77 BK Piniella needed, Got 1 thanks

[JollyElm]

That's good to know. So some Sweet Lou's actually made it inside the restaurants (I love BK, but I use that term loosely ) in some areas that year. I'm pretty sure the promotion didn't have specific start and end dates (that the public was made aware of), as the cards just suddenly appeared and then quickly disappeared.

Here's a proposed timeline of events:
1. Burger King starts issuing Yankees cards (a 22 card set plus checklist - no Lou Piniella)
2. George 'The Boss' Steinbrenner complains to BK/Topps, outraged that his favorite player wasn't included in the set (paraphrasing from Sparky Lyle's brief account in "The Bronx Zoo")
3. Topps prints (sheets of only?) Piniella cards and...
4. BK releases #23 cards in packs in some specific areas of the tri-state area (wow, I just realized that all states except for Maine, Hawaii and Alaska could be part of a tri-state area, but I digress) in the waning days of the promotion
5. Promotion dies out, leaving tons of Piniellas undistributed and subsequently warehoused and/or destroyed

Corrections, theories and other input welcomed.

[savedfrommyspokes]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

That's good to know. So some Sweet Lou's actually made it inside the restaurants (I love BK, but I use that term loosely ) in some areas that year. I'm pretty sure the promotion didn't have specific start and end dates (that the public was made aware of), as the cards just suddenly appeared and then quickly disappeared.

Here's a proposed timeline of events:
1. Burger King starts issuing Yankees cards (a 22 card set plus checklist - no Lou Piniella)
2. George 'The Boss' Steinbrenner complains to BK/Topps, outraged that his favorite player wasn't included in the set (paraphrasing from Sparky Lyle's brief account in "The Bronx Zoo")
3. Topps prints (sheets of only?) Piniella cards and...
4. BK releases #23 cards in packs in some specific areas of the tri-state area (wow, I just realized that all states except for Maine, Hawaii and Alaska could be part of a tri-state area, but I digress) in the waning days of the promotion
5. Promotion dies out, leaving tons of Piniellas undistributed and subsequently warehoused and/or destroyed

Corrections, theories and other input welcomed.

Great memory, theory and topic.....I almost missed it, you should (re)start this thread in the regular post war room as many more eyes will see this.

[JollyElm]

Originally Posted by savedfrommyspokes

Great memory, theory and topic.....I almost missed it, you should (re)start this thread in the regular post war room as many more eyes will see this.

Yeah, I'll do that. When this thread 'ended' with the OP finding the card, I figured it was safe to just continue the discussion here, because there are quite a few of us who find the topic fascinating!

[silvor]

I've always thought the 1977-1980 Burger Kings were interesting issues.

Here's some interesting items about Burger King in general I've found that may fill in the missing holes of this issue.

In 1977 there were 175k of each card produced. (I wonder if more were issued in later years and in different markets?)
So 175k x 22 (of each card) = 3,850,000
So if there's 3 cards in a cello pack, that's 1.285 million packs.

How many Piniella's were included? Were some others removed for the Piniella's? (22 is easier to pack in 3's than 23. I did the math. )

There's only 2 PSA 10's for the BK issue. There's 25 for the Topps issue. Now the 3 card cello packaging tended to damage the cards, but I have to think that's partly because of the short print.

I checked and the average BK serves 846 people daily today. Not sure how many stores there were or how many were in NY or the tri-state area?
In 1970 (the closest year I could find), there were 350 BK stores nationwide.
In 1977 BK had financial issues. My guess is this was just a part of promotions to get people in the stores.