30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Monday, March 20, 2017

Black Beauty

Back in November, I listed out some of my favorite black bordered sets in honor of Black Friday.  I had a good time flipping through my binders looking for cards to use in the post.  I covered everything from 1971 Topps baseball to 1989 Kenner SLU football, but there were two sets I left out of the post:  1962 Topps football and 1991 Topps Toys R' Us Rookies.

In January I added a 1962 Topps Bart Starr card to my collection... and on Saturday I opened up a package from Tom over at The Angels, In Order and saw this:


Damn... that's a mighty fine looking card.  From 1987 to 1991, Topps produced 33 card small boxed sets for Toys R' Us.  


Each year, Topps would switch up the color of the borders and card back designs, but they would always use the same simple, yet attractive set design.  The 1987 and 1991 sets both used the black borders, but if you look at the Frank Thomas card you'll notice the word "Rookies" is printed with white text in a blue background.  The 1987 set substitutes blue for pink.

I'm such a big fan... that my goal is to eventually collect all 165 cards and display them in a binder.  So far, I have the 1988, 1989, and 1990 sets... but I still need the bookends.

Well... that's it for today.  I hope all of you have a great week.  Tom... thanks again for the cards.

Happy Monday and sayonara!

8 comments:

The Angels In Order said...

I love the Toys r Us rookies sets. I have them all and have been working on getting them autographed...for a loooong time. Glad you like the Thomas.

Hackenbush said...

Looking closely Frank does look almost like a kid in that picture.

The Angels In Order said...

Just found an extra 1991 set, still sealed, I'm setting aside for you.

The Snorting Bull said...

It has been a long time since I have seen this set, great looking card.

Kin said...

There's certainly something to the black borders, at least for me. I can say that the 1971 Topps BB and 1962 Topps FB sets are among my favorite designs.

Corky said...

I have always been a fan of black bordered cards, even though they are so condition sensitive it is near impossible to find a perfect card.

BobWalkthePlank said...

I'm a sucker for the black chrome cards and the black flagship parallels. Go well with the Bucco colors.

Fuji said...

The Angels In Order - Wow... sounds like a very cool project. I'll be happy just to have them all displayed in a binder. Best of luck bud. An extra 1991 set? I guess I need to start digging for Angels cards.

Hackenbush - I thought the exact same thing. He was probably 20 or 21 in that photo.

Snorting Bull - Yeah... it's cool that Topps used different colored borders for the different years.

Kin - Yeah... both of those designs are two of my favorites as well.

Corky - Have you ever seen prices of high grade 1971 Topps singles? It's crazy how high they sell for.

Matthew Scott - I'm the same way with green parallels for my Athletics.