1987 Kraft "White-Back" Samples (Not from Mac & Cheese Boxes) Home Plate Heroes

Description: Less than 20 of each card is known to exist on Solid White Card Stock . . . 1987 KRAFT HOME PLATE HEROES RARE SAMPLE CARDS FROM KRAFT FACTORY SET ESPECIALLY PRINTED ON SOLID WHITE CARD STOCK (the "White-Back" Cards) THESE SAMPLES ARE NOT ONE of the Millions of the Common Grey Back/White Front Cards Printed on "Mac & Cheese" Boxes Rare 1987 Kraft Home Plate Heroes "White-Back" Sample Cards (actually printed on solid white cardstock). These sample cards are a special, separate factory issue and are not the mass-produced Kraft Mac & Cheese "Grey-Back" food box cards. Less than 20 of each "White-Back" card is known for each player. Read below how I was fortunate enough to acquire 12 of each (twelve sets) in 1987. The "white-back" verses "grey-back" difference is obvious in our scan of the two different Kirby Puckett cards. The two sets were printed on different size sheets of cardstock. "White-back" sheets pictured only the complete set of cards, while the larger 'grey-back" sheets pictured the Mac & Cheese boxes with cards printed on them. The two different sheets are shown in the third scan. "White-Back" sample cards were printed in a very limited edition on a small sheet of solid white card stock as a single complete set of 48 cards (without being part of a food box). The "Grey-Back" food box cards were mass produced on much larger sheets of a lower quality coated "grey-back" card stock similar to that of cereal boxes. Unlike the "Grey-Back" cards which had to be cut from food boxes, the "White-Back" sample card sheets were cut at the factory into individual cards of a uniform size, with the factory banding a complete set of 48 "White-Back" cards together and sealing each set in shrink-wrap. While both "White-Back" and "Grey-Back" cards are of comparable thickness, the two sets are distinguished not only by their paper stock, but by ink color and quality of printing. Our "White-Back" sample cards are near mint to mint, fresh from the factory sealed sets. Get a quantity discount and save on shipping when you buy more than one card in a day. We'll send the cards all together and charge only the single card shipping rate for the entire package. Just buy one card with normal shipping, then buy any other cards for "Local Pickup" (it's free no shipping cost). If eBay's automated billing system charges you more, send us an eBay message and we'll fix it. We have several ways to adjust an invoice. And, we can refund any overage you pay eBay. We don't prefer the refund method because there's always a possibility that eBay or PayPal could charge you a nominal fee on the refund. The 48 Player Cards in Set are: #1 Eddie Murray (Baltimore Orioles) #2 Dale Murphy (Atlanta Braves) #3 Cal Ripken (Baltimore Orioles) #4 Mike Scott (Houston Astros) #5 Jim Rice (Boston Red Sox) #6 Jody Davis (Chicago Cubs) #7 Wade Boggs (Boston Red Sox) #8 Ryne Sandberg (Chicago Cubs) #9 Wally Joyner (California Angels) #10 Eric Davis (Cincinnati Reds) #11 Ozzie Guillen (Chicago White Sox) #12 Tony Pena (Pittsburgh Pirates) #13 Harold Baines (Chicago White Sox) #14 Johnny Ray (Pittsburgh Pirates) #15 Joe Carter (Cleveland Indians) #16 Ozzie Smith (St. Louis Cardinals) #17 Cory Snyder (Cleveland Indians) #18 Vince Coleman (St. Louis Cardinals) #19 Kirk Gibson (Detroit Tigers) #20 Steve Garvey (San Diego Padres) #21 George Brett (Kansas City Royals) #22 John Tudor (St. Louis Cardinals) #23 Robin Yount (Milwaukee Brewers) #24 Von Hayes (Philadelphia Phillies) #25 Kent Hrbek (Minnesota Twins) #26 Darryl Strawberry (New York Mets) #27 Kirby Puckett (Minnesota Twins) #28 Ron Darling (New York Mets) #29 Don Mattingly (New York Yankees) #30 Mike Schmidt (Philadelphia Phillies) #31 Rickey Henderson (New York Yankees) #32 Fernando Valenzuela (Los Angeles Dodgers) #33 Dave Winfield (New York Yankees) #34 Pete Rose (Cincinnati Reds) #35 Jose Canseco (Oakland A's) #36 Glenn Davis (Houston Astros) #37 Alvin Davis (Seattle Mariners) #38 Steve Sax (Los Angeles Dodgers) #39 Pete Incaviglia (Texas Rangers) #40 Jeff Reardon (Minnesota Twins) #41 Jesse Barfield (Toronto Blue Jays) #42 Hubie Brooks (Montreal Expos) #43 George Bell (Toronto Blue Jays) #44 Tony Gwynn (San Diego Padres) #45 Roger Clemens (Boston Red Sox) #46 Chili Davis (San Francisco Giants) #47 Mike Witt (California Angels) #48 Nolan Ryan (Houston Astros) More on these "White-Backs." I was lucky enough to have the California Kraft representative (for whom these Sample Sets were made) come to my table at a card show at the end of 1987 / early 1988 and offer me a set. Like the dealers he went to first after walking in the show door with his son, I thought they were just the very common Kraft cards that had been cut off food boxes. But I had a moment and he told me these cards were different. He explained these sample cards were not printed on the same cardstock used to print the boxes. He said they'd been especially made in California for him to give to store managers to keep them interested in Kraft's baseball card promotion. He said he didn't give any of these sample sets out because the food boxes with the cards on them sold themselves. With Kraft's 1987 Home Plate Heroes promotion over, his manager told him to throw his sets away, but he kept a few for himself. I ended up getting the dozen or so he had kept. Two additional sets turned up a several years ago in the estate of a principal in Major League Baseball's (MLB's) product licensing division who died in 2002. One of those sets was broken up on eBay and the other sold to a dealer back East and broken up. It is now understood that MLB required all licensees give the MLB licensing department six (6) complete sets of each version of the cards they licensed. Thus Kraft provided MLB six sets of the food boxes and six sample sets. A third set, apparently also from MLB's licensing department, was recently identified as having been purchased more than a decade ago at a major card show. The uncut sheet we show in the scans is not ours, but was taken home in 1987 by a printer of the set in Southern California. It is the only uncut sheet known. The standard layout for two "Grey-Back" cards on a Mac & Cheese box has a dotted cutting line printed around each card. The dotted lines around each player's picture are not uniform from player-to-player. If you cut the box cards to the dotted lines, each different player's card will vary a little in width and/or height from the card of another player. Kraft used the initial artwork (including the dotted cutting lines) but none of the food box information for the sample "White-Back" cards. Being factory trimmed to a uniform size eliminated the need for the dotted cutting lines that were to help cut the cards off the food boxes. The uniform size that the factory cut the "White-Back" cards is smaller than virtually all of the dotted cutting lines around players on the boxes. With the exception of the #21 George Brett card, none of the other 47 "White-Back" sample cards has the possibility of showing a dotted line around all four sides of a player's picture. After being factory cut, the sample sets were banded and sealed in shrink wrap as shown in the second scan. All sets were sealed in same reverse numerical order with the #48 Nolan Ryan on the top and the #1 Eddie Murray on the bottom. End cards can show a slight trace of an indent where the band held them, which reduces them from mint to near mint. Free local pickup at a mutually agreeable time or we ship by U.S. Postal Service with USPS Tracking by the close of the next postal business day from payment. Shipping includes full value insurance. We can often combine items purchased the same day from our other lots into the same package with items from this lot to save you postage. NOTICE: Since insurance covers only the goods but not the costs of shipping them, the buyer agrees that once we have proof of delivery of the package to the post office (which is usually the postal receipt we receive from the postal window clerk at the time of mailing), that if the package or its contents is lost in the mails and not delivered or is damaged in shipping that any refund is limited to the purchase price and any sales tax (if applicable) and does not include a refund of the shipping or insurance. For international buyers, we label our customs tags as "merchandise" and you are responsible for all customs, duties or other import fees into your country. Scans and Text Copyright 2024 by Michael Fried, P.O. Box 27521, Oakland, California 94602-0521

Price: 17.95 USD

Location: Oakland, California

End Time: 2024-08-24T02:45:25.000Z

Shipping Cost: 3 USD

Product Images

1987 Kraft "White-Back" Samples (Not from Mac & Cheese Boxes) Home Plate Heroes

Item Specifics

All returns accepted: ReturnsNotAccepted

Set: 1987 Kraft Home Plate Heroes

Product: Sample

Player/Athlete: Cal Ripken, Jr., Don Mattingly, George Brett, Jose Canseco, Mike Schmidt, Nolan Ryan, Ozzie Smith, Pete Rose, Rickey Henderson, Steve Garvey

Year Manufactured: 1987

Original/Licensed Reprint: Original

Vintage: Yes

Series: Home Plate Heroes Samples

Type: Sports Trading Card

Sport: Baseball

Parallel/Variety: Solid White Cardstock

Card Name: Home Plate Hereos

Manufacturer: Kraft

Theme: Sport

Features: Sample Set

Team: Major League Baseball

Price: 17.95 USD

Available Quantity: 1

Quantity Sold: 0

Color: #48 Nolan Ryan

Price: 149.95 USD

Available Quantity: 1

Quantity Sold: 1

1987 Kraft "White-Back" Samples (Not from Mac & Cheese Boxes) Home Plate Heroes

Product Images

Item Specifics

Available Variations

Color: Complete Set

Color: #1 Eddie Murray

Color: #2 Dale Murphy

Color: #3 Cal Ripken

Color: #4 Mike Scott

Color: #5 Jim Rice

Color: #6 Jody Davis

Color: #7 Wade Boggs

Color: #8 Ryne Sandberg

Color: #9 Wally Joyner

Color: #10 Eric Davis

Color: #11 Ozzie Guillen

Color: #12 Tony Pena

Color: #13 Harold Baines

Color: #14 Johnny Ray

Color: #15 Joe Carter

Color: #16 Ozzie Smith

Color: #17 Cory Snyder

Color: #18 Vince Coleman

Color: #19 Kirk Gibson

Color: #20 Steve Garvey

Color: #21 George Brett

Color: #22 John Tudor

Color: #23 Robin Yount

Color: #24 Von Hayes

Color: #25 Kent Hrbek

Color: #26 Darryl Strawberry

Color: #27 Kirby Puckett

Color: #28 Ron Darling

Color: #29 Don Mattingly

Color: #30 Mike Schmidt

Color: #31 Rickey Henderson

Color: #32 Fernando Valenzuela

Color: #33 Dave Winfield

Color: #34 Pete Rose

Color: #35 Jose Canseco

Color: #36 Glenn Davis

Color: #37 Alvin Davis

Color: #38 Steve Sax

Color: #39 Pete Incaviglia

Color: #40 Jeff Reardon

Color: #41 Jesse Barfield

Color: #42 Hubie Brooks

Color: #43 George Bell

Color: #44 Tony Gwynn

Color: #45 Roger Clemens

Color: #46 Chili Davis

Color: #47 Mike Witt

Color: #48 Nolan Ryan

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