1988 Topps Rack Pack

I recently added this unopend rack pack of 1988 Topps with the Wallach All-Star in the center spot by way of eBay.  Over the years I acquired a few other unopened packs with Wallach, but this is the first rack I've been able to get my hands on.  

I'd be hard pressed to come up with a better one.  The Wallach All-Star is in the prime center spot, flanked by a Dave Winfield All-Star insert and Alan Trammell.  As an extra bonus, there is a Tony Gwynn showing on the back.  Short of a the Wallach base card being in the Trammell spot, trying to improve this with say a Mattingly or Raines is really just nit-picking.  I may end up trying to frame this some how, but it's not a huge priority at the moment.  I'm just very happy to add it to the collection for now.  Below are some more photos of the pack.

             

2017 "Rediscover Topps" 1988 All-Star #399

Card Review: 9.2

This is one of my all-time favorite Wallach cards.  Well, not this one, the "real" one.  These "rediscover" cards make things confusing.  In any event, I'm docking this "2017" card a little bit for the unnecessary foil stamp that isn't on the "real" 1988 Topps All-Star card.  I'd dock it more, but the foil stamp is the only thing that makes this a "new" card.

I don't mind the concept of these things, but they certainly make life difficult for OCD-ish collector's like myself.

 
 

Number in my collection: 3

By Color:Blue: 1
Red: 1
Gold: 1

1988 Starting Lineup Talking Baseball #16

Card Review: 2.8  I have very mixed opinions about this card.  I was extremely excited when it arrived after ordering it from a seller on the Beckett website.  Twice before I add ordered it from sellers, and both times my money was refunded along with a claim that the card didn't exist.  The majority of the online checklist/databases also concur that this card isn't real.  So I was a little leery when I ordered it a 3rd time.  I didn't even have this on my "need list" because I was fairly certain it didn't exists.  So when it showed up in an envelope, I was pretty stoked.

But in the interest of being objective, it's really a pretty crummy card.  The colors are ugly, the likeness is terrible, there are no team logos, the back is bland, and worst of all is that the dimensions are weird.  It's slightly too big to fit in a nine page sleeve.  I keep one example of each Wallach card I own in a three ring binder sorted by year.  This would be a nice addition to the last page of the 88's.  Instead it has to be relegated to the back along with other over-sized odd-ball cards in four sleeve pages.

As for what this set is, I really had no idea.  I'm painfully aware of the fact that Starting Line-Up figures came with cards, and that the Expos and Blue Jays were treated as second class teams by Parker Brothers and only given one player each.  Wallach was never the Expo.  Per Wikipedia:

Kenner debuted the Starting Lineup figures in 1988 by releasing a 124 player set. Each team had at least four players in the set except for the Canadian teams of Montreal and Toronto that had only one player because Kenner believed that there was an insufficient number of retail outlets in Canada to warrant a full team set, (Tim Raines and George Bell, respectively.) The New York Mets had the most players in the set with seven. Kenner tended to distribute the players to stores by geographical region, so it was very difficult to complete the collection or find players from out of market.

Some quick research confirmed my suspicions that this card came as part of a board game.  The pictures look vaguely familiar but I certainly don't remember anyone of my friends actually owning the thing as kids.

Number of this card in my collection: 1
2015 update: n/a
2016 update: 2

1988 Topps #399 All-Star

Card Review: 9.9 This card immediately became one of my favorite Wallach cards the second I pulled one from a pack for the first time.  I even remember the exact spot on the floor in the house in Phoenix where it happened.  My father's childhood friend Ross had flown in from Rome, NY to visit.  Ross came armed with a box of 1988 Topps, and cello pack box of '88 Topps for my brother and I to split.  My brother and I spread out on the floor to tear in and stuff our faces with gum.  

Ross owned a tobacco/candy distribution warehouse in Rome, and subsequently had cards much sooner then the general public.  So this was our first look at the set, and also made us the first kids in the neighborhood to have them by a couple of weeks.  Ross was always my brother and I's favorite visitor. This Wallach couldn't have been more impressive to me if it was glowing inside the pack.  I'm sure I took pause, slurring though a mouthful of gum, to show off this master piece to everyone else.

Ross was also the guy who started giving me a box of cards every year when I was born, well before I was old enough to do anything but drool and chew on them.  The '83 Topps box he gave me was the box I pulled my first Wallach from, and he inadvertently is to blame for starting this collection.

Wallach was a National League All-Star five times (and deserved to be at least another four times).  As a kid it used to irritate me to no end when he would make the All-Star team and not be included in the Topps All-Star subset.  I've learned since then, that I had a fundamental misunderstanding of how Topps did their "All-Stars."  They only took one player from each position, not all the All-Stars, making the actual All-Star team wasn't even required.  So the fact that Topps did two All-Star cards of Wallach wasn't a slight, especially considering he was never named a starter on the All-Star team (though he should have been at least two or three times).

In any event, this card was, and remains one of my All-Time favorite Wallach cards.  As an eight year old I actually had my mother (who was an art teacher, and remains a fantastic artist) draw a giant poster of this with crayons, which I proudly hung on the door of my room for a couple of years until there was nothing left scotch tape could do for it.  I'm sure she wished she hadn't because she ended up doing similar ones of other players for all the kids on the street.  By the end I think she was mailing it in, because there were some funky looking Don Mattingly and Kirby Puckett's coming out of her "studio."

Number of this card in my collection: 164

2013 update: 337

2014 update: 384

2015 update: 524 

2016 update: 579

2017 update: 607

2018 update: 705

2019 update: 763

2020 update: 823

2021 update: 826

2022 update: 931

2023 update: 953

2024 update: 1,006

2025 update: 1,025

2026 update: 1,029

1988 O-Pee-Chee Super Star #9

Card Review: 6.4 I think I slightly prefer the Topps version of this card.  The only difference is the logo  over Wallach's right shoulder.  Obviously the backs are different too, but these all have different backs. The "Super Star" subset was much smaller than the sticker set, so the "Super Star" backs all show up on multiple stickers.  I've seen at least six different variations with the Topps Super Star Wallach.  I don't know if it was completely random, or if it's always the same 6 (or whatever) stickers that have the Wallach Super Star back.  My hope is that it's completely random, because that would mean there is a possibility of a Wallach sticker with a Wallach Super Star back.  Then I'd be left with the welcomed debate as whether to count it as a '88 Sticker, '88 Super Star, or both.

Fun Facts

*This is a rare example of my only copy of this card having been sent by a reader.  Thanks to Max of "The Starting Nine."  Of course, at some point I expect to have more than one, so I'll go ahead and amend this to say, ....rare example of my first copy of this card having been sent by a reader.

Number of this card in my collection: 1

2014 update: 4

2015 update: n/a

2016 update: n/a

2017 update: 5

2018 update: 6

2019 update: n/a

2020 update: n/a

2021 update: 7

2022 update: 8

1988 Red Foley #94

Card Review: 2.5  This is my favorite Red Foley sticker to be put out during their run from '87-92.  Not that any of them are very nice, but this one at least has a bit of an unusual picture.  The photo looks like one that would have shown up on a Fleer card, as they often used the blue b.p. jersey and had empty seats as backgrounds.  It would have made for a very nice card in the 1984 or 1985 Fleer sets, though I do like the photo used in '85 Fleer.  I think this picture is from that era too.  I have no way of proving it, but I really doubt this photo is from anywhere near 1988. I'd guess this probably from '85 or '86, maybe even as early as '82 or '83.  The only other photo I've ever seen of Wallach with a black bat is on his '83 Topps card.








Number of this card in my collection: 1
2014 update: 2
2015 update: n/a
2016 update: n/a
2017 update: n/a
2018 update: 16

1988 Sportflics #151

Card Review: 6.3  I'm no fan of Sportflics, even when I was young I didn't really care for them, but this is probably the best looking set they put out during their brief existence.   The back is pretty clean looking with complete career stats, and the way the name changes color is sort of cool.  You can't tell in the scan, but when you rotate the card to see the three different images the name at the bottom changes from white, to baby blue to dark blue while the red border remains the same.  It works much better than the actual pictures which all tend to bleed together.

Number of this card in my collection: 3
2013 update: 4
2014 update: 6
2015 update: 8 
2016 update: 9
2017 update: n/a
2018 update: n/a
2019 update: n/a
2020 update: 11

2021 update: n/a

2022 update: 12

2023 update: 19

2024 update: 20

2025 update: 24

1988 O-Pee-Chee Stickers #85

Card Review: 3.6  I slightly prefer the O-Pee-Chee to the Topps.  The only real difference is the logo on the back, I just like that circle OPC logo better than the Topps.  Otherwise they're the same.  I've got 2 of these and they both have George Brett on the back.  I don't know if that's random or by design.  I do know that the "Super Star" card of Wallach has different stickers on the back, so I'm guessing it's random.

Number of this card in my collection: 2

2014 update: n/a

2015 update: n/a

2016 update: n/a

2017 update: n/a

2018 update: n/a

2019 update: n/a

2020 update: n/a

2021 update: 3

2022 update: n/a

2023 update: n/a

2024 update: 4

1988 Topps Cloth

Card Review: Incomplete  I'm not sure what to make of this.  At $9.99 it's the 2nd most expensive Wallach "card" I've ever bought.  It's on "cloth" that is about as thick as a paper napkin if you were to peel it apart, but no where near as brittle.

I did some digging online and found a Card Collector Digest article on this set, and a youtube video testing the theory that they were made to grow and expand when submerged in water (they don't).  I'd like to see the guy try to rip one in half, but he doesn't.  To summarize the article and video: (1) there aren't very many of these, and (2) no one really seems to know what Topps was going for or why they scraped it.  (3) Of the cards out there, about half are still on uncut sheets, and the other half were cut like the one above.

Feel free to correct me in the comments if you know something I don't.

Number of this card in my collection: 1
2013 update: 2

1988 Topps File Folder

 I don't know how many of these were done, obviously fewer than the 792 cards that make up '88 Topps set, but more than a handful.  I'd guess in the neighborhood of about 25.  I remember having a few of these as a kid (never the Wallach), though for the life of me I can't remember who.  I think I had a few of the '89 ones too.  As far as I know this was the only one put out of Wallach.  I currently have 14 of them.  13 kept in the box they came in, and one that I stuff other odd-ball Wallach related items in.

I picked up my first one sometime in undergrad.  It was a period of time during which my collecting was almost non-existent.  I had other ways to waste time then that I found much more entertaining.  I lugged one of these around for a couple of semesters until it finally fell apart.  After Law School, I slowly resumed collecting, as my previous ways of wasting time were no longer acceptable, and stumbled upon a guy selling these and I gladly took them off his hands.

           

1988 Fleer Glossy #198

Card Review: 5.5  You literally have to hold this next to the '88 Fleer base card to tell it's a glossy.  There is a thing\ glossy coating on the front and as far as I can tell the back is identical.  When side by side with the regular '88 Fleer, you can see the difference when you tilt them and the light reflects differently.  It's that subtle.  With the exception of '89 (which was merely ok), Fleer Glossy was an annual disappointment.

Number of this card in my collection: 3
2014 update: 5 
2015 update: n/a
2016 update: 10
2017 update: n/a
2018 update: n/a
2019 update: 15

2020 update: 17

1988 Topps U.K. Mini Tiffany #84

Card Review: 4.3  This is the Tiffany variation that nobody asked for, for that matter, I'm pretty sure we could have all lived without  the regular card too.  But they printed these up, so I'm going to track them down.  At least we get another care featuring Shea Stadium base running on an '88 Topps product.

Number of this card in my collection: 2
2013 update: 3

1988 Topps Stickers #85

Card Review: 3.5  It was always a welcomed event to see Wallach get a full size sticker in the annual sticker book.  There was usually one full size player sticker per team, everyone else was half this size (two to a card).  Jack Morris finds himself on the back of this one.  I'm sure it's a different player on the back of all them.  I only have one of this sticker, but I have multiple copies of the Wallach "Super Star" and they all have different stickers on the back.  I need to find a Wallach sticker with a Wallach "Super Star" on the back, then go all chicken and the egg trying to decide which one to count it as.

This is another example of Wallach running the bases in Shea on an '88 Topps product.  The photographer must have snapped off a bunch of photos at once and Topps used them all.  Today they'd just re-crop the same photo.

*update*  I'm currently at 24, and am yet to find one with a Wallach "Super Star" on the back.

Number of this card in my collection: 1
2014 update: 16
2015 update: 20 
2016 update: 24
2107 update: n/a
2017 update: 25
2018 update: n/a
2019 update: 26

2020 update: 27

2021 update: n/a

2022 update: n/a

2023 update: 29

2024 update: 30

2025 update: 31

1988 Nestle #23

Card Review: 8.1  I'm not sure what sort of Nestle Product this came with, but it's not a bad looking card.  The red Expos batting practice jersey makes for a nice primary colors effect.

I didn't notice originally, but as pointed out in the comments, this card lists Wallach as a "Pinch Hitter."  I'm not sure if that was just a goofy mistake, or if the set was some sort of All-Star team and "Pinch Hitter" was just Nestle's way of including extra players.  In either event, it's inexcusable, as Wallach was the best player in all of MLB in 1987 and should have been a no-brainer for Nestle at 3B.  And given his MVP-caliber (should of won) season in '87, Nestle should have known what position he played.

In any event, I still really like this card.

Number of this card in my collection: 2
2015 update: 3
2016 update: n/a
2017 update: 4
2018 update: 6

1988 Score Glossy #70

Card Review: 8.5 Score didn't waste anytime getting in on the "glossy" action putting this set out to accompany it's first set ever in '88.  I'm not sure they really thought it through though, as their whole gimmick was that they were the first cards to have full color backs.  The base card was in a sense, "glossy," and this set would seem to undermine that claim.  As for the scans, you're just going to have to take my word for it that these are glossy, as it's nearly impossible to tell.  In hand, they are clearly glossy, a distinction that is pretty easy to tell (unlike the Fleer glossy sets).  So I'll give Score credit for that, at least their glossy set was in fact glossy.

Number of this card in my collection: 1
2013 update: 2

1988 Topps Tiffany #399

Card Review: 9.9  The base set version of this card has always been one of my all-time favorites.  For all intents and purposes this card is nicer.  But it's not the "original" so it doesn't get a 10 (blame the Soviet Judge).  These Tiffany's have just never felt "authentic" to me.

Number of this card in my collection: 3
2012 update: 6
2013 update: 9
2014 update: 15
2015 update: n/a
2016 update: 16
2017 update: n/a
2018 update: 17

2019 update: n/a

2020 update: n/a

2021 update: 18

2022 update: 19

2023 update: n/a

2024 update: n/a

2025 update: 20

1988 Donruss All-Stars #59

Card Review: 9.2  I've always like this card.  It has a good looking photo, I like the shade of blue on the back, and I love the AL and NL logos.  I wish I could find t-shirts with just the NL or AL logo on the front.  Donruss altered this set slightly from the base set.  In '86 they used the same design but made the cards bigger.  I don't know what they did in '87 because Wallach wasn't an All-Star in '86 (victim of the Mike Schmidt bias).

Number of this card in my collection: 3
2012 update: 4
2013 update: 16
2014 update: 29
2015 update: 39 
2016 update: 42
2017 update: n/a
2018 update: 47
2019 update: 49
2020 update: 51

2021 update: n/a

2022 update: 61

2023 update: 64

2024 update: 74

2025 update: 76

2026 update: 80