[JustinD]

I am kind of proud that I became an elder stateman at 50, lol. (Just messing with you Tim. )

I remember Tiffany launching quite well. Not much so in 84', but by the 85' release it had entrenched itself as a holy grail item far outside my price range. I had no neighborhood friends that had examples, but did see them for sale in the larger card shop at the time on 28th street in Grand Rapids Mi and at the ubiquitous every other month card shows at the local mall in any sizeable city of the 80's.

The firm hammer for the card world and establishment of Tiffany would come a few years later because of the 1985 Topps USA Team Mark McGwire Athletics #401 during Big Mac's 15 minutes. Any card shop worth their salt had an astronomically priced one in the case for the ooh's and aah's for onlookers.

That card was the lynchpin of Tiffany's place in Topps history.

As for "given" to kids...no way. Tiffany was far out of a kid's financial reach. I will say that I did get my first examples due to the success of that Mcgwire. The draw of that card caused set breaks and I was able to add some Tigers to my collection from those breaks as singles were now available under a fiver for semi stars and a buck or two for commons.