1990 George Bush reprint created

One of the most sought-after baseball cards of the 1990s was a card that Topps created for then-President George H.W. Bush.

In the style of its regular 1990 set, the card pictures the senior Bush in a photo taken when he was captain of the Yale baseball team circa 1948.

At the time of its issue, it was widely reported that only 100 of the cards were printed, and that all were presented to the president for his personal use.

Within a very short time, however, reports began to surface that a few of the cards had been found in Topps packs sold to the general public. 

In recent years, a handful of the Bush cards have surfaced in hobby auctions, many of them certified by the major third-party grading companies. Prices realized have generally exceeded $5,000, with sales of over $8,000 recorded.

Whether these cards seen in the market came from the presidential allocation, from random pack picks or from the backdoor at Topps' printing plant remains unknown, but it is evident the card is in great demand.

With that in mind, I decided to try my hand at creating a reprint of this famed card.

While the finished product is certainly a close approximation of the originals, the process really wasn't all that satisfying. 

The various custom cards that I have been making for nearly a decade require a good deal of research, computer graphics work and the exacting process of printing and cutting. Except for the latter, all that was required to make a decent reprint was a minor change to the card's back to replace a copyright line with a reprint notice.

I've actually got a short list of great rarities of the card world that I plan on creating in reprint form sometime in the future, but based on the relative lack of pride of creation, the reprints will probably remain on the back burner for a while.