Card of the Moment #24
April 23rd, 2010 by slangon

My days on the beach are quickly winding down. I sort of hate these last couple of days of a kind of long vacation. Knowing that you’ll soon be back to work makes it a little hard to enjoy your last fleeting moments of doing nothing. I know. Boo hoo for me.

Anyway, here’s a card.

2005 Bowman Heritage Red Backs #11 David Wright

When I first started to see all the previews of 2010 Topps, the 2 things I was most excited to get my hands on were the Million Card Giveaway codes and the Target Exclusive Red Back Cards. It turned out that the Red Backs were only available in retail packs, not blasters or rack packs. Over the last 3 months or so since it came out I only saw retail packs once at my local Target. I picked up 6 or 7 packs I think and landed 3 Red Backs. They were pretty cool, and the 3 guys I got were pretty good players. I did find them to be a little cheap feeling compared to this Red Back that was included as an insert set in 2005 Bowman Heritage.

Here is the back of the Wright card. It red printed on brownish cardboard as opposed to the 2010 Red Backs that are printed on glossy stock.

Initially I thought it was an arbitrary decision to print the 2005 version on darker stock, but it turns out it wasn’t. Apparently, when the 1951 versions of these cards were produced, Topps released them with 2 different card stock colors, much like they did with the 1960 set. It’s been debated whether the two different colored backs were due to the cards being produced in 2 different printing plants or due to a second batch being printed at a later date with different card stock being used. I guess that’s a question for the ages. I just find it kind of cool that present day Topps would pick up on a detail like that and incorporate it into their card design without really calling it out. They left it up to the collector to figure that out.

I do sort of question what they would reproduce a set that was clearly a Topps set in a Bowman Heritage product. Why didn’t they just make it an insert set in a Topps Heritage set? Who knows. It also sort of irks me that they didn’t go full speed ahead with reproducing this set and round the corners. I realize that would add to the production costs, but come on. I think they look a little weird with that rounded frame and the square corners.

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