Tales of (Don) Money and (Twinkie) Gold
And an easy way to remember which baseball cards mark health food selections
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1975 Hostess Twinkies Don Money (#112) - Card of the Day
If you wanted to talk “money” in baseball cards in the early 1980s, before rookie cards became Rookie Cards, you had a few places to start:
T206 Honus Wagner
1952 Topps Mickey Mantle
1960s and 1970s high numbers — 1967 Topps Tommy John, 1972 Topps Rod Carew & Steve Garvey, etc.
Errors and variations
For many collectors looking to hit it big with a find, it was that last category that held the most promise…
Would your next 1981 Fleer wax pack yield a C. Nettles?
Could you find a white letter variation of the 1969 Topps Mickey Mantle card at the local card show?
Or would you be the one to discover a previously unreported error in this year’s Donruss set?
The possibilities seemed endless!
And just about every type of set was a new opportunity to find cardboard gold. Or, maybe overprocessed pastry gold.
Such was the case for the Hostess issues of the mid-1970s, as illustrated by Brewers All-Star Don Money above, on his 1976 card.
For the most part, these sets came as three-card panels on box bottoms of Hostess treats, leaving the collector to cut them apart — or not — as he saw fit.
The Money card back is typical for these cards:
But Hostess had other ideas in mind when it came to issuing cards with their Twinkies. In particular, they embedded a single card into the backing for each hunk of golden diabetic death with no barrier between the card and the goo.
The Twinkies cards were pretty much identical to the base Hostess cards once they were loosed from their respective panels. Because of their prophylactic-free existence, though, the Twinkies cards often ended up stained, bruised, and otherwise battered.
That makes Twinkies cards something of a condition rarity today, usually commanding a premium when they’re in decent shape. But other than grease marks, is there any way to tell the two versions apart?
Sure there is — just take a look at the back of Money’s Twinkies card:
Obvious, right?
OK, maybe not. So I’ll tell you — the Twinkies card has black bars at the top and bottom of the card back, the base Hostess card does not.
If I need some help remembering that, a little gem that my dad shared with me when I was a kid might do the trick…
Ding Dongs and Ho Hos are health food because they have a protective coating of waxy chocolate stuff to keep out germs and evil spirits.
Twinkies are not health food because their tender golden cake is exposed to all the ills of the world. Hostess was just trying to warn us of such with somber black “armbands” on their Twinkies cards.
So now you know.
And also, our poster boy Don Money turns 77 years old today.
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Thurman Munson’s Oddball Bookends
Also born on this day was late Yankees great, All-Star catcher, and American League MVP Thurman Munson. Many think he should be in the Hall of Fame, too, and you could make a pretty compelling case that he’s the best eligible receiver still not enshrined in Cooperstown.
Munson has some iconic baseball cards, like his 1971 Topps “cloud of dust” number, his 1976 Topps MVP glamor shot, and several others.
But the Bombers’ captain began and ended his card run (non-retro division) with more off-the-beat issues. I call them his “oddball bookends,” and you can read about them in this now-long ago article on the blog.
—
Wow, can you believe the first week of June is already in the books? The official start of summer and the midway point of the baseball season are just around the corner now.
Which reminds me — I need to find my stack of All-Star ballots and get to punching out chads. It’s not every day you can help Marvell Wynne and Mike Heath get the credit they deserve, after all.
Thanks for reading.
—Adam