ERROR: 1989 Fleer #440 Manny Trillo

One of the perks of slowly but surely loading my collection onto Zistle is that I am learning about all kinds of error cards that I didn't know existed. Thanks to some other collectors who have maintained pretty detailed checklists, I've already been able to show off 1990 Score Lloyd McClendon and 1988 Fleer Keith Moreland cards I found in my collection.

Enter this 1989 Fleer card of Manny Trillo.

Aside from the top/bottom centering (not my crop job) the fronts are identical. 

There error shows up on the back in the demographics box. The corrected card on the left says that Trillo throws with his "Right" while the error says he throws "Rig..."

Like the other errors, I don't really remember which I had in my official collection and which was in my extras box. And again, it's nice to be able to add to my collection from within my collection.

ERROR: 1988 Fleer Jody Davis & Keith Moreland

I was sorting some of my doubles from my recent Cubs lot pickups and came across some funny business. 

These are the standard Jody Davis and Keith Moreland cards from the 1988 Fleer set. These have been upgraded over time from my childhood cards but one copy or another has been in my possession for the past 25 years. In fact, my 1988 Fleer team set has probably been complete for just as long.

But then this card showed up in one of my recent lots.

I knew that set was complete so I skipped right past it on the initial sorting. The second time around though, on the detail sorting, the two different Keith Morelands were suddenly next to each other and obviously different. Maybe one came from a box bottom or some other kind of advertising? Nope.

That's where the Jody Davis comes in. The bunting "Moreland" is actually catcher Jody Davis and an error card. The batting stance Moreland is the corrected version. I thought I was up to snuff on late 1980's/early 1990's early cards, but this one slipped through the cracks.

And since I scan the fronts and backs of all of my cards, here are the backs. Despite the error on the front, the Moreland backs were the same on both cards so I just uploaded one.

Backside Appreciation Part 4

In this running theme, I take a quick look at the less commonly seen part of a baseball card, the backside. It could be something informative that caught my eye in a blurb. It could be funny. It could just be a really nice layout.

Today's card is an error (or corrected version) that I didn't even know I had. Well, I knew I had the card, I just didn't know there was an error associated with it. When adding my collection to Zistle, I noticed two listings for the 1990 Score Lloyd McClendon card. Luckily, it also told me what the error was. Here are the two side by side, see if you can spot the difference...

Corrected version on the left, Error on the right

At this point, I don't remember which I had in my collection and which I had in my extras box. I'm just glad that I did end up having them both already. Not that my retirement will hinge on whether or not I had a 1990 Score Lloyd McClendon error, but it's kind of cool to add to my collection from within my collection.

Give up? Or just want to confirm your answer? Scroll down...

Sorry, just wanted to make sure the answer wasn't on the same screen for those who were actually looking and not skipping ahead to the answer.

During McClendon's time with the Cubs (1989-90), he wore #10. He was one of ten to wear it after Ron Santo, but before the Cubs decided to retire it. Fellow catcher, Rick Wrona wore #1 during that time, the number erroneously credited to McClendon.

I don't know that I can talk rarity on junk wax but I have no idea how soon Score corrected their mistake. There are a couple of each variation on eBay for around a buck, but none have sold recently. I bought a lot of Score back in the day and would be willing to bet these are both from my childhood collection.

McClendon has Seattle off to a decent start this year. May he can pull a Pete Carroll and win Seattle another championship and I can retire on a Lloyd McClendon error card! And he'd be living up to his Legendary Lloyd nickname...

Here's the front for those curious:

How'd That Get There?! Part 2

As some of you know, I’ve been slowly adding my collection to Zistle. Last week I ran a post call How’d That Get There that featured a pair of cards that made me do a double take and ask myself why they were in my collection.  As you can probably tell by the title, I found another couple. I don’t know that this will be recurring theme, especially once I get through entering my cards but I can at least get a few more posts out of it. Maybe I should have called it My Non-Cubs Cubs Cards.

This is probably one of the more well-known error cards. Or maybe that’s the Cubs bias talking. And that late 1980’s, early 1990’s was my heyday for collecting as a kid.

Keith Comstock is clearly in a Seattle Mariners uniform. He never played for the Cubs so this isn’t some last minute “Traded” card. This is just a flat out mistake by somebody at Topps. One that was eventually corrected.

A card I do not have in my collection

Because it’s an error, it generally doesn’t show up in Cubs team sets, but it will stay in my collection. In fact, I’m almost, kind of, sort of on the look out to add one to my Desert Shield Cubs team set. Maybe. We’ll see.

And for the curious, here’s the back: