Pro Set - 1989 Series I and II (The Story Behind The Beginning)

Looking at many of the cards from this period of time, Pro Set is really a cut above in design. While the condition sensitive nature of the set (even in cards coming directly out of packs), years prior to Pro Set's inclusion into the hobby saw many collectors apathetic to the bland designs that had started to inundate the hobby. While Topps had moderate success with American Football, the designs lacked vivid action shots, and had many pictures of the football players on the bench or sitting on the sidelines. The popularity and aesthetic appreciation per each year was sporadic and when Lud Denny came into the fold of one of America's favorite collectible hobbies, things changed immediately.

Ludwell Denny was an oil magnate and ran a printing press that turned out US currency prior to the formation of Pro Set Cards. In the two years prior to Pro Set, he and a small group of investors created sports memorabilia for the NFL, making his segue into the hobby much easier. His vision saw the hobby as being void of a quality football card, a sport that was continuing to grow and challenging Baseball as the most popular sport in the country. In 1989, Lud signed a contract with the NFL to print a card that would revolutionize the hobby and reinvigorate interest into a sport that the country loved so much. So with a marketing strategy as "The Official NFL Card", Pro Set was born. It's distinction as such allowed the company to glean the most interesting and action filled photos from NFL Properties archive of pictures.

This inaugaural Series of NFL Photo Cards also became the first Football card to utilize color on both sides of the cards, as well as a profile shot of the player on the back of the card next to the biography synopsis. Within weeks, it was evident that Pro Set had created a quality product, but also a collection full of personality as there quickly came to the fore a hand full of errors and variations, a trait Pro Set became popular for. At first, these widespread errors fetched a heavy premium among collectors. This year also marked the beginning of Score's excursion into Football and made the hobby usher in a new era for Football collectors.

After it's first Series, Pro Set came out with a second series, or Series II, of it's 1989 Football Product. These cards came with 15 cards per pack, 11 Series 1 cards, and 4 Series 2 cards which featured rookies from the draft and Pro Set Prospects. Barry Sanders and Troy Aikman are among the standouts of the 1989 rookie class. Shortly after the Series II release, Pro Set created a binder for it's employees bound in the same material used on Wilson Footballs entitled "Pro Set: Errors & Variations". It featured all of the Error and Variation cards from the 1989 Series I and II Football set and included specialized display pages and information cards describing the error and/or variation and were printed on the same Pro Set Card Stock from the 1989 set. These binders are very rare collectibles. An educated guess on the number created is probably no more than 200-300 at the very most, although this number is based upon the number of these seen over the past two years.

This binder is special on multiple fronts. Not just the binder's rarity but some of the included rarities (either intentional or not) that came with it. Take for instance the rarest two cards from the 1989 set, the 480D Earnest Byner and the 483D Gerald Riggs cards. While the binder's info cards on the Byner and Riggs pages mention only the the difference in the 480A/480B and 483A/483B cards, the binder includes a 480D and 483D card. These are the Earnest Byner and Gerald Riggs cards from Series II without the Traded Snipe but including the "See Also.." line at the bottom of the bio. notes on the back of the card. There was no 478D variation included in the binder and whether these were intentional inclusions can't be confirmed. These D variations fetch a good price and are listed by Beckett at $150 retail which is an accurate pricing premium unlike some of the other cards from the first three Pro Set collections.

The set also included C variations for card numbers 478, 480, and 483. These cards are almost as rare as the D variations themselves. They include each card with the Traded Snipe on the front of the card but without the "See Also.." line that was included with most of the Traded Snipe versions that referenced the Series I card of each of the players. These cards are rare and usually can fetch $50 a piece, if not more, even though Beckett lists them at $40 retail.

The #535A Gizmo Williams is probably the third rarest card from the 1989 Set. It is the Gizmo Williams "Pro Set Prospect" card from Series II, without the Scouting Photo on the front and a mispelling of the word "Football" on the back of the card in the bio. notes. It is spelled "Footbal", and in subsequent versions you can tell a lowercase L has been included in between "Footbal" and "League" without a space seperating the two words. An interesting note as well is this new L correcting the spelling looks to have a small cross through the top of it making it look somewhat like a T. Once again, the binder info card for the Gizmo Williams page neglects to tell about the "footbal" error yet it's quite obvious that they took the time to correct it. I've heard reports from only two other acquirees of the binder that the #535A was and wasn't included in the binder, thusly included arbitrarily.



From here on out, the sets rarities reach a grey area as far as obscurity, pricing, and availability. The Prototype Set (also mentioned and displayed in the Errors and Variations Binder) is probably next. You can find singles sold overly priced here and there, but they only come around every once in a while it seems sold together. It is an 8 Card Set, Dan Marino (#1), Jerry Rice (#2), Eric Dickerson (#3), Reggie White (#4), Mike Singletary (#5), Frank Minnifield (#6), Phil Simms (#7), and Jim Kelly (#8). All of the players have different pictures on the front from their Series I counterparts except for the Jerry Rice card which obtained it's original action photo. The cards are all presented with a vertical back design and different profile pictures. On the top front the name is also presented in all capital letters with their position underneath instead of the later position / team name and lowercase lettering. Also, the first year Pro Set logo (the words Pro Set with a bold P and S) takes the place of the NFL Logo and the NFL Logo is moved over in place of either the NFC or AFC Logo or team helmet (in the case of the Series II cards). These can go for anywhere to $40-$200.

Then there are the three promo cards of James Lofton, Thomas Sanders, and Blair Bush. All three cards were presented at trade shows prior to the Series II printing.
The Thomas Sanders card is #'d 445 (instead of #446 as it was presented in Series II) and is similar to it's regular Series II card. The James Lofton (#463) was later replaced by Greg Townsend and the Blair Bush (#455) was replaced by Eric Dickerson after Eric reached an agreement with Pro Set and the NFLPA for inclusion. These can run anywhere from $20 per set to $30 per card. These are displayed front and back with their replacements in the Errors and Variations binder.

After these Promo sets there is the Santa Claus Card (#1989). These were distributed with the 1989 NFL Properties Christmas Card in December 1989. They are somewhat rare and when they come around usually go for $30-$40. On the top left of the front of the card is the logo for "Officially Licensed Product", an NFL Properties business distinction. The back has a humurous description and bio. stats. These are also displayed in the Errors and Variations binder.

The most notorious of most of the errors from this set is the William Perry Short Print (#47). This is also mentioned in short detail in the Errors and Variations binder as being a mistake in being left on the printing press even after William Perry was made unavailable for the set for not being in the NFL Players Association. The info card estimates 5,000-9,000 of the cards were issued in the Series I set. These usually go for around $10 when they are sold. His card was eventually replaced by Jim Morris. These kinds of issues became quite a problem for Pro Set in years to come being tied to the NFL officially. In fact, when they finally shut down their operation they cited almost a million dollars in debts to the NFLPA because of including players in their cards without their consent or the consent of the NFLPA.

From here most of the variations and errors are quite prevalent or at least can be acquired for usually no more than $5 and aren't that hard to find. This includes the #52 Mike Ditka Hall of Fame Stripe and w/o, the #100 John Elway Draft/Traded Variations, #193 Stacey Toran (w/ and w/o Death Stripe), #214 Ferrell Edmonds/Edmunds variations, #260 Raymond Berry w/ and w/o Hall of Fame Stripe, #266 Bobby Hebert "passes"/"passers" variations, #355 Chuck Noll "One of three"/"One of two",#363 Anthony Miller "3"/"14.8" variations, #391 Brian Bosworth "Seahawks"/"Seattle" variations, #404 Curt Warner 1,455/6,074 variations, and #535 b/c (w/ and w/o Scouting Photo on the bottom right of the picture on front.. does not include the "footbal" error that contains the w/o Scouting Photo trait). All of the above cards are included with their own info cards in the 1989 Errors and Variations Binder.

The last set was closed out with a Final Update that contained a 20 card update of trades, signings, and miscellaneous players who had a standout year. One of the cards (#541) was Coach Art Shell who also received his own page in the Errors and Variations Binder with included info card. It should be noted that the final printing of the Series II cards had a "FNL UPDATE" version stamped on the sides of the cases and these cards included the cards from the Final Update.

Before finishing this post, it should also be noted that there is a 5 card Prototype or Promo Set of Randall Cunningham cards that are at times falsely written as "Tests" or "1988 Pro Set Prototypes". They were actually initially created and passed out at trade shows to gain opinion for potential designs for the 1990 set. They have the first year Pro Set logo on them and have multiple designs including Full Bleed, Gray Borders, Black Borders, a Top border and Side border, as well as vertical and horizontal black and blue borders on the back. These cards can fetch a decent price. Usually anywhere from $75-$150 as all five or $20-$40 individually. They are also somewhat hard to find for a normal price.

Looking back at the initial Pro Set Football collection, the company also released a quarterly "Gazette" that contained information on the company's endeavors and products. The 1989 Gazettes are much harder to find than later Gazettes because less were printed and distributed. In these first Gazettes, Lud Denny makes mention of his concept of the "Living Set"; a concept that predicated and fueled what draws in collectors today for their mid-printing corrections and variation inclusions. This is the same concept that either inadvertently or intentionally created errors and variations that the company didn't even address or know about! But in the beginning of the hobby's mainstream growth, Pro Set created a nice, colorful and aesthetically pleasing card that garnered some positive attention and would later carry over to a set that has become infamous in the world of Football cards.. the 1990 Set! That is a set that would take multiple posts just to describe half of it.

..And keeping with Lud's line of thinking, this is a "Living Post" that will later include pictures of the cards and the Errors and Variations binder, as well as potential extra information regarding the set.