Vintage Card Of The Month: 2001 Donruss Classics Steve Largent Hash Marks

This month’s Vintage Card of the Month comes from 2001 Donruss Classic. Not really a vintage card by any means, at only 11 years old, but instead is going old-school with Steve Largent and Three Rivers Stadium.

 

In 2000 Pittsburgh Three Rivers Stadium was closed and demolished and the Steelers moved on to Heinz Field. Donruss was able to obtain pieces of the turf from the field and created the Hash Marks relic to honor the stadium’s history. The 25-card set created contained Hall of Famer players and current stars and the front showed the player along with their best game stats at the stadium. A list of some of the players who were includes in the set: Bart Starr, Steve Young, Jim Plunkett, Dan Marino, Cris Carter, Emmitt Smith, Walter Payton, Eric Dickerson, Barry Sanders, Reggie White and Steve Largent.

 

Steve Largent is one of my favorite Seahawks of all time, he was around from the beginning (originally drafted by the Oilers in 1976 but traded to the Seahawks during the preseason) and set the standard for years to come up in Seattle. He spent his entire career in Seattle, 14 years total, and when he retired he had 819 receptions for 13,089 yards and 100 touchdowns. He went to the Pro Bowl 7 times, was inducted in to the Hall of Fame in 1995 and his jersey #80 was retired by the Seahawks.

 

I dislike the Steelers but when it comes to Steve Largent I am able to overlook that and when I was finally able to find of these cards a couple of years ago I jumped on it to add it to my collection. Many of the cards can be found for under $10 but there a handful above that price for some of the bigger named players. I have seen a couple of autographed versions but I do not know if there were actually part of the original release or if a collector had the player sign after they owned the card.

 

The card is pretty thick, about double the thickness of a standard jersey card, and the turf piece is embedded on the front. Beneath the turf is the stat and date, in Largent’s case it is 30-Yard TD 12/4/77. The game was a 30-20 Steelers win and Steve Largent had 4 receptions for 71 yards and 1 touchdown. The back of the card has information about the turf and the stadium along with a picture that was taken at the stadium (not from the game day).