This post was also inspired by Nick V. who left the following comment on my recent Don Mattingly post:
“Okay, it took me a while to realize that the 88 mod was Baseball’s Best. I was briefly SUPER impressed that you managed to fade the blue. I wonder how the red and orange borders from 1990 would do here.”
Way ahead, Nick!…
This “white edge” ’90s Donruss Tony Gwynn took me a few years, if I remember correctly, maybe three. The sides of the photo are a bit messy, but that’s okay. If the player name was in black or blue this would look pretty cool, but since the name washes out I wouldn’t rate this mod variant as one I need to make more of, especially considering how long they take to make. But it was a fun experiment and gave me another unique quirk for my great Mr. Padre PC.
And back to Nick’s Donruss comment from ’88: yes, if you try to bleach the edges of a regular ’88D card, all that will happen is that the little red bits in the center will fade, but the black and blue will remain strong*. But then those orange Baseball’s Best cards in the same design give you a little more to work with. I didn’t make much of it, just the Donnie, this Mark Grace and a Barry Bonds for my Barry Bonds guy**.
*Probably the blue would fade after about ten years?
**Actually, I think I put that one in yellow so it would be a Pirates color match
Here’s another idea I’d like to give Nick V. credit for. Yes, the folks at Topps bizarrely tinted the background on Billy Williams’ 1974 Topps card, ostensibly to make the player show up better in the photo, but it just looks weird as it was Free Bowl of Curry Day in the stadium and the crowd rioted. I made my own “collector corrected” variations, bleaching out the yellow but making sure it didn’t fade Billy and his bat. Above are 3 of my mods along with a regular map for comparison. I put one in my kit, I can use another on PC, but I have several that I want to make available in FT/FS one of these days. I think anyone with a ’74 Topps “master set” could use the unofficial variant to boost their set. And I still need several ’74 Topps variations to “complete” my ’74 set (spreadsheet) so I hope these will be good trading chips.
On the ’82 Kmart set, the AL MVPs have a blue center bar in the background (doesn’t fade), but the NL MVPs have yellow, so those are nice and easy to whitewash into a cleaner look, like the Cobra here. I also have Clemente, Mays, and Garvey versions that I couldn’t find in time for this post, but if any of my trading friends want one, let me know.
Speaking of Steve Garvey, here’s a funky one for gcrl if he wants it. There was a surface smudge on the background of this card, so I created a “blackout” style that showed up well. Sometimes figuring out the best way to deal with a problem helps generate new ideas.
More playing with Topps from 1987. On some of these I tried to get the border more or less in sync with the photo, with the Pete Rose proving to be the best of those attempts. These are ready for trading.
But I’m still hoarding 1987 Topps Bo Jackson cards just for myself! Each of these is unique, like a snowflake or something. I love them and hope to make more next summer.
Thanks for stopping by!
#Sunwashed #junk