Your Turn: Do you like history on sports cards?
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By Chris Olds | Beckett Sports Card Monthly Editor
The Berlin Wall, a symbol of Communist oppression and the Cold War, fell 25 years ago this weekend — the next year, Pro Set featured NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue at the Wall on a card in 1990 Pro Set because two NFL teams played in Germany.
Since then, the Berlin Wall has had a lot of cardboard appearances as sports card set inclusions have continued to evolve. Right now, the Wall itself has 42 cards in the Beckett database — and all of this leads to a simple question … Do you like history on your sports cards?
Tell us what you think in the comments below.
Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball and Beckett Sports Card Monthly magazines. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an email to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.
I’ve seen my fare share of 90 pro set cards, but i have never seen it before. Any info or background on this card?
Yes. What a novel way to mark the historical events of a season. The Topps Heritage set is particularly adept at such. As an historian, I use the checklists, season highlights and league leaders to profile sets and baseball events of a season. However, the historical cards add an additional ambiance and prominence. I would miss them.
It was part of the Final Update set that year, just a regular card, but not one that was found in packs.
I miss Pro Set … so many cool cards …
As to the question at hand, I’ve always thought of cards as a historical record of their time, so I love cards like this in sets. There should be more of them. I miss having “highlights” cards as a regular part of sets, if not a separate set of their own. Non-sport historical cards help put the sports sets in perspective with their times – who was the Dolphins’ running back when the Berlin Wall fell? Who played second base for the Red Sox?
Of course, cards like these were only interesting when people still cared about base cards and building sets (which those of us who’d like to build sets can’t do any more because they’re too expensive with all the short-prints). I do so miss Pro Set … so much fun for 50 cents a pack. I don’t care what they’re worth now. They were great-looking cards, too – I think they look better than most of what’s made today. Imagine – nice, big photos on the front, lots of info on the backs – good stuff.
Correction – card above was actually in Series 2, though it was #785. Final Update included #’s 753-780.
First let me say, I couldn’t agree with you more Paul on missing Pro Set. Definitely some of my favorite cards to collect. As for history in cards, I like when there is a connection to sports. 1990 Score Baseball Lights Out Candlestick commemorating the tragic events during the 1989 World Series and 1989 Score First Night Game at Wrigley Field just to name a couple of my favorites. And I too had forgotten about the Commissioner at the Berlin Wall. Great card recognizing the end of the cold war which so many lost their lives in.
Yep, it’s a series 2 card. There are some variations on this card as well.