It was 40 years since Topps had begun producing sets of baseball cards when an increasingly crowded market forced innovation. By 1991 Topps was competing with Fleer and new player Upper Deck - with its front and back photos, high gloss and thicker stock cards. The juggernaut of the industry wasn’t going to be left behind.
How to create a premium product with a point of differentiation and continued brand loyalty? A card collecting club!
Topps Stadium Club was born first in baseball then in basketball with the 92-93 Stadium Club release. The much loved Topps Finest would appear the following year. This was the era which Topps began to produce varying quality products for different niche markets. We also saw the OG Topps parallels: Topps Gold, Finest Refractors and the First Day Issues.
TL;DR - just show me the Jordan First Day Issue cards!
Checklist of 93-94 Michael Jordan First Day Issue cards including shadows.
High action photography and a collecting club
Topps Stadium Club became Topps’ mid-tier product. It featured full bleed high action photography (in fact some of the best action photography!) on high quality gloss cards. The top-tier product - Topps Finest would take quality even further.
Stadium Club’s point of differentiation was the club itself. Membership forms were distributed in packs - shown below - offering you the chance to join “the largest sports card collecting club”. Perks included the Members Only cards, an issue of Topps Magazine, an ID card and ‘members only buying opportunities’.
Here’s the 93-94 membership form - PSA do grade these and you can find them for sale online from time to time.
Queue chase inserts
As part of the initial 92-93 Stadium Club release we also saw Topps’ first true chase inserts - the Beam Teams. The Beam Team inserts continued for 93-94 and were joined by a parallel which is the focus of this article.
Topps took some queues from the stamp collecting world where stamps postmarked on their first day of issue are sought after. It created a parallel called the First Day Issue which are those base cards printed on the first day of production.
Topps took some queues from the stamp collecting world, where stamps postmarked on their first day of issue are sought after, and developed a parallel called the First Day Issue. These are cards which were printed on the first day of production.
The parallels are differentiated by the inclusion of a first day issue holofoil stamp. Again, picking up on the stamp collecting postmark first day of issue theme.
Finally, as with the stamp inspiration, these are limited in quantity. The print run was not public knowledge at the time but Topps has since confirmed that only 1000 of each card was made. In an era known as the junk wax era due to heavy overprinting this is a refreshing and exciting card! This is far fewer than the 10,000 Members Only sets produced.
There are three Jordans and five Jordan shadow First Day Issue cards - let’s take a look.
Michael Jordan Triple Double First Day Issue
Card number one was always a card Topps would reserve for a star player. Jordan gets the top billing here with a subset card celebrating Jordan’s four triple doubles of the 92-93 season.
Michael Jordan First Day Issue #169
Jordan’s regular issue card is number 169 in the 93-94 TSC release.
I like the way the excellent action photo used really draws your eye to the First Day Issue stamp on this card. That and the 90’s vintage feel of the card really makes this a standout piece.
Michael Jordan Frequent Flyers #181
The Frequent Flyers is a clever subset - it’s a show case of flights to the rim. This really picks up on TSC’s deliberate use very high action photography for this set.
There is also a foil redemption set of the Frequent Flyer cards however no Jordan was produced.
Michael Jordan Shadow First Day Issue Cards
It doesn’t stop there! There are five cards where Jordan is shown in the background of another player’s card. These are fun to spot and collect and can be cost effective ways to collect Jordans.
Included in this list are some of the top uses of action photography on basketball cards to exist to date - including a massive dunk by Starks, slap (?) by Majerle and a tangled mess behind Ewing.
I don’t have a scan of the Gerald Wilkins Jordan shadow First Day Issue - please do write in if you have one to share.
Buying First Day Issues
These cards are classic examples of elegant, restrained design. The holofoil stamp looks beautiful in person and is hard to do justice with photos alone. And, of course, an early 90’s card limited to 1000 made for the current asking prices makes these a no-brainer to add to any Jordan collection. Bear in mind too that while limited in production quantity, these are not serial numbered cards.
As noted by Beckett there have been attempts to dupe buyers of these cards. The holofoil stamp has been seen to be lifted from low-end cards and embedded onto star player cards. Be sure to carefully examine the holofoil and confirm it is in the exact position or stick to buying graded.
Happy collecting.