1979 Metallic Creations Signature Miniatures

[laughlinfan]

Thanks for the trip down memory lane, FireGardy! Just had a nice long phone conversation with my mom, who has been my collecting "buddy" for the past 40 years or so. We collected these when they came out since we really liked collecting sports figures, among other things. I will tell you the history as we collectively remembered it: The first eight were all old time Hall of Famers, and were issued with the "photo" cards - no borders slightly rounded corners, and nothing on the back but the photo watermark - printed on Kodak paper or something like that. They then put out another set of players, and did this for a few small series, I think. These had the black bordered cards that had stats on the back. They also started issuing the original 8 with the new style card as well, so you can see those 8 in either variation. I think they got to about 16 or so and started having financial issues. I thought the Carew and the McCovey were at the tail end of what we were able to get from the company directly. I remember we got the McCovey with a broken bat and weren't sure if we could get a replacement. I think that got us to 18 different, all with cards. From then it was picking up the remnants whenever we found them. The ones after the original 18 started looking pretty crude. The sizes were odd, and it seemed like they had gotten a different sculptor. (Maybe a more affordable art school drop out!) The George Brett looked more like Pete Rose. Clemente and Munson were almost laughable, I think. (Just going on memory here). When we did pick up the Brett, Clemente, Munson, and Cedeno over the next several years, they didn't have cards, and I've never seen cards for those. I first saw a Ryan card about ten years ago, and had no idea he was part of the set. I've never seen a Ryan statue. I also have never seen a Rose card or statue. There were a couple of Rose pewter statues put out at nearly the same time in honor of his 3000th hit and his hitting streak, but none was issued in this series that I ever saw. In the 2009 Standard Catalog, they list 21 in the set, with no mention of Rose, Brett, or Clemente. They only list a Cedeno card but we have only the statue. They allude to the scarcity of the later subjects, and say that a Munson statue has been confirmed, but then list the statue at $10. The prices seem pretty low across the board, based on the scarcity, especially beyond the first 8 in the set. I will try to get a picture of some of ours posted later.