Here's a "before" shot of the box.
As you can, it's a pretty nice package. The gold label says "CONTAINS ONE COMPLETE SET" and is the equivalent of a factory seal. I also noticed that the box is a bit damaged on most corners, which makes me nervous about whether the cards are going to have dinged corners. Pretty safe bet they will.
In case anybody out there doesn't know what traded sets are, Topps issued these set--every year since 1981 I believe--to include rookies or players who changed teams either during the previous season or during the off season. They also included cards for new managers. As will become obvious, they used some photos taken from spring training of 1988, so many of the photos are much as one full year newer than the photos used in the regular 1988 set (many of which were taken in spring training 1987.)
3 comments:
I think Topps had always struggled with how to handle transactions and rookies that burst on the scene out of thin air. They had the multi-series cards until 1974. In 1972 they stamped a big "TRADED" over some of the big names that had been traded (Carlton, Morgan, F. Robinson, etc.). In '74 and '76 they had separate 44 card Traded sets that came out (the '76 one was really cool and made the acquisition of even marginal players like Jim Crawford seem franchise-changing). But then in 1981 they jumped in with both feet with a 132 series that was numbered at the end of the regular set. The next year it was a separately numbered set. I think what really helped in 1981 was it had Valenzuela and Raines(I really don't think it was a big deal that it included Kenny Reitz as a Cub). After that there were big names (Ozzie in '82, Cal in '83, etc.) I loved the traded sets of the 80's and early 90's, but then they morphed into something else and I don't get them anymore.
I don't want to give anything away, but get ready for names like Sil "the Swallows return to" Campusano and Mark Parent's rookie card!
i always wondered what the "tiffany" meant. Is that a dumb question?
The "Tiffany" is discussed in detail on one of the upcoming teasers, but basically it means super-high gloss instead of just regular gloss.
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