No. 1 In '71

NOTE: SEE POSTSCRIPT DESCRIBING A FURTHER DATING ANOMALY 

Today brings a peek at a very obscure single card Topps issue that honored Bowie Kuhn, the Commissioner of Major League Baseball from 1969-84.  If you follow this blog you probably know about the card and I  made brief reference to it here previously:

No doubt it's a Topps card...the question before us though is when it was issued.

The card has generally been attributed to 1969 (PSA's choice) and in some cases 1970.  However, a little sleuthing revealed those years are both, in fact, incorrect.

I found a blurb from the July 8, 1983 issue of Sports Collectors Digest that offered a couple of tantalizing, albeit fairly non-specific, clues:

OK, seemingly vague and hopeless but if you input "Kuhn" + "Newark" + "Saints" + "Sinners" + "Dinner" into newspapers.com, you get a nice result:

That is from The News of Paterson, New Jersey and the article was in their December 29, 1970 issue.  On January 26, 1971 Commissioner Kuhn was honored at the Robert Treat Hotel (now a Best Western) and that is indeed the date of "issue".  I've seen estimates of between 100 and 300 copies of this thin card (almost paper, really) being produced  and when I checked the capacity of the hotel's ballroom I found a maximum of 1,500.  However, it looks like the current ballroom could be a later addition to the hotel; and I suspect the 1971 version held fewer people.

No matter how big the ballroom was, these are difficult, although not impossible, to find. The date however, was not.  

POST-POSTING UPDATE: MATH BEING AMONG MY LESSER SKILLS, IT HAS BEEN POINTED OUT TO ME ELSEWHERE THAT KUHN'S AGE AT THE TIME SHOWN ON THE CARD'S REVERSE PEGS THIS AT 1969 (HE WOULD HAVE TURNED 43 ON 10/28/69).  SO INSTEAD OF SOLVING A MYSTERY, I'VE GOT A NEW ONE TO DECIPHER.  I'VE LEFT THE POST INTACT AND WILL UPDATE IF NEW INFORMATION COMES ALONG. I SUSPECT THE NON-HUMOROUS PORTIONS OF THE BIO ON THE CARD BACK REFLECTS THE FACTS WHEN HE ASSUMED OFFICE ON FEBRUARY 4, 1969. IN FACT, ASSUMING THE DINNER DESCRIBED WAS ALWAYS HELD ANNUALLY IN JANUARY, THERE IS NO POSSIBLE TIME HE WAS COMMISSIONER AND 42 YEARS OLD AT THE SAME TIME.

Mind Your Own Business

There is a small but distinct list of baseball issues from Topps that consist of a single card. The most famous of these is Joe Garagiola's 1976 NBC Business Card that is a dead ringer for a '73 Topps baseball card on the obverse:



The front might fool you for a minute but the back gives away the true purpose of the card (and is lifted from the regular 1976 back design):




Joe allegedly had another Topps created business card made up a few years later (early 90's I believe) but I haven't been able to find a scan or even a solid reference. The ersatz '73 above can be found with relative ease. I vividly remember seeing it on an episode of This Week in Baseball in the mid 70's and wanting to buy one. Back then, not an easy task. Now, with the Internet and card shows, totally do-able. I found my copy last year at a local show; the dealer had a few extras so I picked the best of the bunch for $20.

Now the Joe G. card is an actual business card; other Topps singleton "sets" exist for a different reason.

Before he became a Hall of Famer, this scarce 1969/70 card of newly minted baseball commissioned Bowie Kuhn could be had at a reasonable price, despite its scarcity (100-200 cards printed by most accounts). I would have to say it was printed up for a testimonial dinner.



I nailed the scan but the card eluded me a few years back on Ebay. I am kicking myself now for not bidding higher. Here is the informative back:



And while scope of of this blog really only extends to 1980, there is another card from a decade later that is quite famous. This blog will remain apolitical but the card is decidedly from inside the Beltway:



The story is that Bush 41 asked Topps to print these up and they complied, giving the President 100 cards for his own use. Now, Topps was still using 132 card sheets back then so that leaves us with an errant 32 cards, possibly explaining how some of them were pulled from 1990 baseball wax packs back in the day. These are quite valuable and interest goes far beyond our little hobby. The Orlando Sentinel ran a nice piece (and a great scan for me to steal) last year on this interesting pasteboard.

Nowadays, anyone can have Topps print up a card of them for about $15 so the romance is gone. I think these are some of the neatest things Topps ever did-back when it was OK to be whimsical in the business world.

The best part about having one of these cards made up for you? The fact you were #1 in the set!