BY TROY KIRK
Sometimes it pays to live in Minnesota, especially if you were interested in taking advantage of Topps 1985 Bonus Glossy baseball card offer. Each wax pack of 1985 Topps baseball cards contained one “Winning Pitch” game card. This card allowed people to enter a contest to win tickets to the 1986 All-Star game and other assorted prizes. It also had a number of runs printed on the card from one to eight. Accumulating game cards totaling 30 runs allowed you to send them and $2 and receive a team painter cap – or sending 25 runs and 75 cents allowed you to get one of eight packs of five glossy baseball cards. If you live in Minnesota that was the end of the story. However, I live in California.
If you read the fine print on the front of the game cards it said the bonus offer was void in Ohio. Fine. I don’t live there. The fine print on the back said the bonus offer was void in Ohio and California. Warning bells. Since I’ve always been able to take advantage of these offers in the past, I figured there must have been a new California law to screw me up. It was probably passed at the last minute, since the game cards don’t mention California on the front. Still, there are always ways around things like this. I considered sending my game cards to my friend and Twin Times editor Mark A. Larson for him to submit for me, but I decided to try myself first.
I’ve found out in the past you don’t always have to follow directions exactly to get what you want. The Kelloggs mail-in 3-D card offers always specified that you had to send in two proof-of-purchase seals from a specific brand of cereal to get the cards. I always sent in what I had – whether they were box-tops, box bottoms, five-year-old box-tops from a different cereal, or occasionally what they requested. Kelloggs always sent the cards no matter what I sent them. In the case of the 1985 Topps bonus offer, I should have followed directions.
I sent Topps 260 runs and the money they wanted for each of the eight bonus glossy sets and two painter caps. I didn’t bother filling out my name on each card to enter the contest. A few weeks later, I got a form letter back from Martha Gordon of “National Judging Institute, Inc.” informing me that they couldn’t honor my request since I lived in California, but they were sending my check back. They were keeping my game cards to submit into the All-Star game contest which I was eligible to enter.
After my initial fury at losing 260 runs (that probably cost me about $15 from buying wax packs) so that I could enter a contest that I hadn’t even filled out my name for and wasn’t interested in winning, I decided to send another letter. In the letter I asked Martha to send my 260 runs back.
A few weeks later I got back form letter Number Two. This letter reiterated that I wasn’t eligible for the bonus prizes, but she would give me credit for the runs sent. At the bottom of the letter there was a space to enter a number of bonus run credits. Interestingly, they hadn’t filled in the number of runs. I filled in the number 260 and sent the letter and some cash to Mark Larson for him to send in for me and awhile later he got the cards and sent them to me.
So next time you’re telling people the merits of Minnesota over California, you can now mention lakes, snow and the availability of Topps Bonus Glossy baseball cards!
• • • • • •
• Originally Published in Apr. 1986 “Twin Times” •
THIS ARTICLE FROM THE “TWIN TIMES” NEWSLETTER – OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE TWIN CITIES SPORTS COLLECTORS CLUB – IS REPRINTED WITH THE PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR. IT HAS BEEN RETYPED, BUT NO CONTENT HAS BEEN CHANGED (EXCEPT FOR VERY MINOR ADJUSTMENTS, CORRECTIONS TO ANY TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS AND THE ADDITION OF GRAPHICS). COMMENTS OR INFORMATION IN THE ARTICLE MAY BE OUT-OF-DATE.
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