1981 Coca Cola (Coke) Yankees
 

I know these were "unissued." Has anyone ever seen them in pack form? I know that the header card exists, and Al has previously shown off 10 of the 11 that should exist. (And Fritsch sells the Reggie pretty regularly.) But is anyone aware of them being issued in pack form? If so, can you share a photo?
kevin

Kevin - I got my original 3 Yankee cards and the Header from Fritsch. No pack. Later picked up 8 additional Yankees from Topps Vault. Got one finished version and one progressive proof version of each. For some reason those 8 were not produced even in the limited quantities of the ones Fritsch had.

I believe there must be at least one more Yankee out there ( for total of 12) and it is likely an outfielder, but have yet to see it

I posted the 11 I have in the Toughest cards of the 80s thread in here.

Al-11 Yankees + 1 Header I think, to match the other sets.

Maybe I have just 10, Pretty sure I am one short


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Interesting. I ask because there is an alleged pack on ebay right now, and I saw a handful of others the other day. All with Cerone on top.
kevin

That is interesting. He describes it as a complete 11 card team set but only mentions Cerone, Gossage, and Reggie. I’m guessing it has multiples of those three cards inside of it. If someone were to buy it and open it and find only those three players would they have a case for a refund, or would it be void because the pack was opened?

He changed the description of the listing to say that it only contains the three cards of Cerone, Gossage, and Reggie. A certain board member (not me) rattled him :D. ETA: I found the listing you were talking about that had several Yankees packs. The whole lot went for $49. I wonder if the buyer is the same guy that is trying to sell one pack for $2,000.

Impressive one of a kind collection, a True Teasure!!

Do the other eight have finished backs (like the Jackson, Goose and Cerone)?

It looks like the progressives are missing the black, do the finished cards have that layer?

Fascinating set!

Oh holy cow! Are those yours? If so, are you willing to part with any of them? I have enjoyed collecting 1981 Coke cards, and those would be neat to add to my collection!

The price of $1000 for that one on ebay is absurd. Just absolutely ridiculous. If for no other reason than anyone with recent experience opening these packs knows that the cards don't come out in very good condition. I bought a few boxes of Astros and Royals packs a few years ago and opened enough of them to make a set and to realize that they are all perfectly sequenced, so there is no need to open the packs in a quest for different cards (the Don Sutton packs in the Astros quickly became favorites!) Since Fritsch still has all three Yankees cards, and has for decades, they aren't exactly impossible to find. And I would bet that Fritsch's cards came directly from Topps and were never in packs and thus are in better shape than any that might come out of those tight little 40 year old bricks.

These are fun, quirky little cards. They are one of the things that makes collecting fun for me! And given our present circumstances, don't we all need a little bit of fun? :)

Thanks for sharing, Cliff!

kevin

Man, I wish I did buy that lot for $49, I would have jumped on that instantly. He was asking $2,000 originally, now he's down to a more reasonable $200. One sold for $100 from a different seller.

Wow that's the deal of a lifetime for $49, especially since the Red Sox packs have unissued cards also (Fisk and Lynn left for other teams so removed from the regular set).

Here's the listing https://www.ebay.com/itm/1981-Topps-...p2047675.l2557

They just listed a single Red Sox pack for $95 OBO, so my guess is that they will not fulfill the SOLD OUT order.

Al,
did you see the Dave Winfield that just ended this morning on ebay??? From the Topps vault, and must be your missing outfielder... I am sure hoping that you bought it!!! Went for almost $600. Geez.
kevin

Yes, hopefully that finishes that set for me. I figured there are enough Winfield collectors that it would be expensive. One of the curses of set building.

There are however a bunch of unissued proof cards too. Players not in the issued sets ( Lynn for example), players on different teams from the issued sets ( Fisk and Kingman for example), players with different positions from issued sets ( Buckner for example). Not sure how many there are. I have a half dozen of them so far

Al,
Good!!! I was watching that go at the end of the auction. I had put in a bid at about 75 bucks, and then in the last hour or two it pushed past. In the last 5 minutes it got wild!!! But I was super hopeful that you were the winner. I bet you are the only one with a complete Yankees team set. Congrats!
kevin

that's awesome! congrats Al

Amazing, mystery solved!

Do the unissued Yankees cards have finished backs or are they blank?

Gossage, Jackson, Cerone and the Header have finished backs. The rest are blank backs from Topps Vault. I read once that the Yankee set production was halted and cancelled when the Yankees dropped Coke as a sponsor

How are you doing Andy ? Why is a football guy slumming with the baseball guys :-)

Way to go Al !
Congrats on completion!
RayB

Scans are more fun...

Wow congrats Al!

Ricky Y

Not issued, or issued differently in the team sets

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https://hosting.photobucket.com/albu...pswuezughi.jpg
https://hosting.photobucket.com/albu...pshgmo1hm7.jpg
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https://hosting.photobucket.com/albu...psnhtq502f.jpg

I would swear that the Lynn is perforated on the left edge. ETA: it looks like it is also perforated on the bottom on the right.

Agreed, Cliff

What auction was that that claimed Fisk was traded?

That perforated edge is interesting, much finer than Topps usually did at the time. I wonder if the set was originally planned as a sheet or panel?

So a quick follow up question...on ebay a seller has a handful of groupings that he claims are "promo" sets along with packs of the same. These are three card groupings of issued cards (except for the Yankees) that look identical to the issued cards but have different numbers on the back (i.e., all of them are numbered 1-3.) Does anyone here have any additional information on this? Does anyone know if you can tell the difference between an "issued" pack and a "promo" pack any way besides opening it? The seller has several, including ones for the Astros, Phillies, and the familiar Yankees.
kevin

1981 Coca cola
 

I just picked up on this thread. As you all know there 3 card sets with a header card for all 12 teams. I have uncut sheets of those as well as the progressive proof sheets for 6 of the teams (including the Yankees and Red Sox). The progressive proof sheets for what I call the full production sets of 11 cards clearly show a Yankee set. I have owned the final production sheet as well and as I recall the Cardinals were double printed and the Yankees omitted. This has happened before with other issues. Let me know if you have additional questions. Jeff

Wow! I know that all of us would love to see photos of those sheets! Can you share with us?
Thanks in advance!
kevin

Is it perfed or just cut lines and some scanner artifacts magnifying the effect?

I’ll post them tomorrow

To me it looks like very fine perforations. But I'm just going off the scans, which could be misleading.

Hey, there is nothing misleading about my scans :)

progressive proofs
 

I have taken multiple pictures of the progressive proofs and production sheets of the 3 card sets. I also have photographed progressive proofs of what I consider the full team sets, 66 card sheets of half the set. I have one yellow proof of the other 66 cards that contain the yankees and red sox. It does not appear as if Carlton Fisk card is on the sheet. Can someone tell me how to post the pictures?

Several of the cards I posted above are unissued proofs which would not show up on set production sheets. Like the unissued 77 Topps proofs listed in SCD, they presumably originated on proof sheets that exist if at all in limited quantities.

Darn lack of clarity whenever I try to keep things brief....

I was thinking more along the lines of scans not always capturing dimensional things accurately, or oddly, adding dimension to things that are actually flat.

Then there's the whole human perception thing. I look at a lot of stamps, so i may be "programmed" to see perforations where someone else sees a dotted line.

Are they actually perforated?

I was kidding Steve. Always appreciate your insights. The card does seem to have a jagged edge which is pretty strange even for a unissued card presumably from a pre production sheet

I looked at the scan for a long time and it's impossible for me to tell but I lean toward a dotted line and not perforations. Always expect the unexpected with Topps and you'll never be surprised though!

Out of town but will try to post more focused scan of edge next week

81 coca cola progressive proofs
 

Here are pictures of the yellow proof of the production sheet that shows the unissued yankees and five other teams. This sheet has the common 66 card blank back format. I am sorry but it seems as if I have to post all the sheet photos one at a time.

81 coca cola progressive proofs
 

Here is the red proof of the other half of the set. I'll post the full color version next

81 coca cola progressive proofs
 

Here is the final version of the other sheet. There are five other variations in this run.

81 coca cola progressive proofs
 

Here are progressive proofs of the team set. These are interesting because they have the yankees and the red sox.

81 coca cola progressive proofs
 

This is the production sheet of all 12 3 card sets. Somewhere I have the full team production sheet that I believe had the cardinals printed twice instead of the yankees.

Fantastic, I took the liberties to blow up a couple of them.

Great work, I blew this one up too.

Lynn Proof
 

On my unissued Lynn proof that Cliff magnified in post 25, there is no perforation, but the Topps Certificate of Authenticity which is in the Topps Vault sealed holder behind Lynn has a black dotted line along on side, apparently front and back. The certificate is generic and does not mention the specific card. Maybe they were cut from sheets for inclusion in the Vault slabs. Do not know if the certificates are blank backed or possibly dual sided

Those uncut proof sheets are great

I also love that the proof sheets show the Fisk card as a Red Sox team member, which is a card that wasn't part of the regular issue. The proof sheets seem to accurately show the three card sets that were all issued in packs as samples. Really neat!!!
kevin

I have 45 unopened packs of the 3 Yankees with header cards. I also have 20 of each pack that have been opened and have Gossage and Jackson's auto on them. including e 3 of the header cards/ I also have 500 packs of the 3 red sox..Fisk, Lynn and Rice. as well as several other opened packs signed by all 3.