Dodger Team Issue 8x10 Color Photos

Ah, yet another team issue item that continues to confuse the masses. It must have been great to be a kid in LA, when all these neat team issue sets were available. Too bad I lived 1000s of miles away!

Continuing in my theme of trying to ID and possibly catalog these various team issues, many of which ran for several years without a good way to identify years of issue, I present to you the 8x10 photo collection. These are a certain type of photo, not just an ordinary 8x10. They are on a thin cardboard stock, similar to a baseball card, not like the flimsy photo paper that a standard 8x10 would be on. They are somewhat glossy, but not like a slick photo would be. They all had white borders and facsimile autographs. As usual, there may be small clues to help identify years, such as uniforms, players grouped together, etc, but you'd need a reference point. Unlike the B&W photos, I have never seen any packaging or envelopes for these larger photos. Perhaps they were sold one at a time, perhaps as a group. I don't know. I wasn't there!

I have included scans of all I have come across including 2 with slight variations. These have to do with the size of the facsimile autograph or placement of the autograph. Looks closely or you will miss it! Once again, I have tried to present the scans in the order I believe they may have been issued, but as usual, I do not know for sure.

I believe this was the first photo issued. I have no other reason, except it just seems likely. Now this photos is the same as the 1975 Dodger yearbook. That tells me this was probably a 1975 issue. I have only seen one copy for sale, mine. Not sure why this one is so much harder to find?

These next one's have a 1976-77 feel to them. It may be the first photo issued though. I wish I knew! This is the first photo I found a variation on. Notice the autograph is entirely in the grass on the first photo, yet partially in the dirt on the second photo!

I'm guessing this is 1978 time frame?

Here is another variation. The first picture has a thicker, darker signature than the following photo. I have multiples of the lighter signature, but only one of the darker version.