The hoarding and flipping of blaster boxes. Disappearing card shows. Shortage of supplies. Inflated card values. The list goes on and on.
Today, I'm going to review a set I purchased before COVID-19 forced us into isolation and before eBay started charging sales tax on 90% of my card purchases.
The story of these cards begins back in 1995, when Upper Deck and Sonic Drive-In teamed up to produce a twenty card set featuring heroes of baseball. This was at the tail end of an era where food companies and restaurant chains worked with card companies to promote each others' products and give collectors some really cool oddball issues.
According to Baseballcardpedia, customers who bought a combo meal from Sonic received a three card pack of 1995 Upper Deck Sonic Heroes of Baseball trading cards.
#1 Whitey Ford
#2 Cy Young
#3 Babe Ruth
#4 Lou Gehrig
I'm not exactly sure where I first saw these cards, but it was definitely on one of your blogs.
#5 Mike Schmidt
#6 Nolan Ryan
#7 Robin Yount
#8 Gary Carter
I'm sure I was immediately attracted to the red, white, and blue color scheme... as well as the sepia colored photographs.
#9 Tom Seaver
#10 Reggie Jackson
#11 Bob Gibson
#12 Gil Hodges
#13 Monte Irvin
#14 Minnie Minoso
#15 Willie Stargell
#16 Al Kaline
To top it off... this set is super affordable. You can pick up a complete set on eBay for less than $8 shipped. That's not quite dime box prices... but I'm sure there are bloggers out there who have found singles sitting in them before.
#17 Joe Jackson
#18 Walter Johnson
#19 Ty Cobb
#20 Satchel Paige
The biggest issue I have with this set is the lack of logos. I also wish they would have given collectors full career statistics on the back.
Instead, they had a short summary of the player's career highlights and their career totals. Overall, I'm satisfied with my $1.95 (+ $3.25 shipping) eBay purchase from last summer.
Many of the changes within our hobby that I focused on at the start of the post aren't exactly positive. But on the bright side... now that so many new and old collectors have started collecting sports cards, maybe we'll start seeing more restaurant chains and food companies join Calbee and Utz in creating new oddball issues for us to collect.
Happy Throwback Thursday and sayonara!
22 comments:
Interesting set. There's a good argument to be made to put the remaining three guys in the Hall. I'd be cool with it.
Very cool set. I'll definitely have to check it out, just got the Kaline & Cobb cards.
Good Job. 👍
Neat looking cards. Dumb question...but this is Sonic the fast food joint, right?
Top notch little set.
I had not heard of Sonic until I was in college....but that was when I was on my collecting lull so I missed these. Yeah, I need logos.
Oddball sets are fun. If I was in charge tho, they'd have 9, 18, 27 or 36 cards to fill binder pages perfectly.
Cool set, I've never seen those before. I miss those restaurant sets of the 90s, I remember going to McDonalds a lot in 1992 specifically to collect the baseball cards they gave out with purchases that summer.
Oh neat. Love pretty much any commercial promo but the only ons I ever really went after were the Dennys holos.
Outside of the complete lack of Red Sox players, that really is an sweet set!
That's a nicely designed set.
Kudos to Sonic. I'd love to see more food-issue cards out there again.
I've gotten the Cy Young, the Ty Cobb, and the Lou Gherig in dime boxes. It's not a bad set.
We need more food cards. That goes for cereal come back as well
I've been "building" this set since it came out. Still missing Yount. I ate too many chili dog combo meals back in the day. Sonic still has the best tater tots and colas!
I'll double up on wishing cards would come in cereal again. I ate a lot of Sugar Crisp in my day to get the Post cards.
What a card set! Power players there. I wish there was an All Bran cereal set of regular guys. All Bran, after all, helps keep me regular. TMI?
jeff b - yeah. i'm pretty sure i've read arguments for all three of these guys. i think one... possibly all will eventually get in. it'll be interesting to see the first.
john sharp - thanks. it's a cool oddball issue. even cooler that it was distributed at a fast food place
the lost collector - yeah, it's the fast food place. great burgers. just wish i had one closer to my place
johnnys trading spot - it sure is. affordable too
sumomenkoman - in 1995, ud was on top of the world. shame they didn't dig a little deeper to pay for logos. or maybe that was on sonic.
commishbob - i totally agree. i think more companies should think about that when building a checklist
sean - i don't remember actually getting cards at my mcdonalds, but i definitely know the baseball set you're talking about. i also know of the basketball card set too.
nick vossbrink - 90's dennys lined up perfectly with my personal timeline, because i was in college, so my friends and i needed a cheap place to eat and study.
matt - kinda surprised there wasn't a ted williams, but i guess at the time he had his own card company
jongudmund - yeah, solid design
gregory - i'm sure fast food places could use the extra business right now. one of them should test out the free card promotion
gtt - nice. figured they'd be sitting in dime boxes somewhere.
sport card collectors - could you imagine how much kellogg's stock would go up if they started reissuing lenticular cards in their boxes of careal?
a cracked bat - chili dog combo meal sounds amazing. i think i've only had their burgers before, but who doesn't enjoy a chili dog every now and then
friend11 - it was nice to see post create mls cards the past two years. maybe they'll eventually team up with mlb
peter k steinberg - sounds like i need some all bran cereal. tmi?
Mmm...Sonic. Thanks for making me hungry now! Those are some pretty neat cards and I never knew Sonic got into the trading card game! I agree, I would like to see more oddball issues from random places like that.
adam - i wish there was a sonic closer to my place. if there was, i'd probably hit them up at least once a month.
I have two complete sets of these cards. I collected them directly from Sonic via meal purchases back in 1995. One complete set has never been opened and sits in one of my card cases
Very cool. Now that's the way to build a set.
So I have the whole set of these opened and one whole set unopened (three cards in each pack and the back card in each is 1-20, 2-20, and so on)
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