I know this has been discussed before, but since I've added a few more of these to my collection today, I'd like to bring up the topic again in hopes of one day winning out the popular opinion.
Pre-production/Promo cards were released as either 3-, 6-, or 9-card sets for every Topps base set between 1991-2007. I'm not aware of them being released either before or after these dates, although it is certainly possible. Sometimes the Pre-Production cards featured players with a different pose from their eventual base set card, and at other times with the same pose.
I understand that Pre-production cards were often released near the end of the previous year that the cards were supposed to represent. In some cases, the pre-production cards were even released in factory sets or packaging from the previous season as well.
Still. When I store my pre-production cards, I store them with the year they are meant to represent. When I inventory my pre-production cards, I inventory them with the year they are supposed to represent.
It really throws me off that when I want to inventory my 1993 Topps Pre-Production cards, I have to go to the 1992 Topps set to inventory they on this site. When I review my set ratings, I see 1993 Topps cards in the 1992 Topps groupings of sets that I've rated.
Even the picture above of the 1992 Topps baseball card doesn't match that of the 1993 Topps Pre-Production set that I started this forum for. This really doesn't make sense to me, and I wish someone would update the Pre-Production set years to indicate the years of the sets that they're supposed to represent. I don't care what packaging they came in (that information can be identified in the notes section).
There's also an inconsistency with the naming of these sets. It's the same set from 1991-2007, which should be called Topps Pre-Production set, even if there are a different number of cards during each year (9 cards for 1991-1997, 6 cards for 1998-1999, and 3 cards for 2000-2007). In some places I'm seeing it called, "Promo", or "Pre-Production Sample", or something else. They're all "Pre-Production" sets. Can we keep the naming consistent? Collectors will have a hard time finding these if every year there's a different name.
I'm actually only seeing 3 major issues with the identification of Topps Pre-Production sets on this site:
*1992/1993 Pre-Production (should be 1993),
*1993/1994 Pre-Production (should be 1994),
*1994/1995 Pre-Production (should be 1995).