[nittany13]

I agree that the blank numbered cards, should not be listed. The sample version above is a little different though. Note it has "sample" printed real small on the front.

My guess, is this was the first version of the promo, and some executive thought it would make more sense to note it being a promo in the number box, so they redid them. I imagine we will never have answers to ce questions.

I didn't notice the small sample on the front of the middle card. Very interesteing. I would think it should be listed as well. cool card.
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Me makes three. Cards with a missing serial number that are supposed to have one are merely cards with a serious defect IMHO. I admit that I too did not notice the "preview" stamp on the front of the card at first.

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From what a worker at Beckett told me, the printed cards like the preview card should be added and would most likely if you contacted beckett with a picture. But the hand written samples, etc.(possible fraud) and the blank backs will not, but your sample card is very interesting and should be listed as well. Very cool card.

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Here is a very interesting subject.

Everyone has heard about the 1996 Telecom Pro Football Men of Destiny cards. But here is something that I never knew about or have known anyone else to know about.

There are 2 versions listed in the Beckett OPG. The base cards #ed/4000 and the Gold cards #ed/1000. The base and gold version consist of 100 players.

Here is a scan of the stat sheet that is packaged in packs with the men of destiny cards. It states that 540,000 of these cards exist TOTAL. 400,000 for the base cards (100 players X4000 cards each), 100,000 for the gold (100 players x1000 cards each), buty it also states that there are 40,000 "hall of fame" cards. This is where it got interesting.

According to the company odds sheet also packaged in with the packs. There are also 25, 50, 100, 1000, and joker units cards as well. These cards are even more rare. So I started wondering if every player also had cards with different "units". Well, I recently opened 246 packs of these cards and found tons of base cards and some gold cards, but only "1" card that was different. It was a Ricky Waters "25 Unit" card. This card is thinner and if you hold it up towards a light, you can see through it. Definitely made completely different that base and gold cards.

Now if you notice on the back of the cards. The base states that it is card 76 of 100. (Card # 76) But if you look at the 25 unit parallel card, you will notice it states it's card 4 of 4. (Card #4) and it is #ed/600. Now that we know this, we also know that there are 3 more players that have "25 unit" cards #ed/600. This makes 600X4players = 2400 more cards of the possible 40,000 extra cards we don't know about. This leaves 37,600 card left. Well, it's hard to believe that the rarer cards would be #ed/ more than 600 each. So how are the remaining cards #ed/ and how many different players are there? Is it possible that every single player has some sort of parallel other than the gold?

What we don't know is, how many cards were made of the 50, 100, 1000, and joker cards AND if those cards are made for different players. So I'm assuming that anything other than the reg and gold cards are considered "Hall of Fame" cards. I wish I knew who the other players were made for each unit and how many. Very interesting.

Just when we thought we had everything figured out with these phone cards, new discoveries are made. A few posts ago we learned there is a jumbo 30 card quarterback set and now we at least know there is a Ricky Watters parallel. The card is very reminiscent of those Clear Visions ones which were released that same year. Perhaps those "Hall of Fame" cards are simply the aggregate total of cards from all those other parallel sets like these two examples like you stated? The jumbo QB total would be 15K. Someone currently is selling sheets of these as well which have a print run of 250. Additional research will need to be done on this.
BTW, how in the world did you acquire 246 packs of these?