Topps Odd Ball Item

[ALR-bishop]

Can not recall if I have posted this in here before. This "issue" was like the Topps 1971 Winner cards. You sent in your photo and they made a personalized baseball card from it and sent you copies.

Unlike the 71 Winner cards , which were actually produced by Topps, these were farmed out to another printer. I think the known checklist for the Winners "set" is just under 20. I doubt anyone knows how many different cards were produced for the later effort, but in this case someone sent in a poor photo of an actual baseball player.

I assume 20 of the Hobson card were produced. Not sure if other actual player cards were produced, although I have heard there is Boggs card. Such cards would have been an unauthorized use of the player likeness

[steve B]

The promotion through Topps was 79 only, so there shouldn't be a Boggs.

But there is a Remy.



I don't recall if there were others done, I'd have to think there were.
It's possible some were rejected over the unauthorized use.

The use of the photo was a gray area at the time. The likeness wasn't authorized, but the submitted photo was taken by the submitter, so they had the photo copyright (Unregistered, but copyright starts when the work is created) The company that did the printing didn't have a license from MLB, but since they were doing it for a company that did it was probably ok.

The company that first offered personalized stamps in the US ran into similar issues in the testing phase. Some people submitted photos of subjects considered inappropriate or ones that they didn't have the rights to use. When they get approval a pert of that was a system to hopefully catch some of those things.

Steve B

[ALR-bishop]

I guess it was Remy and not Boggs I had heard about. I had not seen the Remy, do you remember where you got your two cards, Steve ?

I got mine in a Hall's Nostalgia Auction1 to 2 years ago, based only on the description since there was not a scan/photo. Someone pm'd me about the auction, maybe you ?

[mrmopar]

I seem to remember seeing a Yastrzemski card at one point (in line with the two other Boston players) and I own a Sutton card myself. Wish I or someone else would have thought to made a Steve Garvey (and maybe someone did and I just don't know about it!!).

I got mine from U Trading Cards in Seattle maybe 15 years ago.

[steve B]

Mine also came from Halls auction. I believe that they were the ones who sent in the pictures for the redsox that got made. Joel was/is a pretty good photographer. Considering the pics would have been taken from the stands they're not bad. And the cards don't reproduce pictures all that well.

A Yaz makes sense, If there were any they'd have gone quickly and for more than I could have paid. I remember seeing a couple like the Remy in the shop and I waited till they got into the auction.

I've never seen the Sutton, the photo looks like it might have been from TV with the lines?

I've also never seen one picturing a little leaguer or softball player. I don't think the promotion was all that successful. Which might explain pictures of pros sliding through.

Steve B

[ALR-bishop]

There are fewer than 20 of the 71 Winner's set currently known. Since it was part of a Topps contest, as I recall, at most there would be 25. I assume there was no cap on the 79 offer.

I think the reason the 71s do show up on ebay from time to time is that the cards are labeled on the front as a Topps product. Since the 79s were not labeled as Topps on either the front or the back, they would seem less likely to show up in auctions unless they involved an actual MLB player.

I once tried to do a saved search for "1979 Tradin cards" but ebay always changed int to "1979 Trading Cards", and that turns up all kids of unhelpful stuff