When I was nine years old... I made the decision to start collecting baseball cards and forty-three years later... it's something that is still a huge part of my life. As a card collector of the 80's... the rookie card has played a prominent role in my collection the entire time and I'm pretty sure Fernando Valenzuela, Joe Charboneau, and The Official 1982 Price Guide to Baseball Cards were the biggest influencers.
Fast forward four decades and I'm still interested in collecting rookie cards. But thanks to the ever-evolving hobby and to fellow collectors, I've opened up my collecting interests to a lot of other things.
Today's post focuses on my all-time favorite player's "sunset" card... which is a term coined by Dime Box Nick. Well... at least that is who I learned it from. "Sunset" cards are essentially a player's final regular issue base cards, which means subsets and inserts are excluded. However he does include brands that are outside of the traditional big companies, like Line Drive, Classic, ASA, and SSPC. He even used a Topps Now card as his favorite Ichiro "sunset" card.
John over at John's Big League Baseball Blog kicked off the most recent Blog Bat-Around two weeks ago and asked us to show off the final base card of our favorite player. His guidelines were a little more strict than Nick's. He requested that we not include inserts, relics, autographs, specially made cards, new releases, or buybacks.
That works for me, because personally... when I collect "sunset" cards, I tend to focus on a player's last regular issue Topps flagship card. And here is my Tony Gwynn "sunset" card:
2002 Topps #99
Personally there isn't anything too great about the card front. The photo features a nice action shot, but it's a little too zoomed in for my taste. And although the 2002 Topps card design isn't the worst ever, it won't crack my Top 20 either.
However the back is truly something special:
I'm especially fond of the "sunset" cards that are released the year after the player played in their final game, so they have their total career statistics on the back. Topps found a way to cram Gwynn's entire twenty season career onto the back of his "sunset" card.
If I'm going to give props to Topps, it's only fair to recognize Donruss and Fleer (Tradition) too. Both companies included Gwynn's full career statistics on their card backs. Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of his Fleer card, but here's his Donruss "sunset" card:
2002 Donruss #19
And for those who are curious, Upper Deck did put Gwynn into their 2002 flagship set:
They even mentioned his retirement. Unfortunately, it's part of the checklist subset.
2002 Upper Deck #495
Thank you Nick for inspiring me to collect "sunset" cards. And thank you John for introducing this Blog Bat-Around and making me realize I need to add a copy of Gwynn's 2002 Fleer Tradition card to my collection.
Happy Monday and sayonara!
4 comments:
He should've stuck with basketball.
I like the Topps sunset card quite a bit. Agree maybe a bit zoomed, but nice angle of his swing. Like you, I also think the back is great and I am glad they found room for his full stats.
I think that Gwynn Topps is the best looking final card that I've seen so far in this current BBA.
elliptical man - lol. maybe. maybe not.
the lost collector - you're absolutely right about that angle. didn't really appreciate that until you pointed it out. it's awesome
jon - i'm sure at some point, someone will do brett or clemente. when they do, not sure if gwynn will be able to contend. but i truly do love this sunset
Post a Comment