1991 Topps Desert Shield

Back in 1991 we were a nation at war in the Middle East and Topps decided to do something in support of our service people.  They decided to put together a parallel set of their 40th Anniversary set and distribute the cards to those serving our country.

Here is a description of the set from Beckett.com:

These 792 standard-size cards are parallel to the regular Topps issue. These cards were issued in special packs available only to service people serving in the Desert Shield (later to be Desert Storm) campaign. The cards are differentiated by a "Desert Shield" gold foil logo in the upper right corner. There were many different types of forgeries created for these cards so some caution is urged in purchasing any expensive cards from the set.

I remember picking up the Rickey Henderson and Dave Winfield cards in the mid 90s and being very excited about the additions.  Recently I recognized that I didn't have any Giants from this set in my collection and decided I needed to pick up one or two.  I did a search and found a seller on eBay who was breaking a set and put in bids of a dollar or two on all the Giants he was selling. I hoped and figured a small number would land in my lap.

Imagine my surprise when I won 14 different cards from the team set.  This is just under half of the 29 card team set.  I don't plan on going aggressively after the rest of the cards at this point but I have a great representation in my 1991 Giants binder.

Have a look:

As you can see, there is a gold logo in the upper right hand corner of these cards.  Beckett.com references lots of fakes but the max I paid for one of these was $2.22 so I doubt someone would go to the trouble of forging them for that price.

I like this second batch and was glad to get the Williams All-Star card.  I like how Topps lowered the Desert Shield logo down a little on the All-Star card so the All-Star portion of the card is not obscured.  They also slid the logo over on the Kelly Downs card so it didn't cover his head.  For some reason I feel that they may not take the same card today.