A Game of Stickers

  Howdy y'all! It's a beautiful Saturday morning here in Chicago, and I feel like talking baseball cards. More to the point, baseball stickers. But first, a Thank You! shout out to Pete Pianelli of Trading Bases for surprising me with four new Cubs items to add to my collection.

Pete sent my first postcard size baseball card. 

Pete also enclosed these three mini items.

  I had never seen the Topps scratcher cards before. They're roughly the same size as recent era cigarette cards. Next is a 1988 Topps #33, Lee Smith back sticker, followed by a 1984 Fleer #67 Lee Smith sticker. It is these last two items that pushed up the discussion on baseball stickers.

  The 1984 Fleer sticker shown at the above bottom, has an appropriate back. It's nothing fancy, but it is related to the front image.

  The back of the 1988 Topps Lee Smith has an image of Gary Gaetti, of the Twins having just whomped a ball. The back image is not related to the front image in any way. I suppose for set collectors it just does not matter, but for team and player collectors, it matters. It means I must somehow find out which of my teams and players are shown on the back of another player's/team's card/sticker.  That's not an easy thing to do. The Trading Card Database does not have most of the backs from this set stored, and even if it did, the information is not included in the written data, which means I would have to see blow-ups of the all the back images in order to add them to my want list.

  Here are some more mismatched fronts and backs on baseball stickers.

From 1986 Fleer we have a Cubs front and a Yankees back. This set has a limited variety of backs, and I believe that it may be possible to have any of them appear on the backs. Note that I do not think there is a backside representative for every team, so mismatches are going to happen. Below is another sticker from the same year set. It shows a Cubs logo on the front, and the Famous Feat on the back belongs to the White Sox. Although my team and primary focus is the Cubs, I actually keep all three of these team's cards when they come my way.  So basically I need four cards to fill empty slots on all three teams, and this is only based on Cubs fronts. I still need to gather the White Sox fronts and the Yankees fronts, although I am in no hurry to do so.

  Here's another mismatch group. This time from the White Sox collection.

  The above White Sox image is found on the backside of the 1987 Fleer Blue Jays sticker. The backside of the White Sox sticker belongs to the Dodgers. Hmm... I don't yet have the Cubs from this set. Anyway, most years the card companies match the backs to the front. Most. In the case of Upper Deck, none of the stickers I have from them have anything printed on the back. I know their first three years are all holograms, but I am unfamiliar with anything that followed.

  Here are some images of random backs that do match their fronts.

  Have a great day, and thanks for stopping by!