Deconstruction Of A Card – Jersey Relic Edition

Have you ever wondered how card companies get those little pieces of jerseys into their cards?  Maybe you haven’t, but I know I have.

And I’m about to find out.  Meet our victim.

Tough to see, but this is bent to hell. Look below the point on home base.

By the way, this isn’t the first time I’ve destroyed a card for science.  If you want to see our first Deconstruction post, where I peel back the thin veneer that is 2000 Bowman’s Best, you can find it here.  I’m honestly surprised that Hollywood never called about the Ghost Jones pilot.  Oh well.

Here we have Hank Conger .  Before you get too up in arms, just know that he came from our 5 case break back when the business was in full swing, and he came very, very damaged.  Now, I know you can send cards back to Topps for replacements, but why would we spend the money on shipping just to wait a month or so for a card we could only sell for $1, if we’re lucky.

Okay, examining the side of the card shows what appears to be 3 separate main layers of paper.  Let’s peel back the first.

It looks like I hurt him.

Okay, that came off relatively cleanly.  The open window is on the bottom and we can see the home plate image up on top.  I guess the jersey is in between the bottom and middle layers.

Like a polar bear in a snowstorm

Okay, I know it’s really hard to see, but the top part is the jersey stuck to the back of the middle layer.  We’re looking at the reverse side now.  The bottom part is the card back.  On the right, you may be able to make out a square indentation.  The jersey was glued pretty well to that backing, and also glued to the edges around the window.  It’s all still pretty sticky.

freedom!

Ta Da.  I wish I could have destroyed a gray relic so it showed up better. I would have scanned with top open, but Conger’s first layer curls up too much.

It actually took some effort just to peel the jersey off the edges.  I can’t imagine people can remove and replace these things with fakes.  Even if they cut around the edges, the glue ain’t playing. It must take a lot of effort to avoid damaging those cards just to make $10 extra bucks on that fake Vlad patch.

I can’t say I’m too surprised at any part of the process, but it was still a fun little experiment to conduct.

Okay, now to write my first “Reconstruction of a Card post.”

2 color swatch: White and clear.

There.  Good as new.