1997 Topps ProShooters Marbles
 

I have lurked for a while I don't have any old tobacco cards but I like reading about and looking at them. I recently finished this set off. I picked up a couple boxes years ago I wanna say probably about 1999. Have only seen a few packs pop up on Ebay since then. There is a guy that has listed some recently that I traded for a few I needed and bought the Piazza from him. Does anyone have any information on these? The only thing I have seen is a test issue from the North East and Canada. Pictured is the set minus Piazza, an empty box, wrapper and the checklist cards.

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Marbles
 

Brian---up until 1994 I attempted to collect everything and anything baseball related that Topps put out if it was listed in the SCD Standard Catalog. I quit in 1995 at the beginning of of the great proliferation ( Topps products listed in SCD went from went from 8 in 1994 to 18 in 1995). In 1997, in addition to the Pro Shooters, there are 38 other Topps baseball products listed. After 1994 I just kept up with the Topps base set, any update to it, and the Heritage sets in master format. Even that is a lot of stuff

The SCD description of the Pro Shooters says is was a limited distribution test set designed as "another attempt to market marbles with baseball player photos". I don't know if this is a reference to a post 1994 effort ( I know there were no Topps marbles prior to 1995), or all the way back to the 1960 Leaf set that packaged cards and marbles to get around the Topps exclusive contracts to market player pictures with gum and candy.

I store all my set in binders and although the Topps 56 Pins and later coin issues starting in 1964 were doable in binders using methods used by coin collectors, things like these, marbles, the 1992 Topps Photo Balls, the 1991 Stand Up Superstars, and the 1989 and 1990 Double header issues, are virtually impossible to display. You just have to tuck them away somewhere :)

They are neat looking though

http://i1267.photobucket.com/albums/...2325582http://

http://i1267.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1348338787

Brian -

New to the group here and found this post while looking for something else. Do you by any chance have an extra McGriff marble or know someone who might have one?

Would love to have this for my McGriff collection.

Thanks!

ebay has a McGriff marble out there now: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1990-Vintage...-/390628868835

Brian,

I just sent you an email regarding these.

I am a Cardinals collector. I have both of the 1997 Topps ProShooters checklists for my collection. I also have the Ray Lankford and Brian Jordan marbles in my collection. I only need the Ron Gant to complete the team set.

There seems to be some discussion out there about how the checklists were distributed. These were issued one checklist per pack. There is a theory out there that many of the checklists were simply thrown away, therefore making them even more rare than they would be otherwise. Since the checklists were issued inside of a pack containing 2 round marbles, condition issues are almost a certainty. I have 2 very nice ones for my Cardinals collection, and then I have a few more in varying conditions.

I also have the following marbles, if anyone is interested - Mark McGwire, Tony Gwynn, Greg Maddux, Frank Thomas, Ivan Rodriguez, Andruw Jones, Jeff Bagwell, and Mike Mussina.

These are very, very tough to find. I have been looking for the Ron Gant for several years.


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