A Look Back: 1894 Mayo

As the card companies continue to deliver a bumper crop of retro-themed (recycled) set designs and concepts, I thought it would be good to turn around and look into the Hobby’s storied past to learn a bit more about these vintage sets. In a way, it will be like remembering the aluminum cans that became a swing set or, perhaps a better analogy, the 1957 Chevy that became a batch of die-cast elephants (because the companies are generally taking beautiful and original designs and recycling them into common junk). To kick things off, let’s take a look back at the legendary 1894 Mayo set:

In 1894, the P.H. Mayo tobacco company produced the first ever set of collectible cards to feature only football players, the 1894 Mayo Cut Plug set. The 35-card set only contained players from the “Big Three” Ivy League schools, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, as these colleges were by far the most dominant in the young sport at the time. The simple cards were small by modern standards, measuring just 1 5/8″ x 2 7/8″ and featured a sepia-toned portrait on a black frame that contained the player’s last name and school and the Mayo Cut Plug logo. The card backs were completely blank and black and the cards were not numbered in any fashion. One of the cards did not identify the player shown and early checklists simply listed this card as “Anonymous”, although the player has since been identified as John Dunlop of Harvard. The cards were distributed in tins of P.H. Mayo chewing tobacco.

1894 Mayo Cut Plug cards featuring Harvard, Princeton, and Yale football players

Over 100 years later, card companies began creating sets that paid tribute to the 1894 May Cut Plug set. The first to do so was Donruss in 2002 when they created the Donruss 1894 set that was inserted into packs of 2002 Gridiron Kings. The set actually holds fairly true to the original design. The card fronts feature a black-and-white portrait (rather than sepia-toned) of the player on a black frame that contains the player’s full name (rather than his last name), position (in place of the player’s team/college), and his team’s logo (in place of the Mayo Cut Plug logo). This set also replaced the “For Chewing and Smoking” motto in the lower right-hand corner with “For Collecting & Trading”. Rather than plain black backs, the 2002 Donruss 1894 set featured a foil stamped serial number #/1,000, a card number (MC-#), and various manufacturer logos. For a great side-by-side comparision, please click here. Donruss repeated the set in 2003 Gridiron Kings, with the only notable change being the cards were serial numbered to 600.

2002 Gridiron Kings Donruss 1894 #MC-7 Emmitt Smith

In 2008, Topps created a new 1894 Mayo throwback set. While standard-sized, the card fronts actually held fairly true to the original set with the only notable changes being full color player portraits and the retention of “For Collecting and Trading” motto used by Donruss rather than the original “For Chewing and Smoking” motto of the original 1894 Mayos. Similar to the hugely successful Allen & Ginter baseball set, 2008 Topps Mayo included many short print subjects and a host of various insert cards. One of these inserts was a mini parallel that replicated the small size of the original 1894 set and included a black-and-white portrait. The product was however marred by an inability to follow through with pre-release checklists, especially for autograph subjects.

2008 Topps Mayo & 2008 Topps Mayo Mini #111 Adrian Peterson

In 2009, Topps again made a Mayo throwback set, only this time they did not hold true to the classic set. The standard sized base set features full-color portraits on a white frame that barely resembles the 1894 design. The set much more closely resembles the popular Allen & Ginter baseball releases. Topps once again included a mini parallel that brought back the correct card dimensions and black-and-white photo, but the new white border was still present. Similar to 2008 Topps Mayo (and Allen & Ginter), the set included a plethora of short prints and various inserts.

2009 Topps Mayo & 2008 Topps Mayo Mini #191 Michael Crabtree

While no modern throwback set has been able to quite recapture the magic of the 1894 Mayo Cut Plug set, it is nice to see companies pay tribute to the founding father of football card sets, even if they are just recycling a classic design (and failing to get it right).

For more information on the original 1894 Mayo set, please visit these sites:
Nearmint’s Vintage Football Card Blog
The Harvard-Yale Football Gallery
Vintage Card Prices – 1894 Mayo Gallery (very nice gallery of all 35 card images, except for the Anonymous/John Dunlop card)

One of My Favorite Sets

Much to the chargin of some readers, this post has nothing to do with cards that have been produced in the past decade:

Like a lot of collectors, I believe the Hobby hit a sort of peak in the late 90s. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that this was my first personal peak in collecting. I was in middle/high school, had a 2 part-time jobs (if you consider mowing grass once every two weeks for a small apartment building a job, if not, then I only had 1 part-time job at a local car wash), was completely dependent on my parents, and had nothing else on which to spend money (sadly, a girlfriend at this point in my life was a figment of my imagination). I bought all sorts of retail wax and saw many different concepts. One that I found fascinating was a box of 1997 Donruss Preferred football. The “box” was actually a large tin featuring Barry Sanders. When I eagerly ripped off the celophane wrapping and removed the metal lid, I was shocked to find 24 much smaller tins inside, the “packs” each featuring different NFL players. COOL! (it was the 90s, “cool” was en vogue then). Obviously I was thrilled to find several Emmitt “packs” amongst the 24. I tried to open just a few of the tins thinking that I would keep the rest sealed so they would be worth tons of money in the future when I opened my card shop (I was a bit dillusional, what can I say?). After flipping through the very well designed cards, I came to a sweet Barry Sanders insert card that Beckett said was worth $20. Needless to say, those remaining tins did not stay sealed for much longer.

When I returned to the hobby in 2008, I bought a bunch of new wax and while I was happy (ignorance is bliss), I realized that I never quite recaptured the joy of that box of 1997 Donruss Preferred. After a little searching online, I found a sealed box for sale and immediately purchased it. When it came in the mail, I was stoked beyond belief to find that the box I bought was none other than the Emmitt Smith box! COOL! (I still say “cool”, get off my back). I pulled some more great inserts and then headed back to the Internet card shops to track down a few elusive Emmitts to add to my collection. Below, I have listed each part of and an explanation of why this is one of my favorite sets of all time. NOTE: All images below lead to larger views

1. The Box
A lot of current and old sets have featured players on their product packaging. What 1997 Donruss Preferred did was transcend a basic package that would ultimately be thrown away (unless bought by me, but I am hoping to change that trend soon). They created another collectibility aspect to their product. Not only did you want the coolest cards of your favorite player(s), you know you HAD to get the tins, too. But more than a groovy concept, the metal box also doubles as a great storage container. When I received my Emmitt box, I immediately put my entire Emmitt collection in it. Granted, now that my collection continues to grow, I am struggling to find a way to still incorporate the box’s storage capacity and yet keep my entire collection all together, but I digress. To make matters better, there was even a parallel to the blue box: a gold box, adding yet another collectability factor. The box was awesome. Hands down.

2. The Packs
Similar to the box concept, Donruss made each pack it own collector’s item. The small tins were wrapped in celophane and contained 5 cards, which were also wrapped in a clear plastic wrapper. Similar to the boxes, the tins had parallels available. Each player had silver and gold tin variations and there were special “double wide” red tins that were literally twice as wide and featured two players on the front and 10 cards inside. In a day before serial numbering was out of control, the tin parallels had a serial number stamped inside the hinged lid. And you thought wrapper redemptions were cool.

3. The Base Set
In a time when inserts were reaching ridiculous heights (and some, I admit, were just ridiculous), 1997 Donruss Preferred felt like an entire set of inserts. The 150-card set was printed on all-foil cardstock and featured micro-etching on the surface and sides. The set was broken into 80 bronze cards (5:1 odds), 40 silver cards (1:5), 20 gold (1:17), and 10 platinum (1:48), with obvious studs being platinum, stars being gold, and so forth. Granted, that meant pulling a card of the superstars was harder than ever, but prices for those stars flew off the charts, especially for a “base set” card.

4. The Subset
Given the fairly scarce odds of pulling a gold or platinum base card, and therefore a superstar, Donruss made it a easier for moderate collectors to obtain their favorite player(s) by creating the National Treasures subset. The 30-card subset (#118-147) featured the day’s best players and was part of the Bronze portion of the set. That took the odds of pulling an Emmitt Smith or Brett Favre from about 1:480 to around 1:16 (based entirely on product averages). Maybe that’s why I have almost 10 copies of this card.

5. The Parallel
As parallels were picking up steam in 1997, obviously Donruss included a parallel in Donruss Preferred. Although rather than create 18 parallels of various scarcities a la modern sets, Donruss Preferred had just one parallel set to the main set: Cut to the Chase. This was a die-cut parallel set and each level of the base set featured a different intricacy from a basic side notch for Bronze cards to a very nice curve and square design for Platinum cards. Odds for pulling these parallels were 1:7 (Bronze), 1:63 (Silver), 1:189 (Gold), and 1:756 (Platinum). While I did pull quite a few bronze parallels and even a few silvers, I was not forunate enough to ever pull a platinum, let alone the Emmitt parallel (sorry, no picture).

6. The Insert
Not to be outdone by other sets in 1997, Donruss Preferred featured some awesome inserts, the first being Staremasters. This set featured close up portraits of 24 stars on all-foil board and holographic foil accents. Sequentially numbered to just 1,500 copies (scarce for that era), Staremasters added a little mysterious element to the some of the best NFL players of the day. Maybe it was that ghosted reflection…

7. The Themed Insert
Chain Reaction, another insert of 1997 Donruss Preferred, added a team collector element to the set. The 24-card set featured 12 offensive teammate pairs that were sure to move the first down markers. If you laid the two teammates side-by-side, they would fit together to create a full set of chains. The set was printed on clear plastic cardstock and also featured holographic foil accents. Each card was sequentially numbered to 3,000.

8. The Ridiculous Insert
As I mentioned above, inserts were reaching ridiculous heights in the late 90s. 1997 Donruss Preferred featured one of those inserts. Technically a partial-set parallel, Precious Metals was a 15-card set that contained 1 gram of actual silver, gold, or platinum. Not only that, but it was reported that no more than 100 copies of each card were produced. Talk about collectibility! Too bad I have never seen one of these cards in person, let alone own the Emmitt Smith card (sorry, no picture).

That pretty much sums it up. Great base set. Amazing inserts. Classy parallels. Innovative and collectible packaging. What could be any better? What do you think? Did you go nuts over Donruss Preferred in 1997, too? Have you never heard of it but think it sounds like a sweet product? Do you think it’s lame and totally uncool? Opinions are welcome…

Product Review: 2009 Donruss Threads

Of the three retail boxes I recently purchased, this was the one I was least excited about. I had seen card scans on other sites when the product went live and wasn’t real wild about them. I guess the allure of buying fresh wax was too much for me to turn away.

2009 Donruss Threads – Retail Box

2009 Donruss Threads is available in retail boxes of 8 packs of 5 cards. I paid $19.99 (plus 6% sales tax) for my box from K-Mart, which calculates into around $0.53 per card. Not the cheapest per card rate out there, but by no means high-end either. Let’s jump to the breakdown:

Base Cards: 38
Rookie Cards: 1 (#150 Jason Phillips)
Inserts: 2 (College Greats Shonn Greene and Gridiron Kings Darrius Heyward-Bey)
Hits: — (none)
Duplicates: — (none)

Click image for full sized scan

FIRST AND GOAL’S FOUR DOWNS:
1st Down, Design: How would be the best way to put this? Awful? Dreadful? Just down right bad? This certainly is not the worst base card design, but it will never win awards to beauty, either. The very bold diagonal lines really draw attention away from the point of the card, the pictured football player. The player name plate cutting straight across the picture is also distracting and adds needless barriers. The one nice part? I like how the player pops out of the top of the design and then fades into and behind the design on the bottom. That nice subtle touch is lost, however, by the overall needlessly loud design elements. One last thought, I know serial numbers are all the rage now, but do we really need to number every rookie card produced? It’s great that I pulled one of 999 copies of Jason Phillips’ Donruss Threads rookie card, but honestly, who cares? If it’s more than 250 or so, don’t bother serial numbering these things.

2nd Down, Inserts: The College Greats insert is interesting. The design ties in nicely to the base card, although in this case that is actually a bad thing. I know that a lot of football collectors hate seeing college uniforms and logos in their NFL sets, but I do not mind it as much. What I do mind is having a set called “College Greats” and showing rookies. Granted, some of the rookie class of any year could be considered to have had great college careers. But why not show old time players? When the early football sets are released, collectors are excited to see the rookie class in their new uniforms and numbers. If you absolutely need to have a college themed insert, don’t use the rookie class. Period. In a nice contrast is the Gridiron Kings set. I have aways really liked these inserts, and this year’s effort is actually well designed. I like the painted image, the silver accents, and the overall clean appearance. Again, I don’t know that rookies should be included in sets like this (case in point Hey-Bey who has done absolutely nothing to be considered a king, even in lowly Oakland). At least he is in his new Oakland uni.

3rd Down, Collation: It’s tough to gauge a product line’s collation when you are only getting 40 cards. The biggest indication of a problem would be duplicates, which I did not have in my box. I only got two inserts, which is a little disappointing, but again, there were so few cards that it’s just too hard to say if the collation was good or poor.

4th Down, Overall Value: Retail boxes will never deliver great “value” as it is usually defined in the Hobby. The lack of good inserts and very rare “hit” pulls (that are not rare at all in hobby boxes and are therefore not valuable in and of themselves) makes resale value tough. Donruss Threads did add Brett Favre’s very first Vikings card as a retail exclusive. Those base cards sold for as much as a lot of good autographs, so certainly that adds a level of value. However, overall, you are almost always going to get what you pay for in the retail portion of the Hobby. At $20 for a box, that’s just not very much.

RED ZONE RESULTS: KEY PLAYER EJECTED, LEADS TO A TURNOVER ON DOWNS I thought of this red zone result right after I decided to add this element to my product reviews. I wanted to save it for a “deserving” product. To me, 2009 Donruss Threads is that product. The base card design is just unforgivable with today’s highly advanced graphic design technology. Maybe I was close minded, but I was unable to get past the use of rookies in college themed inserts and the overall lack of value . Sorry Donruss/Panini, you struck out with this one. Enjoy the early shower.

Product Review: 2009 Donruss Classics

First and foremost, I must begin this review with a disclaimer. The cards I purchased to review this product were from a retail box. Insert rates, value of cards pulled, and overall impressions may be different for you if you purchase a hobby box. 2009 Donruss Classics is available in retail boxes of 8 packs of 5 cards each. I paid $19.99 (plus 6% tax) and somehow got 41 cards, which turns out to about $0.52 per card. I actually really liked this set last year, so I was excited to see what 2009 had in store.

2009 Donruss Classics – Retail Box

For some product details, you can see my early product preview post. Granted, this is a retail box so the card count and collation is much different, but at least I had an idea of what I was getting into. Now for the product breakdown:

Base Cards: 37
Rookie Cards: — (none)
Doubles: 1 (#70 JaMarcus Russell)
Inserts: 3 (Team Colors Hakeem Nicks, Classic Singles Merlin Olsen, Monday Night Heroes Randy Moss)
Hits: 1 (Monday Night Heroes Jonathan Stewart)

Click image for full sized scan

FIRST AND GOAL’S FOUR DOWNS:
1st Down, Design: When I was returning to the hobby last year, 2008 Donruss Classics was the first box I bought because it was one of the first releases of the year. I instantly fell in love with it. This year, Donruss gave us a lackluster base card design. The overall design is not bad, I even like the graphic elements near the bottom of the card where it says “Donruss Classics 2009″. What I do not like is the brown/copper background. The design is gaudy and it is just not a good color. Maybe the same pattern in a ghosted gray would have been better, but I would much rather see a completely different element, like the faded football field of 2008’s base cards.

2nd Down, Inserts: I do not have much to go on here, so take this with a grain of salt. I actually like the Team Colors insert I pulled. The card is colorful and vibrant and looks nice. Simple, but nice. I like the concept of the Classic Singles insert set (along with Classic Doubles, Classic Triples, and Classic Quads). As a fan of a lot of retired players, I love a product that offers a chance to pull some older football greats. That said, I am undecided on the design. Something seems missing as it just looks a bit empty. The Monday Night Heroes insert isn’t bad, but it also has that empty feel. I hate when you can tell exactly where the swatch window is supposed to be for the jersey parallel of a card. That means the window is well placed and doesn’t cut out a good part of the card (and the jersey card I pulled is good), but the non-hit like I pulled just winds up looking odd.

3rd Down, Collation: In such a small retail package, the biggest indication of collation is duplicates. In just 41 cards, I pulled a double. Not cool. I was happy to pull a “hit” in a retail box, and somehow I got an extra card, but I’m still not pleased with the double. It at least could have been of a better player than JaMarcus Russel.

4th Down, Overall Value: For a retail box, this is hard to gauge. I only paid $20 for the box, but that just means you get what you pay for. If you are looking for a cheap way to build a base set (without including the RCs) or would like an affordable gift for a loved one who enjoys football and/or collecting, this is a pretty good box to buy. If you’re looking for resale value or VERY cheap per card prices (perhaps those are polar opposites), you should stay away.

RED ZONE RESULTS: MISSED FIELD GOAL I sorta knew what I was getting when I bought this box from reading other online reviews and seeing card scans. I also knew not to expect much from a retail box. The jersey card was certainly a perk, but not pulling any rookie cards, having a duplicate, and the overall poor design of the base product were just too much to overcome. For a product that had a good outing last year, perhaps this was just an off performance. Hopefully if Donruss keeps this line going in 2010, it won’t push the ball left and will be able to get some points on the board when they are needed most.

Retail Weakness

Life has been crazy lately. As the year is rapidly coming to an end, things are picking up at work, my eBay sales have slowly been increasing, and with autumn comes beautiful outdoor sights…and more work around the house to prepare for winter (cleaning rain gutters, trimming bushes, clearing leaves, etc.). Oh, and I saw Pearl Jam in Philly last Friday as they played the last shows ever in the Spectrum and I am going to Penn State the next two weekends to FINALLY get to some games this year. Are any of those valid reasons for not posting as much recently? Probably not. But they are the best excuses I could come up with just now.

Today when I stopped at K-Mart to pick up some bubble mailers on my way home from the gym, I accidentally picked the checkout lane that has the cards in it. I say accidentally because I will admit, much to the chagrin of some hard core collectors, I have a retail weakness. When I was a kid, I felt like a champion when I would save up my money for a $19.99 box of basketball or football cards the next time I went shopping with my mom. I would spend hours going through the loot I pulled from those packs. With age comes experience (and more disposable income), and I have discovered that hobby boxes are more costly, but deliver far more bang for the buck. From better collation and more cards to better odds of pulling sweet inserts, hobby boxes are superior to retail. ‘Nuff said.

But that still leaves me with that darn retail weakness. My local K-Mart is about as far behind the times as possible for a non thrift store (think Goodwill or a Re-Uzit shop), so they just put out a bunch of football boxes that were released months ago.

I got excited.

I pulled one box off the shelf and put it on the conveyor belt. As the girl began ringing up my purchase, I hastily reached back and grabbed two more. Should I have given my purchase more thought? Of course. Should I have skipped out and saved my money for 1 box of something better than 3 boxes of almost guaranteed crap? Naturally. Do I regret buying these boxes? Hell no!

I will leave you hanging to find out what I pulled. But don’t feel cheated. I am hanging on too as I have not opened the packs yet. Here are the retail boxes that will be subject to near future reviews. Hopefully that is just enough information to get you comin’ back for more…

2009 Topps Chrome

2009 Donruss Threads

2009 Donruss Classics

Contest Winner

Congratulations to fellow football card collector “fuji” for winning the 100 Reasons to Celebrate contest! Mark commented (the only real requirement) that his favorite First and Goal post was The Topps Collection, which showcased all 15 base Topps cards produced during Emmitt’s career. Mark noted it inspired him to collect all of the base Topps, Donruss, and Fleer cards of his favorite player, Tony Gwynn. What did Mark win? This bad boy:

Click image for full sized scan

That’s right. A 2008 Donruss Classics Sunday’s Best Gold parallel of Adrian Peterson #016/100. It may not be the best looking card, but it is AP and it is #/100. Mark, it isn’t a Seahawks autograph, but hopefully you enjoy your card. I will be in touch with you via email to set up shipping.

For any conspiracy theorists out there, you can see the official contest results screenshot here, in all it’s full resolution glory.

CONGRATS, MARK!