70. Nike Poster Cards - 1986 Nike Poster Release letter found

In my attempts to develop accurate publication dates for NPC we have described the tools available such as the poster catalogs that were produced in several of the years, dates actually put directly on some of the posters and order sheets found for several years. 

For a few of the NPC we could not pin down exactly what year they were produced so we listed them with a range i.e 1985-86.

A EBay auction that is currently ongoing for a few dozen of the NPC has a  Nike document included which describes the release of 1986 posters on Nov 12, 1986. This is pertinent to the following NPCs.

While we had Gwynn, Carter, Joyner and Men at Work pegged right on for 1986, This letter lets us put an exact date on the football posters 859 - 861 which were listed as 1985/86. Since the Minute Boll poster is sandwiched in between it also becomes a 1986 poster. 

I will be correcting this date in the blog lists shown in blogs 4 and 50 so as not to cause confusion and will inform our contact at PSA . 

290859  Football - Lipps and Hayes    1986

290860  Lotts Lot - Ronnie Lott            1986

290861 The Judge - Lester Hayes       1986

290862  Manute Boll growth chart        1986

290863 Hitting Machine - Tony Gwynn  1986

290864  Gary Carter                               1986

290865  Wally World - Wally Joyner       1986

290866 Men at Work                               1986

69. NPC - Early Variations

 

In blogs 5 - 9 we discussed variations that exist for at least 9 of the NPC in terms of the identifying information that is printed on their backs . Thought I would show two examples of PSA now accepting those variations and labeling as such. 

PSA indicates that they are now charging $10 each to relabel such cards, but of course that was before the recent shutdown.  We will see what happens to all pricing when they come back up . They claim that will be this summer, I predict it will be late in the fall based on reports of how many million cards they are behind grading.  

Below are the backs. We are pretty sure that the variation with the least information is the earlier prints in terms of chronology.  

68. Air Jordan Hysteria

With all the Jordan hysteria going on and the 1986 Fleer Jordan so called rookie card selling for $10,000 or more in PSA 8 (see below) it was to be expected that the Jordan Nike cards that predate the rookie would catch on sooner or later. 

I'm writing this blog because I hate to see anyone taken advantage of, especially because they were unaware of accurate and true data on the subject. 

It appears that there is significant confusion over what the Nike Jordan rookie card really is. Who better to answer that question than the Nike poster card web page. 

As we explained in blog 15, Jordan signed his Bulls contract and his Nike contract in the fall of 1984. In quick order in early 1985 Nike put out the first Jordan poster 290850 and the corresponding Nike poster card and labeled it 290850 Air Jordan - Michael Jordan. If we look up the PSA population report as of March 30th 2021 there have been 29 graded including (4) 7's, (9) 8s, (7) 9s and (0) 10s

There was also a set released in 1985 by Nike called a promo set which included cards of the 1985 posters of Jordan, Gooden, McEnroe, Lofton and Lance Parrish.  To date PSA reports that more that 2,960 Air Jordan "promo cards" have been graded including more than 1000 8's, 1000 9s and 168 PSA 10s. These are 3 x 5 (not 5 x 7) and are all shown in blog #2. It is probably a safe guess to say that more of these were released than NPCs

So when you see adds like this :

Clearly understand that these are the Jordan promo cards and there are more than 3000 of them graded. Since there are literally 100X more of these graded than the actual Nike poster cards (NPC) (290850) does that mean the NPC should be selling for $500,000 in PSA 9 ??

Lastly the official 1986 Fleer "rookie" (card #57)  in the PSA population report as of March 31 shows more than 20,000 pieces graded with more than 8000 PSA 8s, 3000 9s and  316 PSA 10s. 

This mans logic tells me that the pricing that is out there for these cannot be sustained. 

It also tells me that the best buy in Jordan rookie cards is the Nike poster card rookie 290850 that only 29 of us currently own !

 

67 OSP 5 x 7s are not 5 x 7 Nike Poster Cards from the 1982 - 1992 set

 Continuing our discussions with Nike Mike, we asked him about some unusual 5 x 7s that we have come across over the years and that have popped up on EBay recently. 

The Barkley shown below was recently for sale. Note it would not be included in our 1982 - 1992  5 x 7 set because it does not have a Nike number , i.e. 290XXX but rather what we call an OSP number 5XXX  

Remember OSP is the printing company that Nike turned over poster production to in late 1992. So I'm not saying they are not real or are not collectable, just that the 5 x 7 Nike set with Nike numbers was ended in 1992 and the last number that we have found in sequence is 291015.

Mike says " First of all Nike never released any poster cards that had hand written numbers on them like this one. (NIKE) did not produce them. They were produced by the distribution partner (OSP). I can tell because of how they were produced- very sloppy and also rather than reduce the poster mechanical, the printed poster was photographed. I do have a copy of  5337 Barkley (photo below) as it was finally released with OSP number."  

So it looks like all of the 5 x 7s with handwritten numbers were OSP development pieces done in 1993 or later that some worker brought home. In fact a lot of these were sold a few years ago that included the film that the picture was developed from (see below) This substantiates Mikes recollection to a tee. 

Below is a film that our buddy Bruce "paqrat" Fisher obtained a few years ago for a Strawberry "Cream of the Crop" that they must have been getting ready to reprint. 

BEWARE - having this piece of film means anyone could begin reprinting these. In fact that looks like it has already happened. Bruce has sent a photo of the back of one of these and it is printed on Kodak paper like you'd get today from a drug store printing process. To my knowledge OSP never printed anything on paper with Kodak watermarks on it.  

Happy collecting !

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. 

 

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

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 ??