Quote:
Originally Posted by rico43
With the enthusiasm of the Topps Vault releases somehow diminished (at least temporarily), this wonderful board has hit a lull, it seems to me. An idea of last week has some merit, so in the hopes of building some goodwill, I volunteer to compile the White Whale (or those images akin to them) for a central clearinghouse of the missing images.
The bigger problem as I saw, reading through the posts lask week, is the definition of a white whale. and the degrees of actual scarcity. What I think is reasonable is to have more than one level of scarcity. What I want to do is receive each person's list OFFLINE and a chance to compile more than one degree of difficulty.
My concerns: time parameters. Topps' archives seem to go back to its beginnings, so I think that we need to divide the lists into decades. Then theres the tricky definition of what is and isn't "white whale" material. So here are my definitions, as applied to this project:
True unicorn: no known image of a given player with a given team, period.
White whale: Images have been known or believed to exist, but have yet to be located (an ongoing quest, as it were)
TV: For those who need only a Topps Vault image
Color: self-explanatory, replacing those that have never been in TRUE color (Wenty Ford, etc.)
ALSO
If you have TV images that require ID, we should have a new, current thread to turn the face cops loose on an image, much like you guys did for me on the Ric Wilson/Mariners image last week.
Whether or not you agree exactly on these definitions, for our purposes one definition needs to be accepted. Send me your current lists, categorized as above, as a private message and I will post the final results here within a week.
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A wonderful proposal that I cherish, thank you! It is a project that embodies the original communal spirit of this thread and complies with its philosophy and objectives, which sadly in my opinion has become increasingly rare. You certainly have achieved your hopes for goodwill in the eyes of this reader.
Apologies for being somewhat pedantic but I would like to contribute significantly towards your project and seek clarification in terms of its scope in at least two areas.
Firstly you use the word team as in given team in your unicorn definition. I seek clarification in terms of how you intend to use the phrase given team and I list 5 possible alternatives.
1. As in franchise so the St. Louis Browns and Baltimore Orioles would constitute the same team.
2. As in team nickname so a differentiation would arise in the case for example of the Houston Colt 45s and Houston Astros being different teams.
3. As in team name location so a differentiation would arise in the case for example of the Los Angeles Angels and California Angels as being different teams.
4. As in team uniform design so a differentiation would arise in the case for example of the 1959 Kansas City Athletics and 1960 Kansas City Athletics as being different teams.
5. As on a yearly basis so each team would differ from the previous year's team on an annual basis.
The second area that I seek clarification on in terms of the scope of your project is in respect of color. We are all aware that there was period when color imagery was not prevalent and we are therefore dependant on colorizations. In the colorpack project it is my objective to prioritize colorizations to avoid duplication. The method I used was to start with Hall of Famers then move onto starters. Would your project embrace color imagery for the whole of MLB history ?