I have a big pile of Extra Bases cards hanging out in my card closet. Every time I see the stack, I wonder why we don't have cards like these any more. Is there anybody who was collecting in the 1990s who doesn't like them? If so, I have never met them.
Please, someone. Remake these cards. I'd even buy them if it was a Panini brand.
Yes, they are large cards, which sometimes throws people off.
"How do I store these if I use boxes?"
"I put all my cards in plastic sheets. What sheets should I use?"
I frankly don't care. Put them somewhere. They are awesome cards. Here is the front of the 1994 Extra Bases Ray Lankford card.
The picture is huge and I like the shape of the card. Nice action shot of Ray batting. The background has that cookie cutter stadium vibe with the non-descript, darkly painted dugout. I am leaning with The Vet in Philadelphia on this card. A large number of the Cardinal in this set have pictures in Busch Stadium, but Todd Zeile also has a road picture that is clearly in a game against the Phillies.
At the bottom of the card, I like that his name is red, goes with the design of the Cardinals cards throughout the Extra Bases set. The yellow is fine, more on that when I get to the back of the card. The Extra Bases logo is not the best. Logo design was not a strong point of the 1990s. Not only baseball, baseball cards, and sports, but just in general. This one reminds me of the Phoenix Coyotes hockey team logo. The old 1990s one, not the more recent uniforms.
Maybe the Extra Bases logo is not this bad, but it is much better. There was an airline that had purple, green, and yellow planes in the 1990s, but I at a loss for a name. I am sure that Carl Ichan bought them, loaded them with debt, and then declared bankruptcy.
Here is the back of the card.
Again, I like the shape of the card and the full-sized color photo on the back of the card. I like when companies put some statistics on the back of the card, while these are simple, I will take it given I get the large picture of Ray. The yellow writing feels too bright, but all the cards in Extra Bases used that same color on the back.
I am going to point out one other feature that I love on the back of the card that I usually ignore on these posts. Look at the card number. It's big and has contrast. Love when cards are easy to sort.
I had totally forgotten about Extra Bases until yesterday... when I stumbled across a partial A's team set. They're so cool. Kinda bummed Ultra Pro doesn't make the slider boxes that hold these cards. I know they make the pages, but I just don't have the shelf space for anymore binders.
ReplyDeleteI know there are not a ton of the "tall boy" style cards, but you'd think there would be enough around that Ultra Pro would consider making something to hold them. Just thinking about some of the box toppers that Topps has created over the past decade, I think several might be near the dimensions of these cards. The A's team set is nice in Extra Bases. I believe a lot of the cards were photographed in Fenway. Great backgrounds on the Henderson and McGwire cards.
DeleteI feel the same away about tall boys, and their various later clones. And I actually kind of like the idea of such cards being released now, if only because I know how much they would bother the grader/investor crowd. Just think of all of the funny tweets from those sorts that were missing out on! :)
ReplyDeleteThey would have a hard time storing them and they would come back as PSA 8s instead of 9.5s and 10s. I am sure there would be tons of entertaining Tweets and Facebook posts about collectors who spent $100 to get their Mike Trout Tall Boy graded and they fell ripped off.
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