While the frame "standardizes" each behemoth Round as a rectangle to make it more palatable for collectors such as myself, it didn't capture exactly what I wanted. Not that they necessarily look bad like this - by themselves, they remind me of big, round, Allen & Ginter cards. Their beauty is in their craftsmanship, color, detail, and simplicity. Still, I had plans to create something completely new with them. In the past, Topps has created beautiful holders to transform otherwise mundane pieces as truly special collectibles. A spider or rat bone on a desk is gross. In their own custom holders like below? Awesome sauce!
Inventing a New Screwless Holder
Aside from the lack of graphic, the difference between the above and my prototype is that mine had screws, and that bothered me. I decided to attempt to create a screwless holder. I didn't want to encase each Round permanently though, so I reached out to some industry professionals with my ideas, and they said it couldn't be done - that I was asking for magic. I was up for the challenge, though, and started designing schematics for it - I love inventing new things!
The schematics I designed called for a built in tray, so I could affix each A35 Round to, allowing them to slide in and out of the holder. Doing this allowed me to do away with the screws, while having them enclosed as standalone pieces like the Allen & Ginters above. In my mind, removing the screws transformed this project from merely creating cool looking frames to developing an entirely new collectible, with amazing 19th century baseball artifacts embedded into them.
Jeremy cut the pieces I called for, and I assembled them. Here is the prototype showing a tray sliding in and out, without the need for screws. You will notice a "lip" at the top - that allows for the top of the entire piece to be flush, sealing it off, instead of having a huge gaping hole at the top. Most importantly - no screw holes!
After knowing the prototype was exactly how I wanted it, I had the other pieces cut and sent so I could create 12 of them, 1 for each Round:
Every. single. step. was challenging. I had to figure out how to get these pieces to stay together most effectively, so I ordered a plethora of adhesive solutions, with varying strengths.
The next challenge when putting these together was to line them up so they would be perfectly flush. A bracket was made by affixing acrylic corners to the backside of an old table I found in our garage
Assembling the holders I designed was done over several hours while catching up on some TV shows. Each piece was an 8 step process.
Creating the Artwork
Perhaps the most challenging thing for me was to come up with complementary graphics to really set off each piece, and to make them each look like a professionally finished standalone piece. While it's easy to enhance a rat bone with the right graphics, it is much easier to detract from pieces that are already beautiful on their own.
I spent countless hours by staying up at night agonizing over colors, shades, font usage, wording, and more. Prototypes were created from some of these as well, and each time they were sent off, something wouldn't sit right with me, so I would dive back in and make more changes. It was a long, long process, but each revision looked better and better. Shown below are six of the eleventy-billion tests I created.
The baseball scene in the background was not selected just because it looked good. It was actually meant to pay homage to the Goodwin A36 album that was created so collectors could glue their 1888 Goodwin N162 cards in:
Eventually, I settled on this being the final design:
The actual graphics I designed are printed on the back side of 1/8" acrylic, which gives each piece a high end feel. Here are a few pictures of me trying to capture the feel of the acrylic. Pictures do these no justice, but hopefully you can get a feel for the depth that the acrylic gives them. The actual thickness of the finished pieces are 5/8".
Five of the rounds depict four players each, all of which are from the 1888 (and 1889) World Champion New York Giants. Featuring Hall of Famers such as Tim Keefe (2nd pitcher to get 300 wins), Buck Ewing (arguably the best catcher in the 19th century), Jim O'Rourke, Mickey Welch, John Ward and my favorite, Roger Connor.
All four of these guys are Hall of Famers ...
This shows you how each piece is not permanently encased. Each Round is sleeved, then affixed to a custom tray, with a lip at the top and bottom for a perfect fit. The top lip seals it off at the top so there isn't a gaping hole and it sits flush, without anything protruding. There is a little space on each side of the top tab however, to use a small hook to pull it out.
.... continued ....