Monday, August 08, 2022

Picking up some Star Company player sets

I was hoping to see the card show seller that had a monster box row of bagged Star Company players sets among his inventory of dollar boxes - I tried to cherry pick some of the better names last time, but I wanted to grab the Tom Gordon set because I looked up the checklist / gallery on Trading Card Database and there is one lousy card that shows him swinging a bat.

I went ahead and tried to pick up at least one bagged set of other players who might have relevant in the hobby for a hot moment, then faded into oblivion - the Kevin Maas and Jerome Walton sets look to have a card of them signing autographs, so that made picking up their sets worth it.

I'll try to funnel the other cards from the sets into my team boxes - though maybe I'm tempted to do something 'crazy' and make pages for some of these players as part of an ironic collection [Walton, Todd Van Poppel, Maas] of hobby busts.

Several weeks ago, I found what looked to be sealed Star Co. players sets from the junk wax era - I am vaguely aware these were produced to capitalize on the hot players during the day, though they were licensed by Major League Baseball at the time, so that made them a little more appealing for someone who wanted something a little different.

I picked out the more notable names [for some star power] and without looking up each of the sets - hoped for some mini-collection material that might otherwise be obscured.

1989 Kevin Mitchell / Will Clark Black
1989 Gary Sheffield Purple
1990 Jose Canseco Yellow
1990 Will Clark Orange
1990 Cecil Fielder Orange
1990 David Justice Blue
1990 David Justice / Kevin Maas Red
1990 Nolan Ryan Blue

I opened the Sheffield to see if there were any unique cards and I don't think there was any out of the 11 card set - checking on eBay and maybe COMC for set images, none of these sets actually have cards that tease personality shots, where the pictures mainly focused on the player or what the player was doing on the field.

Maybe it wasn't really 'Star' quality to use 'fun images,' though it seemed there maybe scattered cards through the mid 1980s - showing players signing autographs or a more unique action shot perhaps.

If nothing else, I'll seed these as decade stars material for my player collections - where these cards represent some oddball flavor.

1 comment:

Jon said...

I had no idea that some of these guys got their own sets. I guess I now have a few more things that I need to keep an eye out for.