1990-91 Topps Hockey Forum

Hi all,

I found a retail box (36 packs at 14 cards + 1 insert per pack) for a great price on ebay, so I decided to triple the number of hockey cards I own.  The 26 year old gum damaged one card per pack, and I did notice some staining on some of the other cards, but most of the cards were in pretty decent shape. I managed to collect roughly 340 of the 396 in the set.  I completed the HoFers (and ASs) through sportlots and probably won't finish the set off. I did manage to collect the entire insert set, which was (very) mildly exciting. I was annoyed that the base Gretzky was one of my missing cards, though I did get the AS Gretzky and the three commemorative cards.  The set would be perfect if it had the logos of the teams somewhere on the card -- I would guess that this was a licensing issue?

A couple of questions...

First, why is the Bruins TC listed in the Hof List?  Looking at the card I didn't see any real HoFer featured prominently on it.  Is this a mistake?

Second, logic would imply that one of Dale Hawerchuk and Phil Housley is assigned to the wrong team. The Housley confused me until I noticed the tiny "Now with Jets" on the card. This would imply that Hawerchuk should be assigned to the Sabers.  If I recall my permissions tests correctly, this is the case, but I wanted to check before making the change.

Dave

Bruins TC is listed as HOF because Ray Bourque is tagged on it (#77, no?).

Ohe of the two is definitely incorrect. I'm not sure which way to go - it clearly shows BOTH teams on both cards. Oh Admin....

Hawerchuk is not Winnipeg, he should be listed as the "Now with" team which is Buffalo. Is that the real use of HOF? You put that on any card of a player in the HOF? To me that seems odd, does every single Bourque card get the HOF note then?

OK.  I fixed Hawerchuk to reflect the "Now with" caption.  Things are at least consistent now.

With respect to the Bruins TC, I can see why it is now in the HoF, but I don't really like it... First, it is really inconsistent applied. If you look at the Sabres TC, Phil Housley is prominently featured, but the card is not linked to him. My personal position would be that cards where the player is named should be linked to the player, but if the player simply appears in the shot, then the card should not be linked to the player. So this is not a George McGinnis card, and it shouldn't be.

On the other hand I know there are some real completists out there who would want the Bruins TC as a Ray Bourque card, but I wonder where the line should be drawn.

Linking names is inconsistently applied because it has to be done manually card-by-card. I don't agree with linking names to another player's card, i.e., your Lloyd Free example.  But there are many nameless cards, such as Fleer Team Action football cards, or many team cards, that have titles but no names on them.  Admin has stated that these type cards can have names linked (but not in the Name field) if players can be IDed.

There have been a few Oakland Raiders I've come across that never had their own card but are on one of these nameless cards.

I guess I disagree with Admin, then, and my argument is that if that standard were consistently applied, then the DB would be less usable.  Using that standard, one could tag all the baseball team cards of the 70s with all of the players on the team. (I remember poring over the 1977 Reds team card looking for Morgan, Rose and Bench -- they're all there.)  I really don't think the Bruins TC in question should be listed in the HoF set, even if Bourke is there, but from a programming standpoint I don't know how easy it would be to exclude such cards from the HoF set.

Unrelatedly, is Warren Wells one of the Raiders you've found on a nameless card? He is a very interesting gap in that he had a couple of very good years with the Raiders but never had his own card, and indeed is not even in the database! I'd be curious to track down any appearance he had, just because I love the Raiders and am missing this player from their history.

RF - HOF is NOT in the note field, it gets tagged from the fact that Admin has tagged the PID as HOF - any card that Ray Bourque's PID is tied to, gets the HOF listing (for that set).

Tagging inconsistency - Yes, we are inconsistent. Why? We don't know all the players by sight. Team cards, where the whole team is pictured generally will not get tags for anyone.

However, and this was in a thread not too long ago, if a player is on another player's card (even prominently) they are NOT to be tagged. (Someone has a great list of HOF "photobombs" - none should be tagged.)

Ooooops I may have cheated a couple of times then, there are some cards I have tagged Ranford in where he is predominently featured in so I have added him manually. Some stickers as well, good example is the team CL for a sticker set has his signature on it

http://www.tradingcarddb.com/ViewCard.cfm/sid/61416/cid/3604118/1995-96-Bashan-Imperial-Super-Stickers-42-Edmonton-Oilers-/-Bill-Ranford

Or even one like this

http://www.tradingcarddb.com/ViewCard.cfm/sid/105385/cid/7314065/1990-91-Panini-Team-Stickers-Edmonton-Oilers-24-Bill-Ranford

They both look to be ok - I'm not sure about the IA sticker, if that was "meant" as a Bill card, guess it depends on the caption in the sticker album.

The team checklist (not many in that team set!) is fine - his name and sig are there.

Heh.  I can see the arguments both ways, and I will just have to learn to live with such cards showing up in the Hall of Fame lists. I also see that the dividing line is somewhat blurry -- I wasn't seriously suggesting that all players in all baseball team cards from the 70s be tagged, but I was illustrating the slippery slope I perceived.  I wonder if there would be a way to tag certain cards as "multi-player" and have them show up in the Hall of Fame list if the user wants them to.  Alternatively, the user could select which notes to show and which to not based on checkboxes in a form, so I (in order to satisfy my OCD) could _not_ show the TCs.

In any case, it's not a real problem. ;-)