Topps has done countless small-batch type releases for nearly the entire time that they've produced baseball cards. 1968 3-D, 1979 Comics, 1990 Heads Up and Doubleheaders, and many more. However on occasion a set gets released in a much more nefarious manner. The old printing facility backdoor. As it turns out, every printing facility ever used for making cards is apparently also consistently staffed by people who make sure that no chance for some profits on the side goes untaken. And because of this, some unusual sets have seen the light of day that were never meant to.
First up - 1988 Topps Cloth
Boy Topps loves making cards out of cloth. They did it in 1970, 1972, and 1976 with cards that were never meant to be issued, and 1977 when a real release actually happened. Well it was the late 80's now which meant it was time to try again. This test print comprised of an estimated 50 or so sheets, all with the same 121 players pictured. If you want to see the whole thing, as of publishing this there is an uncut sheet on eBay for only $10,000. Go ahead, I'll wait. Anyway, while the amount that survived is unknown, any amount of an already low number like 50 means you are looking at an exceedingly rare piece, particularly by the standards of the junk wax era. It also doesn't help that they are very fragile. Imagine the cloth cards Topps has had in recent products (because of course they did). Now imagine them half as thick. So now prepare yourselves for the All-Star cast of Mariners that got tapped for this set: John Moses, Dennis Powell, Steve Shields, and Mike Trujillo.
Batting second - 1985 Topps/OPC Minis
Now these little guys are tough. Here is a 132 card set that as best as I can tell from various posts I've read, was likely made to test printing and cutting equipment at the facility that handled making O-Pee-Chee cards. The information that has been gathered is somewhat confusing and sometimes contradictory, but it seems that the accepted version is that about 110 sheets were sold from the factory to dealers in the Toronto area. The vast majority, close to 100, are the normal version, with full front and back. Ten more are a blank white back, and another five are a blank tan back. There are also, most likely due to another batch that were pulled from the dumpster, a version where the back has no green, so red text on a white background. It is likely that the whole set doesn't even exist in that form and I can't confirm whether or not any Mariners are among them. And about those Mariners, at least this time we get a little star power with some Mark Langston. After him some Matt Young. Currently I don't have any version of either player. What I do have is a trifecta of Ed Vande Berg. Please hold your applause.
