How to tell the difference between 1963 Post Cereal and 1963 Jello baseball cards

Issue Identification

For card collectors, identifying a card’s exact issue often becomes a problem when finding vintage cards either at flea markets, card shows or online.  To my knowledge, there is not an app yet whereby you can scan a card via your phone and have the issue identified.

The identification issue can become very confusing when several issues look almost exactly alike.  For example, Exhibit Supply Company cards of baseball, football and boxing greats had the same basic design over a half of a century with no statistics on the back until the 1960s issues.  Therefore, identifying an Exhibit Supply issue requires some knowledge of who was in the issue and sometimes minor differences across the issues in terms of color, printing and other smaller details.

1963 Post Cereal and 1963 Jello

The same problem applies to the 1963 Post Cereal and 1963 Jello baseball sets. Because these cards had the exact same visual design, players and numbers, they are often confused by sellers on eBay and even some experienced collectors who are not familiar with the two card issues.

The main reason for the confusion is that the issuer of the cards in 1963, General Foods, did not intend for the two issues to be seen as separate from each other.  In a clever marketing cross-promotion, both boxes of Jello and boxes of Post Cereal had one-sided baseball cards printed on the back of the box.  These cards could be pasted into a single album that General Foods gave away as a promotion in 1963 in which you could paste cards from either Jello or Post Cereal.  Hence, if a parent was buying either jello or cereal, you could get them to look for specific players.  Hence, it would be easier to fill your album with two product lines issuing the same cards.

Caption: Above is a picture of the 1963 album given away by General Foods.  Note that, on the bottom, it tells the collector to get cards from either Post cereal or Jello packages.   This was the across-brand promotion.

In general, it was easier to complete your collection through cereal boxes because the cards were issued in panels of multiple cards on the back of the boxes (complete 1963 box panels are collected today and sometimes sold on eBay).  Jello boxes were so small that only a single card could be placed on the back of the boxes.  However, because of the need to fit one card onto the back of a Jello box, the 1963 Jello cards were made just a bit smaller than the 1963 Post cards.  Also, a small design difference emerged in how the player’s STATS were line-ruled, likely as a result of having to shrink the design.

Caption: Above is a 1963 Jello box with Sandy Koufax.

These slight differences have caused hobbyists over the years to see these cards as two sets: 1963 Jello and 1963 Post Cereal.  This situation is not what the company likely intended (nor did General Foods managers likely care) when the cards were issued.  While some collectors do not care if a card is a Jello or Post card and will buy either issue interchangeably, the vast majority of today’s vintage collectors of these issues are particular about whether a card is Jello card or Post Cereal card.

Indeed, the value of certain cards or players is very dependent on which issue it comes from, either Jello or Post.  The scarcity of certain cards and thus their current prices is greatly influenced by their availability in 1963.  Players that were on unpopular cereals or jello flavors are scarce today and sell for a premium.  Therefore, if you do not identify a card’s issue correctly when selling on eBay or another venue, buyers may be upset.  For example, Frank Thomas #197 is a relatively common card in the 1963 Jello set.  However, Frank Thomas #197 is one of the hardest cards to find in the 1963 Post Cereal set.  Thus, if you list a 1963 Jello Frank Thomas #197 as a 1963 Post Frank Thomas #197, buyers will think you are either ill-informed or trying to scam them.  Even worse, you could buy a 1963 Jello Frank Thomas #197 card thinking it is the rare Post version.

Telling the Two Issues Apart

How do you tell the two issues apart?  It is easy once you know.  Below I have put a scan of both 1963 cards for Dick McAuliffe #48.  Jello is on the top.  Post is on the bottom.  When the cards are side-by-side, it is easy to see that Jello cards are smaller. However, buying online or at a show, one might not have a comparison card.  The best way to determine the issue is the red line in the middle of the STATS box.  In a 1963 Jello card, the red line stops shortly before and after the player’s STATS.  In the 1963 Post card, the red line will extend well beyond the beginning and end of the player’s STATS toward the border (compare McAuliffe cards below).

If one follows the red-line rule (Post = wide red line), you will never confuse cards from the two issues as this design is consistent across all cards.

Conclusion

In closing, please feel free to comment.  All comments are moderated to cut down on spam and to stay on the topic.

1970s Topps Football Cards – Sweaty Guys and Airbrushed Pictures

Topps baseball sets in the early 1970s showed many design innovations like (1) the beautiful black bordered 1971 set, (2) the groovy, hip 1972 card designs, and (3) the 1975 bold color and mini-test-market designs.  These sets were eye-pleasing with mostly good, clean staged photos of players with occasional in-action shots.  As a result, many 1970s Topps baseball sets are still sought after by set builders today.  Thus, despite Topps being a monopoly in baseball cards, product designs were generally fresh in the early 1970s.

In football, Topps went in the opposite direction.  The football card sets basically were pretty awful with the exception of the 1972 design, which built on the bold block lettering and bright colors similar to many late 1960s and early 1970s consumer products.  However, in my opinion, Topps football cards of this era were really just below par because the pictures were not very good.  There was a reason that the pictures on football cards were bad throughout most of the 1970s.  As a cost savings measure, Topps only licensed from the National Football League Players’ Association (NFLPA) and dropped licensing from the NFL from 1970 through 1981 (footnote 1).  As a result, football cards could not show any team logos or other NFL copyrighted images (see my earlier posting here on how licensing works: http://junkwaxandobservations.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-sports-card-royalties-work.html ).  Football cards would have to be produced without using any NFL licensed material.

Why would the Topps Company go without an NFL license?  Obviously, it saved them money, but the main reason Topps could undertake such a money-saving move was their monopoly position in sports cards in the USA in the 1970s.  While Topps had only the MLB players locked up by contracts and thus entry was possible in other sports, very few other companies seemed to want to enter the sports card business, possibly because they could not enter the baseball market, which was the major market by size at the time.  There are likely economies of scale to producing cards for a number of sports rather than just one sport.  You can allocate the capital cost of printing presses, salaries of card designers and general overhead across print runs for multiple sports year round.  For a market as small as sports cards, not being able to market baseball cards to anchor your cost structure was a fairly significant problem (footnote 2).

Anyway, the lack of an NFL license in the 1970s meant that pictures of many players would have to be close up still photos, posed shots or airbrushed action photos.  The photos would need to be airbrushed to clean off all the NFL trademarked team logos to avoid infringing upon NFL-owned properties.  While airbrushing and working around logos is common in the sports card trade, Topps position as a monopolist seemed to make them lazy in the production qualities of the 1970s cards with the pictures on the front especially suffering.  The quality of the airbrushing work was not very strong with colors often not quite matching team colors.  Also, by the late 1970s, a large number of football card pictures seemed to be close up shots of players on the sidelines staring off into space.  These were easy photos to take and did not require much airbrushing to clean up if taken at an angle where no copyrighted logos could be seen.  However, as a result, we have lots of pictures of sweaty players doing nothing.

Caption: Nick Mike-Mayer gets the almost neon green airbrush job of his Eagles helmet in his 1978 Topps card attempting to join Marvin the Martian.  “That makes me very angry.” says Marvin.

When firms are monopolists, they can provide a fairly lousy product or service and charge a high price for it without worrying about competition.  In terms of quality, the monopolist has to produce a product at a quality level that is just high enough to keep customers buying the product since sports cards are not a necessity.  Topps also expanded the size of their football sets in the 1970s, thus making any set builders buy more of their poorly designed cards.

Caption: 1978 Topps Football Cards. Stu Voigt in a posed photo still has a monstrous cowlick.  Give the guy a comb.  On the right, Joe Lavender apparently was reading a good novel on the sidelines.

The 1978 Topps football set represents the low point in picture quality in my opinion.  Now, it did not help the situation that the hair styles of the time were long hair or big afros.  This made football players all the more sweaty or unkempt.  However, we often see in Topps baseball cards from the same era, very nice posed shots of players who have big clean afros or washed hair.  Also, the baseball cards had much better use of lighting without players’ faces being in shadows.

Caption: 1978 Topps Football Cards. Ron Saul and Oliver Davis stare aimlessly off into space.  For some reason, the top of Davis' head has been cropped off.  Apparently, he has too much hair.  Love those sideburns!

Why Topps 1970s baseball cards were so much better than football cards in production values is possibly puzzling since Topps was a monopolist in both products.  One explanation might be that because Topps had a license that paid MLB with royalties that the baseball league gave Topps greater access to players or possibly even demanded better quality.  The NFL had no direct financial stake in Topps' 1970s products, so football teams may have been less accommodating.  Another possible explanation might be that Topps didn’t spend much on the photos because of the size of the market for football cards did not make it cost effective.  A third possible explanation would be that in the late 1970s that Topps card designs deteriorated in general across all sports and that football deteriorated more quickly because of lesser attention by Topps.

In the early 1980s, Topps’ design and photo quality in football cards became much better.  In 1981, Topps introduced a subset of cards in their football set called Super Action cards that had very nice photos of game action.  In 1982, they signed a license with NFL properties and could shows players in their uniforms without airbrushing out team logos.  This made both action and sideline photos easier because the photographer did not have to worry about capturing “too much logo” in any shot that would have to be subsequently airbrushed out.

 End Note

Like all other posts, please feel free to make comments.  I review all comments before they are posted in order to reduce spam and keep things on topic.  Also, it may take me a few days to review comments.

Footnotes

1. http://www.cardboardconnection.com/1970-topps-football-cards

2. Additional evidence of the economies of scale theory would be the short-lived tenures of both Fleer and the Philadelphia Gum Company in the football card market in the 1960s.  Fleer produced cards from 1960 to 1963 for the upstart American Football League (AFL) with Topps having the NFL contract.  When Fleer was sued by Topps in 1963 for beginning MLB baseball card production (and had to stop producing cards after printing their first 66 card series), they did not seem to pursue aggressive renewal of their AFL rights.  I suspect that being denied entry into baseball card market limited the attractiveness of making football cards.  Surprisingly, Philadelphia Gum Company backroom-dealed Topps to get sole NFLPA rights in 1964, which sent Topps scrambling for the AFL players’ rights, which had previously belonged to Fleer.  Philadelphia Gum Company exited with sort of a whimper after the AFL and NFL merged and the NFLPA awarded Topps sole rights to NFL players’ images in starting in 1968.  There is no evidence that Philadelphia aggressively tried to outbid Topps, so I suspect that producing football cards alone was marginal economically (see: http://www.psacard.com/Articles/ArticleView/5019/collecting-the-1966-philadelphia-football-card-set for more on Philadelphia cards from the 1960s and discussion of these contract issues.)

That Insane Autograph Set: Collecting 1997-98 Be A Player Autographed Hockey Cards

Introduction (This is a revision of an earlier posting from 3 years ago.  I would like to thank an anonymous reader named Mike for alerting me to the foil-color-based identification of the manufacturer autographs)

As noted in previous posts, autographs are by far the scarcest commodity in sports card collecting.  Obviously, card companies can make limited runs of game-used jerseys or other types of unique, low-print run inserts, but the willingness of a player to sign his or her name and is by far the most limiting aspect of card production.

Indeed, it is the scarcity of autographs that makes the 1997-98 Be A Player hockey set so amazing to many die-hard collectors.  Because most of the cards in the set had a very large number of autographed parallel cards, it is possible to put together almost the entire set with autographs.  I currently own all of the possible 249 cards with autographs that could be pulled from packs.  In this posting, I will give a history of this set and discuss some of its quirks and great characteristics.

The early history of the “Be A Player” brand

The “Be A Player” brand is a property of the National Hockey League Players’ Association (NHLPA).  Back in 1993-94, the NHLPA contracted with Upper Deck to produce the Be A Player brand without NHL licensed trademark logos as a way to produce another revenue stream for the NHLPA. (footnote 1)  Because the NHLPA and NHL have gone through a series of strikes and lockouts over the past 25 years, the brand was started largely a way to hedge some extra money for the association and players in case of a work stoppage.  In 1994-95 and 1995-96 Upper Deck produced sets with the innovation of having one autograph card per pack.  This was an insanely great bargain for collectors at the time because the packs were actually not that expensive as a mid-priced product.  With the 1994-95 season starting with a long-planned lock out by the NHL owners, NHL players probably had a lot of both time and incentive to sign cards for the first year of Be A Player cards.

The 1994-95 Be A Player set was 180 cards with one autographed parallel card per pack.  From what I know from talking or emailing with people over the years, only 178 cards were available in autographed form with common players signing around 2400 cards each and star players signing less.  Wayne Gretzky was the key autographed card in the set, and Gretzky’s card was super-short printed (SSP).  Upper Deck applied stickers to the back of the autographed cards thus indicating their authenticity.  Upper Deck expanded the set to 225 cards in 1995-96, but I do not know if any players’ autographs were missing from the set (any help I can get here would be appreciated).  Similar to the prior year, there was one autographed card per pack, which was an insane bargain.

In 1996-97, the NHLPA shifted the Be A Player name brand to Pinnacle Brands.  Pinnacle expanded the set to include insert cards that could also be found in autographed format.  These insert series were titled “Biscuit In The Basket”, “Link To History”, and “Stacking The Pads”.  In what would become an ominous sign for the future, Pinnacle did not put stickers or other authenticating marks on the backs of the cards to indicate that the autographs were authentic.  I do not know much about the numbers of cards signed in this year and have not seem many cards from the set.  I assume Pinnacle made it so that one could identify manufacturer autographs with the color of foil on the card.

The 1997-98 Be A Player set

By 1997, Pinnacle Brands was in a lot of financial trouble.  They had entered the sports card industry when it was booming in 1988, but the Junk Card Era of too many card manufacturers was about to take Pinnacle as a victim.  This showed in their execution of the 1997-98 Be A Player set.

While the set was expanded to two series of 125 cards (Series A and Series B = 250 total cards) plus inserts, the execution of the set left a lot to be desired.  Again, autographed cards were inserted one-per-pack but did not have stickers or different back marking authenticity as a manufacturer autograph.  The way that one tells manufacturer-autographed cards from other cards is by the color of foil used in the player's name and the Pinnacle logo.  Gold foil indicates an autographed card that was certified by Pinnacle and pulled from a pack.  Silver foil indicates a base card that should be without an autograph.  If one finds an autograph card with a silver foil name and logo, the card is either a forgery or was signed in person after being pulled from a pack as a base card.  This situation can make identification confusing as one comes across these cards.  Because Pinnacle vanished into bankruptcy, there is no web site or published guidelines to tell collectors 20 years later about the foil color differences.

Caption: Eric Lindros #1 base card is on the left.  Note the silver foil ink used to print his name and the Pinnacle logo.  On the right is an authenticated Brett Hull autographed card.  Note the gold foil ink used to print his name and the Pinnacle logo.

When Pinnacle ran into financial trouble in 1998, much of the production from Series B was left in limbo in boxes in the Pinnacle warehouse (footnote 1).  This problem with Series B has actually been a blessing to collectors interested in completing the set today.  Because these boxes were sold off to distressed merchandise liquidators and other parties, it took them longer to work their way into the system to be available to collectors.  Indeed, unopened boxes of both series still sell for around between $55 and $100 on eBay (checked 12-9-2016) and are a bargain at 16 autographs-per-box, which is insane by today’s standards for a middle-market product.

Attributes of the Set

The hit rate per pack for auto and inserts was:

Autographs 1:1 (These are autographs on any version of the card, regular or die cut)

Die Cut Autographs 1:7

Prismatic Die Cut Autographs - 100 sets made

One Timers 1:7

Stacking the Pads 1:15

Take A Number 1:15

However, this is where things get a little weird and you have to know something about the set.  First, none of the “One Timers”, “Stacking the Pads”, or “Take A Number” insert cards were autographed.  This was a change from previous years.  Second, certain cards were extremely short-printed.  Basically, Eric Lindros only autographed the Prismatic Die Cut cards, so there are only 100 Lindros autographs in existence in this set. (This observation on Lindros comes from an old card dealer with whom I have emailed.  I have never seen it written anywhere.)  Die cut cards have the word PLAYER cut in them along the right border.  Prismatic die cuts are harder to find than foil die cuts with a print run of 100.  When Lindros #1 autographed 1997-98 Be A Player prismatic die cut cards occasionally change hands on eBay, they go for hundreds of dollars despite Lindros never making it to the Hall of Fame due to injuries.  Again, set makers know the Lindros Die Cut Autograph is the scarce card in the 1997-98 Be A Player set.  Indeed, you can buy an Eric Lindros certified autographed card from other sets for under $5.00.

Caption: Eric Lindros #1 Prismatic Die Cut is the hardest autographed card to get in the series.  Only 100 were produced. I had the Lindros autograph authenticated by SGC along with all the Hall of Fame caliber players' cards because they do not have stickers or holograms guaranteeing their authenticity. 

Another anomaly in the set is that no known factory-autographed version of #18 Bryan Berard has ever surfaced in regular or die cut format.  There is no known reason for this omission.  1997-98 was several years before Berrard received a horrible eye injury that cut short his playing career, and he was not between teams that year.  One just has to believe that Berard never signed his cards or that Pinnacle never sent them to him.  They may have thought they would insert them in Series B, but financial trouble kept them from following through.  Who knows?

What makes the 1997-98 Be A Player autograph set fun to try to piece together is (1) it can be done (with the exception of Berard’s and to some extent Lindros’ cards) on a relatively tight budget and (2) that it was such an insane undertaking in 1997-98 by today’s standards.  Getting so many autographs from so many players would likely cost a fortune today and the prices of packs would have to be astronomical.

Overall, one can build a series of most of the common autographed cards in this series on eBay quite quickly, even in 2016.  The series is stacked with lots of minor players who signed a ton of cards.  I have seen 100 autogrpahed card lots go for $30 plus shipping.  The tougher autographs, outside of the Lindros Die Cut, in the series are Martin Brodeur, Brett Hull, Joe Sakic, Al MacInnis, Ray Bourque, and Ed Belfour.  I believe that all of these cards, except maybe for Al MacInnis, were short printed.  There are lots of semi-stars in the set like a young Joe Thornton and Tomas Holmstrom but their cards are pretty plentiful.  Since Pinnacle is not in business, only people that have the original print run specifications for the set, who might have been dealers, would know.

Caption: Ray Bourque #248 and Martin Brodeur #2 are short-printed autographs in the set.  They are still surprisingly affordable on eBay at around $30.

In buying 1997-98 Be A Player autographed cards on eBay, bidders should take care.  Because the cards do not have stickers, holograms or printing on the back saying they are an authentic autograph, there is the chance of forgery.  Make sure that the autographed card has a gold foil ink name and logo and not silver foil ink.  An autographed silver foil card is very likely a forgery.  However, any die cut cards' autographs must be genuine because die cut cards (either foil or prismatic) were not issued without autographs.

The good news for most players' regular-issue cards in the set is there is not much economic incentive to forge signatures because the players were not major players and they signed a ton of cards.  There are plenty of the cards around for little money of these players.  For the bigger names, look for the gold foil or try to pull them directly from packs yourselves.  Since you can still find boxes of 1997-98 Be A Player cards around, this is possible.  Also note that all 1997-98 Be A Player autograph hockey cards were signed with black permanent sharpie-type ink with a relatively thin pen line.  Several cards have slightly wider pen signings, but still in black color.

Also, never purchase an Eric Lindros #1 autographed card that is not a prismatic, die cut card. If anybody owns a gold foil regular issue Lindros card, please send me a scan, and I will update this posting.  While that situation is possible, any buyer should be wary.  All other cards in the set are available in autographed format in their regular version (e.g.,  not a foil die cut or prismatic die cut).

Postscript

After Pinnacle’s Bankruptcy, the Be A Player brand was shifted by the NHLPA to a company started by Dr. Brian Price and was produced in 1998-99 before the NHLPA decided to change the name of their authorized brand to “In the Game”, which eventually became the name of Price’s company.  In 2005, the Be A Player brand was resurrected when the NHLPA broke away from the In The Game company and re-signed with Upper Deck.  However, Upper Deck has not produced Be A Player branded cards since the 2009-10 series.

End Note

Like all other posts, please feel free to make comments.  I review all comments before they are posted in order to reduce spam and keep things on topic.  Also, it may take me a few days to review comments.

Footnotes

1: http://prezsez.wordpress.com/2011/06/10/could-this-be-the-end-of-be-a-player-trading-cards/

1991 Pro Line Football Portraits: The Worst Junk Wax Set Ever

Prologue

Sorry about the long delay between postings.  Work has been busy.

A Really Bad Set of over 300 Cards

In previous posts, I have talked about the Junk Wax or Junk Era for sports cards that ran from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s.  During this era, the sports card companies went crazy producing virtually any kind of set that was eaten up by the customer, which had changed from kids to collectors.  A lot of really bad sets were produced in this era, because mostly anything that was printed basically ended up selling OK with hoarding collectors.

The 1991 Pro Line football set is the worst-of-the-worst in my opinion because it took sports cards farthest away from anything that a kid or even a sports fan would want to own.  In the 1991 Pro Line football set of 300 cards plus some inserts, there are:

1. No action pictures.  Most of the poses were sort of ridiculous vanity shots that kids sometimes now get for their high school yearbooks.  The pictures seem to have little connection to the players, their personalities or their positions.

2. Almost no player information on the backs of cards.  Instead, there are inane paragraph-long observations by the player profiled about what it’s like to be a rookie or star or whatever.  The cards had no stats, no schools, no player measurements, and no player trivia.   They were worthless for player information.

3. Most of the cards shamelessly display players wearing official NFL-licensed merchandise.  This set was more of a catalog for officially licensed NFL merchandise than a football card set.

4. A special subset had player’s wives showing off the officially licensed NFL women’s wear.  Player’s wives?!?!?

Caption: On the left, Erik Howard of the Giants displays his officially licensed NFL T-shirt and shorts while seemingly trying to hold in a massive dump.  On the right, Eric Allen shows off his flat-top haircut, officially licensed NFL Eagles warm up jacket, and officially licensed NFL Zuba Pants while sitting in front of what looks like the entrance to a Men's Room at Veteran's Stadium.  I own and keep these several cards only for their schlock value.

Why?

This set was the brainchild of a person at NFL Properties, which was the producer of the Pro Line set and not a sports card company.  Printing and distribution had to have been outsourced to other parties.

I can just see the conversation at NFL properties that got this set going:

Executive #1:  We should go directly into the sports card business.  Those things are selling like hotcakes.

Executive #2:  Yeah.  People will buy anything.  Donruss put out this crappy baseball set called ‘Studio’ this summer with pictures of players that looked vanity shots from a high school year book.  People bought’em. (footnote 1)

Executive #1: Really? No way.

Executive #2:  Yep.  And the best part is you don’t have to spend money on game photographers or even going to games.  You just take artsy looking still shots of players.

Executive #1: What if we put the players in NFL merchandise?  The commissioner says we need to sell more of that stuff.

Executive 2: What about the women’s merchandise?

Executive 1: The players have wives don’t they?

Executive 2: Awesome.  You’re a genius.

And so this atrocious set was born.

Caption: On the right, Jennifer Montana’s rear end is used on this insert card to hawk the NFL’s ‘Spirit Collectible’ line of women’s clothing.  On the left, Babette Kosar models a ‘Spirit Collectible’ team jacket while contemplating how she will have to divorce her husband Bernie when he burns through all his money.   I own and keep these cards only for their schlock value.

In Reality...

In terms of history, the 1991 Pro Line set did create some friction between the NFL and the Player’s Association (i.e., the NFLPA or player’s union).  The sports card companies had been getting legal permission to use the players’ images through the NFLPA and were paying royalties to the union.  NFL Properties went directly to the individual players in the 1991 Pro Line set and each was paid $5000 for participating and signing off on their image rights for this set (footnote 2).  The relationship between the NFL and the NFLPA was already icy in 1991, so NFL Properties probably saw no need give the union more money, because such money was often used to file lawsuits against the NFL.  No independent card company would have likely risked the wrath of the NFLPA in signing so many players directly and not going through the union.  Such a company would have risked not getting a license from the union in future years if the direct-to-players move did not work out.

In defense of the 1991 Pro Line set, it did have one innovation, which was putting autographed versions of the cards (about one-per-wax box) in the product.  Also, the autograph cards contained stickers or stamps to verify that they were genuine, which was ahead of its time in 1991.  That being said, NFL properties sort of blew the autograph inserts by having players sign the cards on the back. (footnote 3)  This makes the cards less presentable for the collector.

There still is a very active secondary market for these 1991 Pro Line autographs on eBay, and several collectors are passionate about trying to put together autographed sets (footnote 4).

Caption: Nick Lowery, in a very flattering pose, shows off his officially licensed NFL shorts and shirt.  For some reason, three pairs of shoes and a Chiefs helmet are placed randomly around Nick for ambiance.  I am throwing this card out after this post.

Market reception of the set seemed to be poor by 1991 standards (footnote 2).  My guess is that the autographs became a part of the set after focus groups “threw up” on the cards for being so bad.  Despite the modest reception, the NFL continued to produce two more Pro Line sets in 1992 and 1993.  NFL Properties seemed to have learned a little bit of a lesson by 1992, as the 1992 set had more action shots of players in real games interspersed with vanity photos.  Also, the hawking of NFL clothes was more subtle.  By 1995, NFL Properties had sold the ‘Pro Line' name to Classic Games and was out of the card business.

There are still plenty of factory sealed Pro Line 1991 football boxes around and they sell on eBay for around $12-15 when shipping is included (footnote 5).  This is less than they cost collectors when they originally came out.  Without the possibility of an autograph in each box, I suspect they would sell for much less.

In closing, what made the 1991 Pro Line set so truly awful is how far it strayed from what many sports card enthusiasts, myself included, feel is great about sports cards, kids and collecting.  Putting aside the obvious and ridiculous amount of product placement for NFL licensed clothing, the set seemed to have everything a kid would not want from a set.  Imagine that your parents gave you a box of this set by accident back in 1991.  You and friends could trade a Phylicia Rashad for a Stacey O'Brien while developing a craving for Zuba Pants.

In conclusion, there is no market for non-autographed cards from this set and such cards are truly junk.  Please throw all cards from this set in the recycle bin, so as to save some trees from being cut down and to save the the world from the embarrassment of this set.

End Note

Like all other posts, please feel free to make comments.  I review all comments before they are posted in order to reduce spam and keep things on topic.  Also, it may take me a few days to review comments.

Footnotes

1. The whole vanity shot of players idea was first fully implemented in Donruss' Studio brand of cards starting in summer of 1991.  While cards with vanity pictures (and players performing their hobbies and such) had appeared in cards sets before, the Studio brand centered an entire set around "studio" portraits of players.  Donruss Studio sets rank high on my list of worthless junk sets.

2. http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19911020&slug=1312041

3. Another interesting post on this set can be found here: http://sanjosefuji.blogspot.com/2011/03/good-bad-ugly-3-1991-pro-line-portraits.html .  That blog is where I became aware of the autograph location issue, which I have found mentioned in other descriptions of the set.

4. An interesting site that shows one person's passion for these autographs can be found here: http://bcn33rs.wordpress.com/about/ .  My perception of the market for Pro Line autograph cards is from examining all finished auctions on eBay on 11-11-2012.

5. The prices for wax boxes of Pro Line cards is from examining all finished auctions on eBay on 11-11-2012.