In the spring of 2019, I loaded up a USPS medium flat rate box full of Cubs cards and sent it up to Madison, Wisconsin.  A trade was in the works with Beau Thompson, the man behind the One Million Cubs project.  I sent him the box of Cubs, and in return, he would be sending me a package of various “odd ball” issues from the 70’s-90’s!

This is part three of a multi-post series coving the odd ball sets I received in the trade. The first post covered the 1983 Topps Gardners set, the second was the 1975 Hostess set, and now we’re here to discuss the 1984 Ralston Purina Topps Set!

This promo set came out a couple years before I began collecting in 1986, so I never had any of these growing up.  I had heard of them and seen some photos of the cards on COMC, but I never had any in hand until this trade with Beau.  When I think of Purina, my mind immediately goes to dog food, and until I received these cards and began researching the set for this article, I assumed they came in packages of pet food!  I was thinking why on earth would they use cards to sell dog food?

Turns out, Ralston Purina made people food in addition to the animal food!  According to the back of the card, kids could start building this 33 card set by having their parents buy specially marked packages of Cookie-Crisp, Donky Kong, and other Ralston cereals.

The front of the card features a basic portrait shot of most players, and the Purina and Topps logos are both present.  The back indicates this is the “1st Annual Collector’s Series” and has the Purina checkerboard logo as the watermark.  Despite the 1st annual notation, there does not appear to be another Purina set until 1987.

Topps also released a more generic “Cereal Series” which uses the same photo and basic design.  The Purina logo is missing from the front and back of the cards, and there is no reference to which cereals they came in.  These packs were inserted into other unmarked boxes of Purina cereal.  I don’t know if card production outpaced cereal production, but these cards were also made available in direct sales to dealers.  This is one reason why this set is so inexpensive.  Even 35 years later, availability is not an issue.  All 33 cards are available on COMC for less than .50 each, and complete sets can be found on eBay for between $5-$10 delivered.

There is no shortage of superstars and Hall of Farmers in the set.  Nolan Ryan, George Brett, Reggie Jackson, Pete Rose, and Wade Boggs are a few of the notable names in the set.

I’m becoming a bigger and bigger fan of these oddball sets, and since this one is actually produced by Topps, it even has full use of team logos.  The design of this 1984 Purina set is also strikingly similar to the 1986 Quaker Granola Bars set that came out during my first year of collecting.

I’d recommend picking one up as an inexpensive way to have some more unique cards of these stars of the 80’s!

Checklist

18. Steve Garvey

19. Reggie Jackson

20. Dave Concepcion

21. Robin Yount

22. Mike Schmidt

23. Jim Palmer

24. Bruce Sutter

25. Dan Quisenberry

26. Bill Madlock

27. Cecil Cooper

28. Gary Carter

29. Fred Lynn

30. Pedro Guerrero

31. Ron Guidry

32. Keith Hernandez

33. Carlton Fisk

1. Eddie Murray

2. Ozzie Smith

3. Ted Simmons

4. Pete Rose

5. Greg Luzinski

6. Andre Dawson

7. Dave Winfield

8. Tom Seaver

9. Jim Rice

10. Fernando Valenzuela

11. Wade Boggs

12. Dale Murphy

13. George Brett

14. Nolan Ryan

15. Rickey Henderson

16. Steve Carlton

17. Rod Carew