cards from ebay ~35, 95, 105, 201, 260, 532, 550, 610, 640, 646, 648, 654, 655, 660, 671, 701, 704, 707, 710, 726
Update 13th November 44 cards in trade with Shane ~ 109, 136, 142, 157, 254, 263, 312, 325, 327, 330, 342, 345, 352, 355, 360, 377, 397, 402, 410, 414, 419, 427, 429, 430, 472, 486, 491, 499, 503, 515, 518, 576, 585, 592, 640, 648, 655, 660, 662, 665, 674, 677, 685, 687
Update 25th November 8 cards in trade with Greg ~ 2, 4, 40, 125, 265, 320, 400, 590
Update 5th December 7 cards in trade with Cliff ~ 144, 158, 372, 391, 407, 423, 551
Update 6th December 102 cards from e-bay ~ 28, 29, 33, 37, 92, 108, 119, 120, 137, 138, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 146, 147, 149, 150, 151, 153, 154, 155, 158, 159, 163, 164, 166, 172, 195, 219, 223, 224, 229, 231, 239, 240, 243, 250, 255, 257, 258, 261, 262, 264, 266, 267, 268, 276, 277, 278, 285, 286, 287, 289, 293, 294, 295, 297, 306, 307, 309, 311, 313, 317, 319, 323, 324, 329, 332, 333, 334, 336, 337, 338, 339, 340, 407, 408, 416, 588, 594, 612, 613, 616, 624, 625, 626, 627, 629, 631, 633, 637, 645, 664, 668, 670, 673, 675, 679, 680, 683
Update 12th December 2 cards in trade with Steve ~469, 481
Update 18th December 2 cards from e-bay ~ 417, 421
Update 21st December 75 cards from e-bay ~110, 116, 1117, 126, 127, 128, 131, 132, 133, ,139, 156, 161, 167, 236, 296, 326, 343, 346, 364, 376, 380, 382, 386, 387, 396, 401, 409, 411, 421, 422, 428, 432, 436, 441, 443, 444, 446, 447, 458, 461, 463, 465, 466, 467, 473, 475, 476, 478, 483, 488, 530, 534, 535, 542, 560, 561, 562, 563, 564, 569, 574, 581, 583, 586, 593, 623, 632, 641, 652, 663, 678, 686, 690, 695, 698
Update 23rd December 87 cards from Jeremiah ~ 3, 5, 19, 21, 31, 41, 45, 58, 64, 66, 67, 74, 82, 86, 115, 116, 117, 124, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 139, 145, 146, 147, 148, 156, 161, 162, 165, 167, 184, 191, 205, 207, 217, 225, 236, 253, 273, 275, 280, 282, 292, 295, 296, 300, 308, 310, 314, 316, 318, 326, 328, 331, 341, 343, 344, 346, 348, 350, 351, 352, 354, 357, 359, 361-365, 367-371, 374, 375, 376, 378
Update 23rd January 2009 1 card in trade with Greg #160 Eddie Murray
Update 28th January 2009 64 cards in trade with Dayf ~ 33, 41, 74, 119, 124, 136, 141, 148, 149, 150, 155, 158, 219, 224, 268, 275, 277, 285, 287, 293, 295, 297, 313, 317, 318, 331, 328, 333, 344, 363, 368, 372, 374, 375, 376, 388, 394, 395, 423, 451, 453, 456, 467, 469, 494, 495, 498, 506, 511, 523, 525, 527, 541, 546, 548, 554, 559, 566, 567, 571, 582, 594, 624, 629
Update 2nd February 2009 36 cards in trade with Mark ~ 232, 290, 302, 383, 385, 389, 395, 440, 457, 462, 479, 489, 494, 498, 504, 505, 508, 509, 510, 511, 516, 517, 525, 527, 528, 529, 538, 543, 546, 547, 548, 559, 579, 584, 643, 682
Update 3rd February 2009 7 cards in trade with Chuck ~ 1, 210, 232, 290, 335, 450, 600
Update 4th February 2009 14 cards in trade with Dan ~ 259, 274, 404, 425, 426, 457, 462, 470, 484, 526, 529, 545, 591, 689
Update 21st February 2009 2 cards in trade with Steven ~ 77, 270
Update 16th April 2009 2 cards from e-bay ~#70 Gary Carter, #651 Rollie Fingers
Update 30th April 2009 1 card from Greg ~ #206 1979 Strikeout Leaders
Update 13th June 2009 1 card from e-bay ~#521 Ken Brett
Update 23rd June 2009 1 card from e-bay~ #482 Rickey Henderson
Update 1st July 2009 4 cards from Matt~#384 Joe McLaughlin, #393 Ozzie Smith, #431 Mike Krukow and #650 Joe Morgan
Update 7th August 2009 1 card from e-bay~ #540 Pete Rose
Update 8th August 2009 1 card from e-bay~ #100 Johnny Bench

1980 Topps from Jeremiah at toppstraders

Seasoned bloggers are probably use to being contacted out exchanging cards or offers of cards. That is how I started trading with others. Some answered with 'Yeah sounds great', others with a sceptical 'OK'. I always said I would send first and greatly appreciate any cards back. I'm not a heavily read blog but since I have sent cards out to other bloggers, people have been less sceptical.
When Jeremiah contacted me and said he had a few 1980's Topps and wanted nothing in return, I knew exactly how the bloggers I had contacted felt.
True to his word Jeremiah sent a large pile (87 cards) all from my 1980's vacancy list. The cards were in excellent condition and if you have ever taken a look at My pursuit for 1980's Topps, I am now down to 103 cards needed to complete the set. Some of the cards will be difficult to obtain. I was in this for the long haul.
Check out Jeremiahs blog Toppstrader.org. He has been writing for a while now, but I noticed he hasn't updated his site since August. He is always up for trades too. Just my sort of collector.
Thanks Jeremiah.

1980 Topps Baseball variations

I realised I needed to attack my 'Pursuit for 1980 Topps' with a bit more gusto and started to search e-bay US for some sellers with the 'complete your set' tag. I stumbled across, to my surprise, quite a few. There were two types; those that said they had some 1980's Topps and those that listed all the numbers they had available. I purchased 100 from 1 seller and 75 from another on the same day. The 100 cards charge for postage was $13.95 ! (When it did arrive the postage cost $8.50- that is some very expensive packaging.). The second lot of 75 cost a mere $5.00, but has yet to arrive. Hmmmm. I'm not here to talk about the irregular postage system but in my search I stumbled across:

An unopened pack of 3 1980 Topps cards free with Squirt (washing liquid?, Actually a soft drink- thanks Steve.),

An unopened pack of 3 1980 Topps cards free with Hunts bread and

An unopened pack of 3 1980 Burger King 'Pitch, Hit & Run cards.

These were according to the seller '...regular 1980's Topps cards...plus... the possibility of a Rickey Henderson Rookie...' I didn't think for a minute that these would be un-searched. I have also come to appreciate the variety of places that baseball cards can be obtained like cheese, dog food, fast food places and now bread! Plus my oddball meter did a little dance. I bid and won all three.

They arrived today.
In the 1980 squirt packet:
A squirt card with Lifetime .300 hitters statistics on the back ,
#421 Doug Bird (needed)
#596 Rick Matula
#662 Red Sox future stars.

In the 1980 Hunts bread packet:
A Hunts bread card with Players with 3000-or-more hits statistics on the back, oddly with a O-Pee-Chee branding,
#216 Phil Mankowski
#417 Craig Chamberlain (needed)
#598 Fred Kendall.

Finally the 1980 Burger King:
Hang on a minute, red backs! Not blue! What is going on here?
Luckily the Burger King card is a checklist and I have realised that this is not the regular 1980 Topps set, but rather a 33 card set of Pitchers, Hitters and Runners. Hence the name.
It looks like Topps, feels like Topps, made by Topps but not Topps.
Included was:
#3 Rollie Fingers
#16 Keith Hernandez
#32 Frank Taveras

Sadly I have missed the Pitch, Hit and Run competition running from July 7th -13th, its for boys and girls aged 8 to 13 years. Oh well.

If you can shed some light on these cards, it would be greatly appreciated.

Sometimes, just sometimes on E-bay

In the past I've tried to buy just about anything on e-bay, baseball related. As more items became available, I became more discerning.

Around April of this year there was a glut of cards available, possibly a 5p listing promotion. But an auction came up 'Some 70's and 80's baseball cards' and was listed without a picture. For just 99p (plus £1.00 postage) it was a slight risk. Similar I suppose to the blind trades I'm trying to arrange.

If I remember correctly the item description was as brief as the title.

I took a punt and won.

When the package finally arrived I was stunned. There was 24 cards from 1970 to 1992. Amongst the cards were:

1970 Topps #321 Lou Piniella

1972 Topps #72 Bruce Kison

1972 Topps #93 Pitching leaders

1972 Topps #95 Strikeout leaders

1972 Topps #112 Greg Luzinski

1972 Topps #103 Checklist

1972 Topps #520 Larry Bowa
1974 Topps #10 Johnny Bench

1974 Topps #136 Ricky Reuschel

1974 Topps #251 Graig Nettles

1974 Topps #280 Carl Yastrzemski

1974 Topps #315 Ron Cey

1974 Topps #562 Bucky Dent

1974 Topps #610 Dave Kingman

1980 Topps #220 Dave Concepcion

1980 Topps #544 Rick Sutcliffe

1983 Fleer #40 Paul Molitor

1983 Fleer #613 Gary Gaetti

1989 Topps #691 Roberto Kelly

1991 Fleer #524 Tommy Greene

1992 Topps #156 Manny Ramirez RC

and some cards that I have not been able to find anything about

1990 Superstars #2 Ken Griffey Jnr

1990 Superstars #3 Rickey Henderson

1990 Superstars #6 Jose Canseco

It says on the back they were 'limited' to 10,000. Is that the whole set or each card?

The highlight of the package being the 1992 Manny RC and 1974 Carl Yastremski.

However this is not just a random mixture of cards. My only possible conclusion being that the seller of these cards didn't know that some of them were collectable. Are collectable! They knew that they were significant in some way. But why list without picture or a list of the names 'Bench', 'Yastremski', or 'Molitor', 'Griffey Jnr', even 'Canseco'. Odd, very odd.

1980 Topps Baseball

I know everyone has a blog.

They come and go quicker than a politicians promises.

I have started to complete some card trades and wanted to keep a record of the comings and goings, while in pursuit of the 1980 TOPPS BASEBALL complete set.

It all started in 1980 and this was the card that did it.

Card Number 320 Dennis Eckersley.

I knew nothing about baseball or baseball card collecting.

I knew nothing about Dennis Eckersley.

I knew nothing about his home town of Bay Village.

I didn't know where Fenway Park was.

I didn't know what ERA was.

I didn't know....

Well I didn't know a lot of stuff.

But I have spent the last 28 years finding out and collecting a few cards in the process.

It wasn't until two years ago that I made a serious effort to collect the 1980's.

Baseball cards are a rare item in the United Kingdom. E-bay has opened a few doors. For a while I tried to buy every card, every pack and programme that was listed in the UK. It was easy. There wasn't that much, there still isn't. I asked anyone I knew who was visiting the United States to buy me some cards. I amassed a decent collection in the 90's and 00's but the cards from earlier were the 'holy grail'. They eluded me.

Then to my surprise cards from the 1960's, 1970's and 1980's appeared on E-bay.

I bid and bid and bid.

I won some and lost most.

I decided to become more selective and set myself some goals.

1. To collect packs and only packs,
2. To collect a pack of baseball cards from every year starting at 1980, from the major manufacturers, Topps, Fleer, Bowman, Donruss and Upper Deck,
3. To collect Red Sox cards.

And more recently;

1. To collect Heritage, Retro and Oddball cards,
2. To collect some game used and autograph cards,
3. To collect the complete set of 1980's Topps baseball cards (all 726 of them).

By chance I discovered 'A Pack a Day' blog and from there 'Stale Gum', 'White Sox Cards', 'Thorzul will Rule', 'The Baseball Card Blog', 'Wax Heaven' and many more (check out the Baseball Card Blog Roll)

It opened a whole new world of card collecting. I intend to record my trades, discoveries and thoughts on card collecting. I don't intend on being a prolific writer just enough to keep an accurate record.

Please feel free to share your comments.