Celebrating the Reverse – Card Backs With Jim McLauchlin

So many of us overlook card backs in this day of hard plastic card encapsulation and grading, so I was super happy to find an article dedicated to them while perusing the September 1991 issue of Baseball Cards Magazine.

Jim McLauchlin penned an article titled “Card Backs,” in which he celebrated the reverse side of cards. He kicked it off by stating that he likes card backs more than he likes card fronts! Here are the first two pages of the article.

He talks about the plethora of data that has been included on them, chats about some growing pains in card back design in our hobby’s history before digging into the real story, the specific card back highlights over the past 50 years of sports cards that he jokingly called “the first quasi annual Sy Berger Awards for Card Back Excellence (or Lack Thereof).”

I thought the Set Awards were so well-researched and accurate that they deserved to be shared with folks who don’t have junk-wax-era card magazine back issues, so I’ll share a highlight card from many of the categories before sharing the rest of the article.

Best Cartoons: 1977-78 Topps Basketball

He noted their incredible variety.

I’ll also note that Guernsey’s sold a lot of original card cartoon art in the 1989 Topps Auction.

Best Cartoon Theme: 1974 Topps Football

Leisure-time activities.

Best Back Photography

Anything by Upper Deck.

Best Narratives

1955 Bowman Baseball.

Best Non-Use of the Word “Defenseman”

1990-91 Pro Set Hockey for using terms like rugged blue liners, crafty blue liners, veteran blue liners, and bruising blue liners.

Best Bios

1961 Fleer Football.

Word Card Back Idea

Puzzles.

Worst Use of Stats

Classic.

Best Quote

1990 Score Football Johnny Johnson.

Best Trivia

1975 Topps Carlton Fisk.

Best Prophecy

1958 Topps Sandy Koufax.

Best Cartoon

1971 Topps Football Spider Lockhart.

Best Overused Bio Material

He challenged readers to find a Joe Nuxhall card that didn’t say he was the youngest player in the majors.

Best Obscure Information

1990 Pro Set Football Chris Singleton.

Worst Use of Stats

1971 Topps Football Charlie Krueger.

Best Hobby

1958 Topps Stan Lopata.

Best Expansion of Standard Height, Weight

1963 Topps Dick Radatz.

Best Culinary Card

1974-75 Topps Basketball Louis Dampier.

Best We’ll Find Something Nice To Say About This Spud If It Kills Us

1965 Topps Mike De La Hoz.

Greatest Card Back of Them All

1951 Bowman Leo Nomellini.

Final Pages of the Article