More Thoughts on the Oldies Collection

Interestingly, this is post 1111. I just thought that was pretty funny.

The last couple days, I brought information about two fairly simple new box sets, from the Oldies Collection, also titled (subtitled?) Achievement.

I'm guessing and hoping that the Oldies Collection will be a longer, ongoing series that uses multiple designs, while the Achievement set will hopefully maintain the same design, similar to the Legends series. BBM can really use a quality throwback series (other than Classic, which is a set that reuses BBM designs), and I think this might be it.

 The basic design idea for the Achievement series comes from menko cards, especially the tobacco ones with simple designs and moderate text on the front, and of course monochrome backs. (Note that the front and back images above come from different cards.)

There are a lot of great old sets to pay homage to. I suppose the most iconic is Calbee, but that's an ongoing issue which really shouldn't be copied.

 There are somewhat-modern sets like ID Card (above) and the Takara series. Takara would be a good choice.

 Some of the earliest cards are not menko, however, they're bromides. These are even simpler than menko, basically photos with a line or two of text, and usually blank backs. This could be great as an oversized box-topper.

 The basic tobacco menko I showed above is a great start, but I'd love to see a return to the colorful drawings found on 1950s menko sets. I don't think I've ever seen a full art set other than the Players Collection series issued in 2003 without team logos. Additionally, the backs with game characters, random digits or even other subjects (fruits, anyone?) were a nice addition.

  Round and die-cut menko could be great inserts as well.

 While menko cards are generally the most beautiful Japanese cards I've seen, karuta designs and plenty of issues by other manufacturers are also great sources of inspiration.

Actually, a great one-off addition to the Oldies Collection would be a nice 144 card set grabbing a few of these ideas. The base set could have the players on menko designs - perhaps one menko design per team. A parallel could have various menko backs instead of the standard backs, and original-sized menkos are possible one-per-pack parallels here.

Inserts have a lot to pull from. Large-format bromides and oversized die-cut menkos would be awesome box loaders (something BBM has never done, as far as I know), Perhaps one of each per box. A cartoon menko insert set would be great, as would an additional insert set or two using another retro card design.

BBM has never done a Allen & Ginter/Golden Age style throwback set. What do you think about this?

A great idea for a Topps flagship parallel.

Many collectors hate parallels. They're lazy, overdone, and add clutter to packs that waste set builders' money. They're just more-limited color-bordered, or gold foiled, or sparkly holographic background versions of the regular card. Do we really need more parallels? Probably not.

I like the Diamond Anniversary sparkly cards, though, and using the gold version next year changes things up a little bit. Next year's wood parallel is only a 1/1, but wouldn't it be great as the base design or at least a more-accessible parallel?

But I've just thought up a way to kill two birds with one stone.

What if... hear me out on this one... what if Topps made a no-bordered parallel of its flagship design?

 No white border. No gold border. No blue border. No sparkles, no refractorization, no wood.

 Just take the base card, remove the border, and increase the printing quality. Insert them one-per-pack or so, and call them... wait for it: Stadium Club.

Topps would have another parallel to "add value" to packs and boxes, and I'd get my wish (as others want as well): the return of Stadium Club. Topps could replace the one-per-pack (yes, I realize it got better as the year went on) ToppsTown insert card with this parallel, and make ToppsTown a flimsy paper stock insert that doesn't count towards my card total. The photos seen above on Bruce and Gonzalez would already look great in higher-res printing - Topps has done a pretty good job of using better photos in the past year.

I'd say do the same thing as its own release, similar to Chrome, but then you run into the Bowman Conundrum, where there are too many sets that all look the same, over and over again.

If Topps released an insert of this nature - high-quality printing with full-bleed photos - in its flagship set, in a realistically obtainable quantity, I would assemble it along with the regular base flagship issue.

What do you guys think? Is this a good plan to bring back Stadium Club without "eating up" a full release, or am I just adding more unwanted clutter to an already cluttered issue?