C.A.: 1987 Drake's Darryl Strawberry and Wally Joyner

(A chilly welcome to you all on "Old Stuff Day". Apparently this day was created to encourage people not to do "the same old stuff" and then modified to encourage people to clean out their "old stuff." But I will choose to recognize the day by showing my card Old Stuff. Like I do many days of the year on this blog! Time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 349th in a series):

 

I added these two Drake's cards from Diamond Jesters' Time Travel series. The Drake's cards from the 1980s have always interested me for a few reasons.

 

a) The 1981 Drake's set was the first time I owned a complete set. It was very easy to do, all I had to do was send away for it and the 33 cards were mine. I wrote about it a number of years ago.

 

b) That same '81 set is numbered by race. Yeah, really. Coincidence or not, it's there as plain as the cardboard it's printed on. I did a post about that, too, after being tipped off by a commenter and fellow blogger.

 

c) Drake's, in the middle of its run of eight straight years of trading cards, ditched its benefactor and set out on its own.

 

After five straight years of Topps creating the Drake sets and packaging them in nifty little boxes, Drake's went the DIY route for the final three years, printing cards on their own boxes, much as Hostess did during my childhood in the '70s. (OK, maybe Topps told Drake's it wasn't doing it anymore, it had Ralston Purina and KayBee Toys and Kmart and Toys R Us cards to print).

 

The differences are striking.

 

 

Any card from the 1981-85 Drake's sets fit nicely into a 9-pocket page, corners sharp, edges clean. But the 1986-88 Drake's cards are subject to the cutting whims of the collector, some filled with way too much sugar, too.

 

Here's a comparison of the backs. The top 1987 Strawberry looks much rougher but with fun advertising for the various Drake's cakes, which varied somewhat from card to card.

 

The bottom 1981 Rod Carew looks very much look like the back of a 1981 Topps Carew except for the top part. It looks "professional" and "corporate" and although I can't say anything bad about the first complete set I ever owned, I kind of like the spirit of the 1986-88 cards more.

 

One more difficult aspect of the 1986-88 sets is that you couldn't order a full set of the cards like with 1981-85 (I own the 1981 and 1983-85 complete sets but have somehow not done very well searching for the 1982 set). The cards were available only on boxes of Drake's cake goodies. And if you lived in a health-conscious house, as my house became around sixth grade, it's not like those boxes were showing up in the kitchen pantry.

 

I need to do something about the 1986 Drake's Dodgers (Update: PURCHASED), but the other "cut-them-yourself" team sets are done.

 

 

Fairly decent cutting jobs on these except maybe the '88 Guerrero. But I'm not running out to get an upgrade.

 

It's something of a back-burner, long-range goal to own all of the '86-88 Drake's cards (no real urge to have full boxes or panels, that's reserved for first loves like Hostess). That's why when the Time Travel post offered up four 1987 Drake's, I claimed all of them.

 

Unfortunately I was beaten to half of those. But no biggie, because I forgot I owned one of them already.

 

Expertly cut, too. The back also makes me want a Yodel.

 

 

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I also grabbed this card from a separate Time Travel post by Matt. It was one of the "Trapped In Time" cards. 1962 Ken Hunt here had been waiting for almost four years to be picked up!

 

That was too much to read. It's a card I didn't have so I was happy to add it for only an older card (which is where the dupes come into play). I've enjoyed reading about Ken Hunt since (no, not that Ken Hunt). He played just one season -- 1961 -- going 9-10 in 29 games, including 22 starts. He even pitched an inning at the end of Game 1 of the World Series. That's pretty impressive for your only season.