I can’t say I’ve loved every card, but overall I’m a huge fan of Topps Project 2020. My personal favorites are the cards from Tyson Beck, efdot, and Blake Jamieson. In efdot’s case he not only brings current events into his designs but he also lets his Patreon followers suggest ideas. Oh, and the final product looks great too!

Anyhow, a special request came in from @NatsBobbles that just happened to overlap with Project 2020. Before you ask, no, I have no plans to put my twist on all 20 Project 2020 cards, barring 19 more custom requests that take me there incidentally.

It was a special treat to work on the particular card for so many reasons—

  • I’m a huge Jackie Robinson fan
  • I really love how the card turned out
  • The collector is building an incredible set of 1952 Jackie-themed art cards for his son

Before anyone panics, the design did not require to me destroy an original 1952 Topps card. I bent my usual rules and went with a reprint, let’s say for obvious reasons! In fact, it took two reprints to achieve the effect I wanted with the nameplate and team logo. Fortunately @NatsBobbles sent me ten!

Thanks to @NatsBobbles for a challenging but fantastic project and for his donations to the Jackie Robinson Foundation and Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. Never one to throw away my scraps, I added a bonus “Heads Up” Jackie test issue 1/1 to the package—call it Project 2020 meets Project 1938? 😀