At Least it's Recyclable

This post kind of jumps into what I would consider more memorabilia than cards. After viewing The Bronze Age of Baseball Cards I got to thinking that I had a similar set laying around, and sure enough I found this sitting in a dark corner of a closet.

The 1988 aluminum set is called the Gallery of Champions. Though the box isn't wood and fancy like the bronze case, this comes in a nice vinyl wrapped cardboard case and Topps fancied it up with nice velvet inserts, fitted for each card.

The set consists of 12 cards made of aluminum and celebrates these "champions". I'm not sure what they define as champions, as many of these players were on teams that missed the playoffs in 1988. The set checklist has Steve Bedrosian, George Bell, Wade Boggs, Jack Clark, Roger Clemens, Nolan Ryan, Tony Gwynn, Mark Langston, Mark McGwire, Dave Righetti, Andre Dawson, and Benny Santiago.

Here's a closer look at the "cards". Given the affordability of this set, there doesn't seem to be a great demand. I'm not even sure if they were numbered. The cards are just a bit bigger than your thumb.

The cards are nicely sculpted and match the original appearance of their '88 cardboard.

In case you were wondering, yes stats on the back and its full career stats!  You might need an electron microscope to read this however. As you can tell by the scans, these also scratch fairly easy. 

So this is a fun, if not cheesy little collectible. I'm not sure how I obtained this set, but I do know I didn't pay much more than $10 for it.  It sure would have been nice if these were .999 pure silver, then I'd have something worth while to hang onto.