“What’s special about a buster posey card?” Question from Erik Maldre.
Answer: Buster Posey in 3D!
Lenticular technology comes back to baseball cards for 2013! vine.co/v/bD3UlzgLxFF
— 57 hits (@57hits) March 26, 2013
3d baseball cards are back! Back in 1986 Sportflics made cards that changed photographs when you moved the card. I never understood why they didn’t make the player animate. Why put three random photos on a card? Or why not make the card 3d?
With lenticular technlogy (the same tech that powered the 1986 Sportflics), you can make a photograph appear to be in three dimensions. The 2013 Topps Opening Day uses this technology to show off 3d photos. I love lenticular. When you move, the image in the card moves.
Wouldn’t it be cool to make lenticular photos? I’d like to shoot 3d images of Chicago. There’s a WOW factor to 3d lenticular photography. This Buster Posey card has that WOW. It’s hanging in my cube, like buster posey is in my cube with me.
But really? Buster Posey? Blerg. At least 3D is awesome. So are the San Fransicso Giants. Those two things makes up for it being Buster Posey. In fact, instead of thinking of it being Buster Posey, think of it as the San Fransciso Giants catcher.
Let’s summarize. Why the 2013 Topps Opening Day card #ODS-4 is cool:
- It’s 3d lenticular
- San Fransicso Giants
- Catcher. Catchers are cool.
- 2013 Topps Opening Day. These cards are the coolest, most-best cards created in 2013. Why? Because they are a buck a pack. YES, KIDS. Affordable cards are cool.
- I was able to get a special 3D card from an affordable pack.
- The design. My brother noted, “It’s neat that his foot is on the front side of the graphic and his other foot is behind it. That’s a nice card. Very nice.”
- It’s crazy. When I move in my chair at work, there’s a baseball card on my wall that changes as I move.
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For all my friends who are baseball fans, I’m gonna buy a bunch of 2013 Topps Opening Day packs and give a pack to each friend. If you are reading this blog post, and you didn’t get a pack, let me know.
I love 3d cards. We need more of those in the market. I loved Sportflix cuz you knew you were getting all lenticular cards. Imagine that! Back in 1986 you were guaranteed a pack of all lenticulars. In 2013 you’re lucky if you get a lenticular. That’s a shame. I’d really like to see an animated Posey. See him jumping for the ball or something. Playing with Sportflix were fun cuz you could easily transport your imagination to the park where the player was swining his bat. You could make him do crazy dance moves. It was also fun where they featured three portraits of different players. I have a Sandberg/Rose/Garvey card. It’s fun morphing those three players’ faces together.
I would love to get packs of lenticular cards.
Are there any animated lenticular baseball cards? I haven’t seen any.
Sportflics were nice, but they would just put multiple random photos together. But it was fun to morph the photos together. Or imagine the three action shots actually doing something.
If someone was making a catalog of Sportflics cards they would have to take multiple photos of each card. That’s kinda cool. What other cards would require such photography? Aren’t there some tri-fold cards?
btw, it’s pretty remarkable how that card is moving. Is that how you knew you were buying a pack with a 3d card? It was dancing around in the wax box? That’d be a sight to see in the card aisle of Target.
I bought this card as part of a box from eBay. The pack was not moving around when I pulled it from the box. However, since pulling the card from the pack, the card hasn’t stopped moving yet. It just keeps going left to right, right to left, left to right, right to left. It’s gotta get tired at some point.
Hey Matt,
I collected baseball cards like many young people in the 80s and 90s. Sportsflics were definitely neat, but in some ways everything that was wrong with card collecting (GREED, paying $3 for 3 cards!, and the “trivia cards” were absolute bs, give me another 1 or 2 cards instead please!).
My point of researching them was mainly to find out more about the technology used to make them. Thanks so much for connecting some dots for me. I’ve got some ideas where I can use lenticular technology in a business I will be starting soon.
All the best to you in all your endeavors!
James, thanks for your comment! Yeah, the greed in baseball cards has gotten crazy. I have a theory that to truly collect in today’s market, people have to make a $50,000 investment. Then after that point collectors can sell cards to buy more cards. There’s no way I would ever spend that much. Maybe $50 topps. LOL. Unintended pun. Topps.
If you end up using lenticular technology in your business, please come back to this blog post and let us know what you did. I’d love to see.