This was one of the first Orioles Crown card that I sent out after I decided to get as many of them signed as possible. Obviously, I'll never be able to complete the set of them since players passed away before the sent was printed in 1991 and may have passed since. I haven't pulled the exact numbers of what is still possible, but I'm going to try to send to as many of the living players that have a card in the set as I can. For those who don't know, The 1991 Orioles Crown / Coca-Cola set was printed in 4 separate series, in mostly alphabetical order and ended up with 501 cards. It pictured EVERY player that had played for the Orioles since they moved to Baltimore in 1954. I'd estimate 95% of the players are shown in an Orioles uniform.
For me, this set is a double edged godsend/curse. There are some players in the set that never had a mainstream Orioles card issued and some never had anything issued with their picture at all. It has afforded me the opportunity to research, learn about them, write a letter, obtain the autographs of guys that are somewhat obscure. I realize that most teams have never had a set released like this so I feel fortunate that this set exists.
Mel Held is one of those obscure players. He pitched four games during the 1956 season and that was the entirety of his whole MLB career. The card below is the only card that exists of him (that I or COMC, etc. knows of). As you can see, I was attaching these Crown cards to an index card with photo corners to give them a bit of protection while going through the mail. You'll see soon why I quit doing that.
I'm sorry Jon, on my phone I fat fingered your comment and deleted it by accident. I love how them publish and delete links are so close on the moderation email!
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