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Thursday, January 22, 2009

Topps Obama Set: Pack 1

The poll results are in and they are... weird. I checked on the results from time to time over the past day and they started off with a quick lead for Yea, 24-12. Then this morning Nay started sloooowly creeping back, getting about a vote per hour. With an hour left, Nay had passed Yea 29-28. Then with just under an hour to go, Yea got two quick votes to jump ahead 30-29. Then the weirdness happened. I looked back with 20 minutes to go and Yea was up 33-31. I refreshed with under 10 minutes left and it was back to Yea 30-29. What? That's some serious Ken Blackwell mess going on right there. I closed the tab and opened it back up after the poll closed and it's back to 33-31. Then I opened another tab to check the comments on the original post and that poll says 30-29. Two tabs, same blog, same closed poll, two different results. I think Firefox is having cache amnesia. At any rate, the people have spoken, The SuperDelegate has made his decision and my Obama cards will be featured on the blog.

Now, I know Obama is not universally loved and some people are just not into politics and don't want it mixed in with their card fix. So, to make everyone happy and to try to keep the trolls from wandering in and whining about how this isn't what the blog is all about and they'll never come back ever blahblahblah this is what I'm gonna do for you:

Before every Big O post I am going to post a random card from the image vault:

And also post something wicked cool. In this case, a 13 year old girl playing Rush's YYZ on the drums. Warning: There's a big obnoxious flash ad full of bouncing mammaries on that page, but Rush played epically by a girl cancels out the blatant sexism. The 3000 hits that site just got because of that description... well I can't do anything about that sexism.

There, you got your dose of coolness. If you don't like Obama or don't care about his cards, please go away now.

Pack 1:

79 Economic Team Takes the Field

The striking thing about this card is that Topps was able to turn around an event from 11/24/08, Obama announcing his economic team, and have it ready on a card for release by 1/20/09. The design is very simple, but effective. No foil, no nonsense, just a full bleed photo with a small blue band at the bottom with the card name and red stars on either side. The back is well designed too:

A photo takeing up about a third of the card on the left, the title at top in a red stripe, a paragraph about the photo on the front and the card number and legalese on the bottom. Very well designed card for something that had to bave been slapped together really quickly. Imagine this design on the 2010 Topps base set? Hmmmm?

7 Loving, Nuturing Grandparents

This card makes me sad and I don't want to talk about it.

54 Bill Lends A Hand Inauguration Day foil stamp

This card is actually a parallel, although it's almost impossible to tell from the scan. In the bottom left corner above those three stars there is a gold foil stamp that says "Inauguration Day *2009*". I massively tweaked the scanner settings to get the best image I could of it.

It's a parallel. Not a particularly necessary one. They are one in three packs and for the purposes of my set, I just don't see that foil at all. Foil, what foil?

Sticker 17 of 18

Here's the one per pack sticker. It's die cut around the white border so you can just slap that part on your notebook. The backs are kind of cool:

Each back has an environmental tip and some history behind it. This back advocates cleaning up pollution and references Lady Bird Johnson's "Keep America Beautiful" campaign. Again, for a set that had to have had a really quick turnaround, this is very well designed.

81 The First Granny

I don't quite understand this photo. The card is supposed to be about Barack's mother in law, Marian, but it's got her out of focus looking at her daughter on the front of the card. There's a really nice picture of her on the back though, not sure why they didn't use that one.

12 The Newlyweds

Awwww ain't they cute.

3 From Hawaii to Washington

Here's Barack in full blown MIB bad ass mode. Why can't Topps get a picture of Derek Jeter or Jimmy Rollins as good as this one? Oh yeah, this was taken by a professional campaign photographer.

Up soon: Desert Storm pack. Then packs 2 and 3. I'm going to spread 'em out so you don't get Obama fatigue.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very cool stuff here. Love the one with Obama and the Big Dog.

Ben said...

I'm an Obama fan, I'm happy we've got him, but I won't get into politics here.

These cards look good. Very simple and not overstated. It'd be nice if Topps could give us a baseball release that looks as classy.

Captain Canuck said...

if the collation is anything like Topps' other non-sports cards.... you won't get anywhere near a set.
Topps could learn a lot from companies like Inkworks and Rittenhouse....

Anonymous said...

Remember that Topps did JFK cards with a similar personal-history approach (although in B&W, not color) during his presidency. A little bow to the past here, maybe.