Oddball in the mail - 1992 Front Row Billy Herman Gold Signature

One of the cards in my mailbox today was a bit of an oddball that I have had on my list forever. This probably has to do with the fact that the card is not identified properly in the Beckett Almanac. The card I received is a 1992 Front Row Billy Herman Gold Signature card.


The card looks similar to most other Front Row issues from this time period, but also has a raised gold facsimile auto on the front. According to certificate included with it, 5,000 of them were produced. One of the main products Front Row produced during this time period were 5 card sets of retired stars and Hall of Famers. I know there are a couple of gold signature premium versions of cards from those sets. But Herman did not have a 5 card set, so this appears to be a stand alone issue.

The reason I have had it on my list for so long is not because it is incredibly rare or even that difficult to find (although I don't think they pop up too often). The reason I haven't found it until now is because Beckett identifies this card in their big book as a 1993 Spectrum Gold Signature card. Spectrum did produce some cards of Hall of Famers and other retired stars in the 1992-1993 time frame. And I still have an Ernie Banks card from Spectrum on my list. So my searches were set up to key on the word spectrum along with Ernie Banks or Billy Herman. I finally happened to run across this one while doing a plain search on Billy Herman. I'm pretty sure this is the card Beckett refers to as a 1993 Spectrum Gold Signature because the other two players Beckett lists from this same issue (Ken Griffey Jr. and Tom Seaver) happened to be listed along with the Herman. One more mystery card checked off the list!