Saturday, September 9, 2017

Beckett Baseball Card Monthly November 1998 - Page 4

Page 4 is our first look at anything resembling an article. We get to look at some Short Prints, which as it states are "News and Notes From the Hobby World".


Talkin' Baseball discusses Fleer/Skybox and it's 1998 Sports Illustrated World Series Fever insert Reggie Jackson's Picks and Pacific Trading Cards Firestone on Baseball insert set in 1998 Pacific Crown Royale.

ESPN's Roy Firestone provides the commentary for Pacific and Mr. October does the same for the Fleer/Skybox product.

A picture of a 1998 Pacific Crown Royale Ken Griffey Jr.Firestone on Baseball insert card accompanies the article.

Here is a copy of a 1998 Sports Illustrated World Series Fever Reggie Jackson's Pick insert card of Mike Piazza from my collection.




Below the Talkin' Baseball piece, we have a feature called 10 Under $10 showcasing The Best Hitter Since Ted Williams; Tony Gwynn.

I don't have any of the cards on the list, so let me share my own list with a slight twist. I call it, 10 Under $0.10. These are all cards I could pick up for a dime or less. It doesn't mean they aren't fantastic though.












We finish off page 4 with a Product Preview of 1998 Topps Tek and a partial Product Preview of 1998 Upper Deck Retro, which finishes on page 5.

Product Preview - 1998 Topps Tek

90 different players with 90 different parallels and each parallel has a parallel. The base set is 8,100 cards in size making it the largest card set ever made up to it's printing and it remains the most massive set ever produced to this day.

Here is the checklist.

1 Ben Grieve
2 Kerry Wood
3 Barry Bonds
4 John Olerud
5 Ivan Rodriguez
6 Frank Thomas
7 Bernie Williams
8 Dante Bichette
9 Alex Rodriguez
10 Tom Glavine
11 Eric Karros
12 Craig Biggio
13 Mark McGwire
14 Derek Jeter
15 Nomar Garciaparra
16 Brady Anderson
17 Vladimir Guerrero
18 Dave Justice
19 Chipper Jones
20 Jim Edmonds
21 Roger Clemens
22 Mark Kotsay
23 Tony Gwynn
24 Todd Walker
25 Tino Martinez
26 Andruw Jones
27 Sandy Alomar
28 Sammy Sosa
29 Gary Sheffield
30 Ken Griffey, Jr.
31 Aramis Ramirez
32 Curt Schilling
33 Robin Ventura
34 Larry Walker
35 Darin Erstad
36 Todd Dunwoody
37 Paul O'Neill
38 Vinny Castilla
39 Randy Johnson
40 Rafael Palmeiro
41 Pedro Martinez
42 Derek Bell
43 Carlos Delgado
44 Matt Williams
45 Kenny Lofton
46 Edgar Renteria
47 Albert Belle
48 Jeromy Burnitz
49 Adrian Beltre
50 Greg Maddux
51 Cal Ripken, Jr.
52 Jason Kendall
53 Ellis Burks
54 Paul Molitor
55 Moises Alou
56 Raul Mondesi
57 Barry Larkin
58 Tony Clark
59 Travis Lee
60 Juan Gonzalez
61 Troy Glaus
62 Jose Cruz
63 Paul Konerko
64 Edgar Martinez
65 Javy Lopez
66 Manny Ramirez
67 Roberto Alomar
68 Ken Caminiti
69 Todd Helton
70 Chuck Knoblauch
71 Kevin Brown
72 Tim Salmon
73 Orlando Hernandez
74 Jeff Bagwell
75 Brian Jordan
76 Derrek Lee
77 Brad Fullmer
78 Mark Grace
79 Jeff King
80 Mike Mussina
81 Jay Buhner
82 Quinton McCracken
83 A.J. Hinch
84 Richard Hidalgo
85 Andres Galarraga
86 Mike Piazza
87 Mo Vaughn
88 Scott Rolen
89 Jim Thome
90 Ray Lankford

If you want to see the different patterns, you can take a look at all 90 versions of #78 Mark Grace. These cards are not my own. I got them from a web site devoted to Mark Grace.


The parallel of each parallel are called diffractors and are silver parallels. They were seeded 1 in every 6 packs. The parallels are not numbered and no print run was ever announced, but collectors think that they are limited to between 10-20 copies of each version.

Here are some of the different diffractors for the Mark Grace card, again courtesy of www.MarkGrace.com.


Anyone out there working on a particular player from this set? I have some from the 1999 set, but nothing of note from the 1998 set.

Okay, back to page 4.


Product Preview - 1998 Upper Deck Retro

Beckett was a little off in their numbers, but I think they were given incorrect information from Upper Deck.

Under "The Steak" it lists 1998 Upper Deck Retro as a 130 card set, but it actually only features 129 cards. Card #82 was supposed to be Stan Musial, but due to licensing issues it was never produced.

Under "The Sizzle" it lists the Sign of the Times as 30 cards and on the next page it identifies Stan Musial as one of the autographs, but his autograph never made it in the set either. The checklist does however list 31 different cards and the quantity.

Sign of the Times

AK Al Kaline /600
BF Bob Feller /600
BGI Bob Gibson /300
BGR Ben Grieve /300
BR Brooks Robinson /300
CF Carlton Fisk /600
EB Ernie Banks /300
EM Eddie Mathews /600
FT Frank Thomas /600
GMJ Gary Matthews Jr. /750
GMS Gary Matthews Sr. /600
GP Gaylord Perry /1000
JC Jose Cruz Jr. /300
KGJ Ken Griffey Jr. /100
KGS Ken Griffey Sr. /600
KP Kirby Puckett /450
KW Kerry Wood /200
LB Lou Brock /300
NR Nolan Ryan /500
PK Paul Konerko /750
RB Russell Branyan /750
RF Rollie Fingers /600
SR Scott Rolen /300
TG Tony Gwynn /200
TLE Travis Lee /300
TP Tony Perez /600
TS Tom Seaver /300
WIS Willie Stargell /600
WM Willie McCovey /600
WS Warren Spahn /600
YB Yogi Berra /150
Here is an example from my personal collection. It's of Travis Lee. You can see that the cards are not actually serial numbered. 


We'll finish the rest of  the Product Preview for 1998 Upper Deck Retro tomorrow on page 5.

3 comments:

  1. I don't have a single Larkin from the 1998 Tek set yet, one of the biggest disappointments for my player collection!

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  2. The Tek set was and is insanity. I wonder how many complete sets are out there?

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  3. So sad that a 3rd year Gwynn only sells for 10¢. I guess it's good for collectors who don't already own one. As for Retro... I loved that product. Those Sign of the Times autographs are fantastic.

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