A few weeks ago when I was visiting family in Minnesota for the Minnesota State Fair, I stopped by my favorite card shop, Three Star Sportscards, which is located in the Twin Cities suburb of Roseville. They always have some unique items from the junk wax era and I picked up this $1.00 product which guarantees 12 George Brett cards from different years and cards from major manufacturers. Funny thing is, I would be more excited if they were minor manufacturers!
They also give us the opportunity to get a free copy of Baseball Card News which has long ago bit the dust.
So here are my 12 Brett cards. It is probably exactly what you would expect as mixture of junk wax era cards from mainly Topps, plus some Donruss and Upper Deck. Certainly the slight oddball here is the Boardwalk and Baseball card on the left in the middle row.
You may have seen those cards floating around before and you might not have known what their story was. Back in the late 1980's there was a theme park in Orlando called Boardwalk and Baseball and in 1987 Topps issued a 33-card set that featured all batters on the checklist. The set was to be given out/sold at the park but collectors weren't exactly clamoring for a pink bordered card set and it sort of fizzled out and became a part of trading card history.
But if you do have some of these in your 5,000 card boxes, take a second look at them. Some of the Boardwalk and Baseball sets were printed without the line separating the two "B"s on the front. That error/variation is pretty rare and ups the value significantly.
What I was hoping for was something like this, Brett's "Big League Brothers" card from the 1977 Topps set. George's older brother Ken pitched for 14 seasons in the majors and was an All-Star in 1974. They were teammates on the Royals for part of the 1980 and 1981 season.
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