Slightly OT - 1982 Topps Blackless

[ALR-bishop]

Doug--I have the 396 "base" set and agree with your list. I had thought it was Zenithium who originally pointed out to me that the SCD Standard Catalog originally incorrectly listed the 301 Action Jackson in the set. That was changed in later editions.

I never paid much attention to whether the cards in the set were A, B or C sheet cards. Zenithium at one point took the view that the C cards were the scarcest, then Bs, then As. Later he took the view Bs were almost as tough as Cs. In collecting the set I definitely found that in general the Cs and Bs were tougher than As, but never did much checking on whether a card was properly identified from the claimed sheet.

I got most of mine from 4 sellers, 2 in NY and 2 in Michigan. I believe the Bs and Cs mostly surfaced in Michigan and the As in NY....in packs. Some cards seem tougher to find totally blackless than others, maybe a factor of their location on a sheet. One that comes to mind is Stanley, but there were a couple of others that you had to look carefully at to be sure there was no hint of a gray autograph. I have some duplicate cards in which the signatures, which are missing on the blackless, are gray rather than black. I do not know if the set can be completed in "gray".

Zenithium now lists a "master" set at 400. He came up with 4 blackless cards that had minor print difference , for example a red spot on the cap of Forsch. I have one of his "variations" to the set, and pointed out that in putting the set together I have found other print flaws in some of my blackless cards, but he was convinced the 4 he had found were "neccessary" if you wanted a master set. I do not know if anyone has his master set. I have settled for the base set, plus one