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Saturday, February 13, 2021

66 NIKE Posters Verified but NPC Never Seen

With information pouring in from Nike Mike one of the things he is verifying is what NPC were indeed released. Our previous assumption was:

(1) If the poster was issued it had a corresponding poster card 

or at least...

(2) If a poster appeared in a catalog with or without  a Nike  number it most assuredly had a corresponding NPC.  


Well the truth appears to be that neither of those are completely true. 

With the following info in mind I have now gone through all the past blogs (1 - 65) and corrected for this new information. There may still be mistakes that I missed. If you find any please let me know. 

Here is some of the input from Mike. 

"...we did a lot of promotional posters or give-aways for events etc. These would have had a number assigned but a poster card would never have been produced  for sale. "

"I believe you are right that the numbering started with 290201. I have a list that was created June 1991 by an Administrative Assistant in the Nike Design department...... Some posters that existed prior to the numbering system may have been assigned a number later, if it was reprinted, or they were never given a number." 

"...this is what I remember. ... there was probably a very logical system to issuing and tracking all the numbers, but with changing times and computer systems, my guess is it is all lost. Typically when we printed anything, a small number of samples was sent to the Nike Archives (this would include catalogs and posters). But that does not mean someone actually kept them all. "

"Some of the missing numbers could be due to the following:   

- Some numbers were issued as general "cost codes". For example, a number could be issued to be used for costs incurred for developing ideas or creating visuals and presentations.                                                                                            - Poster was never completed. It was cancelled or not approved.                              - Number was issued to something besides a poster (poster catalog, calendar, book covers, displays, promotional items) 290975 is a good example of this as it corresponds to a complete box of Jordan trading cards. "

Mike goes on to say that the following posters to his knowledge never had a NPC issued to match them because they were not available for sale to the public. 

Mike  can not address the missing numbers from the type 1 early production because he was not employed back then. He is checking such information with colleagues he had during those days and will get back to us. 

290801 – 290809 – were these old posters reissued and issued as NPC ?? No NPC and I don't remember ever seeing one for these. It seems these were existing posters and possibly  numbers were assigned to them at this time. 

290828 World series 89- No NPC . I think this was a promotional piece. 

290900 Nice Shoes- No NPC and don't remember seeing one. I think this came from an ad. 

290906 Bloomsday- No NPC a Promotional/give-away poster.  

290907/08 -  both numbers were assigned to same card. The only NPC I have seen is 290908

290917 Andy Moller-  No NPC  This poster was created from a catalog shoot. 

290924 Stay in School - No NPC  Promotional/give-away poster.  

290932 Nike town No NPC  Promotional/give-away poster.  

290944 Nike Air 180 - No NPC  Promotional/give-away poste

290965 Jordan Pop Art - No NPC  Promotional/give-away poste

290976 Sergey Bubka - No NPC and I don't remember ever seeing one.

290981 Katrin Krabbe - No NPC and I don't remember ever seeing one.

291000 100 Yrs of BB- No NPC  Promotional/give-away poster.  

291284 Time to Learn (Lomax) No NPC  Reprinted from a print ad. 

291490 Sparkle- No NPC and I don't remember ever seeing one. 

291611 Name is Mud- No NPC Reprinted from a print ad. 

Posters from 1988 Catalog with no Nike numbers

Pegasus Rainbow- No NPC  I believe this was from an ad.  

No Finish Line- No NPC  Also reprinted from an ad. 

Triathelete- No NPC and I don't remember ever seeing one. 

Kids Cubs- No NPC and I don't remember ever seeing one.

Mary Slaney- No NPC. This was a promotional poster. I remember several different athletes were created with the same gold border.

Stop Tying your shoes- No NPC and I don't remember ever seeing one. This was reprinted from an ad.

Note 03/31/2021 - Just heard from PSA that they have removed the above from their OK to grade list, so if any of these show up we will have to put them back on. 



 

Thursday, February 11, 2021

65 Nike Assigned Numbers to 290801 - 290809

 

An interesting tidbit from the Nike Mike poster checklist is that the second grouping did NOT start with 290811 but rather with 290801. This makes sense since the first grouping most certainly started with 290201.

While you can see the assignments below, Nike Mike indicates that while these early posters were reprinted (first issued in the late 1970s) , to the best of his knowledge no NPC were made up for them. 290804 and 290807 were pictured in the 1988 catalog and are shown below. 

290801 Eqinox

290802 Terra Trainer

290803 Escape

290804 Pegasus Rainbow

290805 Moon Runner

290806 UNK

290807 Triathlete

290808 San Dunne Runner

290809 Wms Marathon

290810 UNK






Sunday, February 7, 2021

64. Jeff Pierce Tour de France 290890 type 2 and type 4

In blog 56 we described how NIKE had mistakenly given two Mark Allen Cycling posters the same number, i.e 290890. Well it end up the true story is even worse. 

Nike Mike points out that the second poster is actually Jeff Pierce NOT Mark Allen. Jeff Pierce is one of only two US riders to have won the final stage of the Tour de France on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. If you check the internet, indeed you find the same photo at a slightly different angle of Jeff in his 7-Eleven cycling shirt with arms in the air. 

In addition it appears that this NPC was issued both in type 2 (which we previously showed you) and type 4 .(see below).

It appears as "Cycling (Jeff Pierce) " in the sept 1988 catalog while the true 29890 poster " Cycling (Mark Allen) " is a 1989 poster . Confused yet ??




 

63. 290872 Supreme Court 2 (type 4) ; 290820 Andre Agassi II as a type 3

 

The first new tidbit I can give you is that based on Nike Mikes 1991 internal checklist we can assign type 4 supreme court 2 to 290872.
Recall that in recent blog #60 we determined that it had to be one of 4 open numbers...well it is one of those 4 and it is now assigned. Below we see this iconic pose with Jordan (second from the left), Barkley (3rd from the left) and Moses Malone in the middle.  Below that is s copy of the internal checklist showing the assignment of 290872










From the various identification mistakes in the list like "Huey Long" I'd venture to guess the "administrative assistant" was not a big sports fan...

Mike has also identified another early poster that was reprinted as a type 3. In blog 31 we identified nine posers that were reissued in 1991 which resulted in a  type 3 poster card being printed. Mike reports that we should include 290820 Agassi II , originally a type 2 ( see blog # 21) was reissued (see below) 



























62. NIKE Mike brings Fresh Info to our NPC Mysteries

NPC information is pouring in and will keep me busy sharing that with all of you for the next few months. 

When I started this blog my goals were :

1. develop a complete checklist for the 1982 - 1992 "NIKE poster cards" so we would know exactly what we were collecting and so we could get them graded by PSA. 

2. Understand the mysteries involved in the issuance of their less than chronological numbering system. 

3. Determine whether NIKE INC was blowing me off when they constantly responded that they had no records of what posters they had manufactured and sold over this period. 

In the last few weeks info from the 1992 catalog found by Bruce "ImaPaqRat" Fisher  helped us fill in some of the blanks. Now, in rapid succession, interactions with our new contributor  "Nike Mike" (NO not Michael Jordan) will help us even more. 

Mike worked at Nike for 18 years starting  in 1988. While there, he actually led the creative team for posters and designed many of them. So, during that period, who would know better than Mike what was going on ? 

While I'm trying to organize the new  information we will start with a few things that should be of interest. 

I will keep the new info for separate blogs so we can use the newly instituted "search" capability to find things later on. 

Mike reports to us that in June of 1991 he requested a complete list of the posters be created "because no one seemed to have the full record of all the posters or their respective numbers... (Hummm maybe Nike really was incompetent).  At that time we were not really concerned with the Poster Cards, just needed to be able to reference the posters correctly.... I had one of our administrative assistants assigned to pull it together by going through our files and working with another assistant in the marketing department....The copy that I have is labeled June 11, 1991. It appears this is not the final copy since there is a cover letter requesting corrections and additions" .