Up to 51 of the 77 cards placed into their row. Taking the partial sheets above + Coleman and typing out ('SP''s are the generally stated ones in catalogues). The 550 McCovey row would seem it must be a continuation of one of the rows at bottom, and not a separate row as there should be 7 total rows.


550 McCovey SP, 533 Adair SP, 579 Orioles Rookies, 537 Franks

554 Northrup SP, 568 A’s Rookies, 584 Yankees Rookies, 581 Tony Martinez, 534 Mets Rookies, 558 Red Sox Rookies, 573 Griffith, 536 Egan, 529 White Sox Rookies, 572 Priddy, 574 Mets Rookies (COMPLETE ROW OF 11)

557 Mantilla, 588 A’s Rookies, 545 Dick Green SP, 526 Twins Team SP, 589 Klimchock, 593 Camilli, 563 Twins Rookies, 578 Olivio SP, 548 Kroll SP, 524 Giants Rookies, 539 Astro’s Rookies (COMPLETE ROW OF 11)

591 Rookies (Grant Jackson) SP (START OF ROW CONFIRMED), 540 McClain SP, 567 Howser SP, 527 Navarro, 577 Lamabe SP, 596 Astro’s Rookies SP, 551 Purkey SP, 543 Craig SP

555 Perranoski SP, 562 Snyder, 559 Pena SP, 564 Chance SP, 561 Coleman SP

544 Cards Rookies SP, 565 Piersall SP, 547 Clarke SP, 546 Siebler

585 Taylor, 530 Robin Roberts, 560 Horlen, 571 Dave Roberts SP

594 Salmon, 535 Willie Davis SP, 575 Wilson, 580 Williams SP

1966 topps highs
 

Thanks for the Coleman addition. Hopefully, some other miscuts will surface to allow the placement of the remaining 26 cards.

The Perranowski, Cards rookie stars, Taylor, and Salmon must be the start of rows since they are under Northrup and we know all the cards in Northrup's row.

And yes, the McCovey four card panel (McCovey, Adair, Johnson rookie, and Franks) must be cards 5, 6, 7, & 8 in one of the other rows. Therefore, these four cards must be in one of the three rows headed by either Cards Rookies, Taylor, or Salmon since at least five cards are known in the either four rows. I lean towards the Salmon row, but only because that would put several SPs together (Davis, Williams, McCovey), even though it should be clear that current price guide listings of SPs is not completely consistent with the card patterns observed,

Those guide SP patterns are often off because only one half sheet was observed or a box or case was open that had the typical Topps collation of the time (i.e. terrible). This information, right or wrong, ended up in guides for decades (still does sometimes) and the origins often predate the modern guides of the late 70's. Other patterns were often due to to dealer ad hyperbole I'd say.

1966 SP patterns were not known until after the 67's were semi-sussed out but from what I've been seeing in the many 70's hobby pubs I've been scanning is that the 66 highs in general were more expensive in the late 70's than the 67 highs were. One of the innovators in cracking all the series and SP breakdowns was Lew Lipset around 1976-77, who I believe was a Wall St analyst for decade after college (or something quite similar) before turning to stamps, then cards. He seems to have applied his data and analytical expertise to card pricing and figured out a lot of the "good" information. I'm still not to the point where the 66 SP info began appearing in the guides so it would have been in the late 80's. I randomly took out my S-A/Beckett Guide #6 from 1984 and the only '66 SP info was that the #598 Perry card was in short supply even for a set-ender.

Thanks for this background; I've assumed the "SP"'s date from the 70's or 80's, but I only started collecting this set around 2000 and don't have many of the old periodicals. As I recall, 20 years ago Gaylord was still the pre-eminent SP, not 591 Jackson/Shirley. Would love to see what some of the other older material says on this matter. None of the 70's Sport Hobbyist issues I have include dealers designating individual highs as extra special/tough.

Definitely some kind of 80's deal for the most part. Beckett's first two price surveys were sets only, plus a couple of odd series like 52 highs. I'll track it down eventually in the old guides.

CCC ad in The Trader Speaks, August 1979. Check it out:

Boy do I wish I had a time machine, 1,200 67 highs for $100. Looks like they still weren't calling out "SP's" as late as 79 then.

In the Vol.1 #1 issue of Current Card Prices (Jan 1983) to which Mr. Hornish was a contributor, commons for 1966 from the last series (523-598) were listed at $1.75 each. Cards in that series that carried a premium were 526 (Twins team), 530 (Robin Roberts), 535 (Willie Davis), 540 (McLain), 550 (McCovey), 558 (Scott), 565 (Piersall), 567 (Howser), 580 (Billy Williams), 583 (Tigers team), 590 (Skowron) and 598 (Perry). No mention of 591 or 544 being special!!!

Not sure if this is of interest, but here goes. There were several times during the period 1965 to 1969 that Topps had a print run of 77 cards. This print run would have 7 unique rows of 11 cards each. The big question for some of us is to try to determine the specific pattern that these 7 rows were distributed across the full sheet, which consisted of two half-sheets (or slits) of 12 rows each.

For the half-sheets that I have seen, this is the pattern of the rows observed. I labeled the rows A through G, with A being the row which was at the top of the half-sheet. Just the left half-sheets are shown below.

1965 Series 5 - (Bateman as leading row): A, B, C, D, E, A, F, G, B, C, D, E
1965 Series 7 - (Gaines as as leading row): A, B, C, D, E, A, F, G, B, C, D, E
1967 Series 7 - (Pinson as as leading row): A, B, C, D, E, A, F, G, B, C, D, E
1969 Series 6 - (Rookies as leading row): A, B, C, D, E, A, F, G, B, C, D, E

Wow. These sheets all exhibited the same pattern so I thought I was on to something!! But, unfortunately, Topps used a different pattern on the right half-sheets I have seen.

1965 Series 5R (Blanchard as leading row): A, B, C, D, E, A, B, F, G, C, D, E
1969 Series 6R (Green as leading row): A, B, C, D, E, F, A, B, G, C, D, E

Still have all the issues I worked on (until early 1985) here and plan to pull them out and look at some of the pricing structures. I can tell you the SP information was almost all culled from other guides and publications, although we created CCP content from the ground up (unlike CPU, which got busted for plagiarizing Beckett's guides). E&V info came from Ralph Nozaki in part and also from the guides; the guy who put out CCP (Richie) was a card dealer as well and knew a lot about what was hot and the card market in general. I put together the inaugural Football and Hockey magazine from scratch over a weekend and then we had a huge blowout from out of the blue and that was it for me.

Checked out two of my old Wholesale Cards Co. (Bruce Yeko) price lists.

The 1972 list has no short prints and cards 523-598 were 20 cents each and the full 7th series was available fir $12.95. (First scan)

Six years later in 1978, still no short prints listed but the price of the 7th series went up to 30 cents each. The complete 7th series was no longer available. (Second scan)

That ties with my recent findings from the era. Yeko may have ended up with the excess 66's that normally went to CCC as he was on good terms with Woody Gelman, who I more and more think along with Bill Haber, brokered the unsold Topps cases to other major dealers; in fact I think one dealt with primarily unsold overstock from the Topps warehouse (Woody, in addition to his own stock) and one dealt with jobber returns (Haber) but that is just educated guesswork on my part. I'd love to find the shipping originator on a case of aftermarket CCC cards that went out from their ads, I wonder if it would say Duryea. Gelman and Haber probably split the vast majority of unsold test material in the early 70's as well.

Overall, it was a lot harder to find 66 highs than 67's in the 1970's ads I've seen, and I've seen a bunch now.

I believe Yeko got the 1963 highs too. I know he was out of 591 and 598 from the 1966 set by 1973-74. Larry Fritsch got the 1972 high number football cards. CCC got the 1967 high numbers. It seems strange that German would let competitors get some close outs.

I believe that more 1966 high numbers ended up at retail than 1967, but that may have just my perception from what was available locally. CCC had lots of 1967 high numbers so that made it easier for collectors to have access to them. 1961 highs, 1963 semi highs and 1966 highs were the cards that I had difficulty with in the mid-seventies.

I think it makes sense when looking at Woody as a Topps employee, with several side gigs (and not just cards-he was a magazine and book publisher as well, plus he wrote/illustrated some risque smaller books like "Sam, the Ceiling Needs Painting"-google it for a good laugh). Topps may have wanted multiple outlets for this stuff-you never know when an employee might bolt, even one as unique as Woody. Or, maybe just friendship-Woody was apparently one of the mellowest and nicest dudes on the planet and was friends with everybody and anybody.

There was an issue with 1967 high number distribution west of the Mississippi and that is one thing that makes me think Woody dealt with unsold warehouse overstock vs. returns (which was more Fritsch territory-Bill Haber even worked for Fristch briefly in the mid-70's which sort of led me to that side of the equation and also knowing the origin of some Fritsch stock was items already out of the Topps warehouse), since he had so much.

It could have even broken down by the type of buyer-Topps had different unions send out to different buyers (jobbers, consolidators and direct retail at least and some of that was divided by day, evening and night shifts) and possibly also by packaging type (wax, cello, rak and vending). Then more I look at it the more complex yet interlocking everything seems. So many moving parts at Topps.

Fascinating stuff gents! Thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge. Are any of the old Topps guys you reference still living? Would br great to hear them address some of the questions raised in this thread.

1966 high # miscuts
 

Does anyone have any 1966 high number severe miscut images they can share? Looking to see if the placement of several cards can be identified.

I have a mis cut Perry. Will post by end of weekend.

An important key to the SP's potentially.

stlcardsfan hope you get to post that Perry card. Really appreciate getting to see that!

Great information on availability in the 70's, thanks for sharing gents. And thank you in advance stlcardsfan for the Perry image, this would be, I think, the most interesting card to place that hasn't been put into a row yet.

Perry
 

Here is the mis cut Perry. It appears to me at least that Larry Jackson (#595) would reside on the row right beneath GP. Hope this helps. For some reason I cannot load photos of much size on this site. And they always come out upside down. I have seen folks fix this in the past. I would try but wanted to get this for everyone’s view.

.

Thanks Cliff!

One more clue here, Perry over Jackson. I've had little luck scowering COMC and eBay scans for anything that isn't already known

The one year we need Topps usual quality control.....

Dan Jackson-the upside down or sideways phone photos can be fixed. Some suggestions here: https://www.ricksdailytips.com/turn-...tate-on-phone/

There are also some apps that can do this. I think the issue is actually how this site handles some information but it could just be a setting or two on your phone.

Thanks Dave.

I guess a side to side mis-cut Perry would have been more helpful. Now we need a side to side mis-cut Jackson and then a top to bottom mis-cut whoever is next to him to see who’s next to Perry😬. Like being stuck on a puzzle!

As many know, the 7th series checklist has two varieties: Version A has White Sox (529) and Cardinals (544) spelled out while Version B has 529 as W. Sox and 544 as Cards. Although not very scientific, a quick survey of ebay this morning revealed that the Version A is more prevalent by approximately a 2:1 ratio. Furthermore, five version A cards were found marked up to only # 522 and none of version B were found marked in that fashion. This leads me to suspect that version A was the checklist that was in the 6th series printing and version B was the checklist printed in the last printing.

The Sports Americana Price Guide (1979) does not have price distinctions for most of the common high series cards from 1966, although some cards have premiums applied (e.g., team cards, semi-stars, or stars).

The CCP guide from 1983 also does not appear to have price distinctions, although team cards, star cards (Roberts, McCovey, McLain, Williams, and Perry), and presumably semi-stars (Davis, Scott, Piersall, Howser, Skowron) do have a premium applied.

The Baseball Card Price Guide, April 88 issue shows a 2x multiplier for #524, 528, 544, 545, 547, 548, 551, 556, 561, 570, 576, 579, 591, and 593 in addition to premiums for stars and teams. Cards such as 535, 543, 554, 555, 558, 563, 566, 567, 574, 584, 589, 596, and 597 have a minor premium applied to the standard common card pricing, presumably because, they have Dodger, Yankee, Met, Red Sox, or Tiger players.

So, it appears that the SP idea may have germinated sometime between 1983-1988, but as mentioned in an earlier post by Toppcat, the cards apparently designated as SPs probably achieved that distinction because of poor collation or distribution issues rather than actual print quantity variations.

Thanks Kevvy for the new insight. I had never thought about the 7th Series checklist and it's two variations like that. Also, very interesting on the relative price-values from the decade of the '80's.The evolution-change is amazing. Sadly when I got back into the hobby it was the late 80's and prices for the high number 1966 cards were already sky-high(with my budget).Great detective work that is very appreciated by 66 lovers like myself!

I'll second that. As a 1966 fan and a collector of the high series, I enjoy the insights. One thing I saw in a previous thread, somewhere it says in an ad that cards 591 and 598 were no longer available. That's real interesting as back then 591 would have been just another high number. So I'm still feeling that 591 was replaced on one on the sheets by a checklist or it's position on the outside of a row caused it to be damaged and thrown away,

billp

Hot cards back in the day would say POR a lot in ads, or just not offered. 591 is the Grant Jackson card, 598 is Gaylord Perry. Dealers in the Northeast (and possibly country-wide) hoarded these for a long time as they believed they were actually short printed. They would not have been replaced on the sheets but their positioning could have damaged them in production causing some to be pulled. Edges and corners are usually the worst places to be on a sheet damage-wise.

This matches my own slight research on the scarcity; I have them checklisted in my master set the same way



I still think 591 is actually no rarer than 10 or 21 other cards; just hoarded and a manufactured pain point. 598 Perry definitely seems to have 'fallen off' a bit comparatively over the years

I analyzed approximately 30 marked series 7 checklists over the past month to see which numbers were checked off. Interestingly both 591 and 598 were marked off as frequently, if not more so, than most of the other cards. Similarly, cards #544, 580, and 550 were not uncommon. As a result, I suspect that the print pattern utilized was 4 rows three times each and three rows four times each, so the relative scarcity is probably not significantly different for any card from this series, it's just that the overall quantity is low and demand is high.

Back 30 years ago when I first put this set together my toughest get was 598 perry. It was priced as a tough get. 2nd was the Clarke card #547. 3rd was coleman #561. #591 was not in the conversation. Last week an unopened cello for the 7th series was advertised. The top had Larry Jackson, but the bottom had card #512. So that nixed the bidding for me. Wonder what was inside? How could #512 be in a 7th series cello? A 1st series was also offered. Klaus on the top and Ranew on the bottom.

1966 Topps high variations
 

I have been attempting to determine the rows in which various cards were located for the 1966 high numbers and came across this oddity for Larry Jackson, # 595 and this one for Gaylord Perry # 598. [ATTACH]Attachment 406859[/ATTACH]

Never saw that one before. With any card where there are 2 sheets I'm not surprised with cropping differences or this type item.

I don't know much about 1966 and 1967 Topps high number short prints, I did some searching for miscut 1966 short prints and was surprised at how few I could find that went into an adjacent card. It wasn't an extensive search but these were all I could find. I don't know if the Tebbetts is considered an SP or not.

1966 high cards
 

Thanks. That helps identify that Choo Choo (561) is definitely next to Chance (564) and that Tebbets (552) is below Choo Choo and in the row headed by Cards rookies. The Clarke (547) is above Horlen (560) as shown in that miscut. Interestingly, I have been scouring ebay for the last month and not seen those miscut cards. Where did you find them?

1966 high # miscuts
 

And Tebbets (552) is adjacent to Siebler (546)

1966 Topps 7th series rows updated
 

Based on the miscut information shown, we can positively identify the following:

Row A (COMPLETE ROW OF 11): 554 Northrup SP, 568 A’s Rookies, 584 Yankees Rookies, 581 Tony Martinez, 534 Mets Rookies, 558 Red Sox Rookies, 573 Griffith, 536 Egan, 529 White Sox Rookies, 572 Priddy, 574 Mets Rookies

Row B (COMPLETE ROW OF 11): 557 Mantilla, 588 A’s Rookies, 545 Dick Green SP, 526 Twins Team SP, 589 Klimchock, 593 Camilli, 563 Twins Rookies, 578 Olivio SP, 548 Kroll SP, 524 Giants Rookies, 539 Astro’s Rookies

Row C (START OF ROW CONFIRMED): 591 Rookies (Grant Jackson) SP , 540 McClain SP, 567 Howser SP, 527 Navarro, 577 Lamabe SP, 596 Astro’s Rookies SP, 551 Purkey SP, 543 Craig SP

Row D (START OF ROW CONFIRMED): 555 Perranoski SP, 562 Snyder, 559 Pena SP, 564 Chance SP, 561 Coleman SP

Row E (START OF ROW CONFIRMED): 544 Cards Rookies SP, 565 Piersall SP, 547 Clarke SP, 546 Siebler, 552 Tebbets SP

Row F (START OF ROW CONFIRMED): 585 Taylor, 530 Robin Roberts, 560 Horlen, 571 Dave Roberts SP

Row G (START OF ROW CONFIRMED): 594 Salmon, 535 Willie Davis SP, 575 Wilson, 580 Williams SP

The McCovey 4 card strip (550 McCovey SP, 533 Adair SP, 579 Orioles Rookies, 537 Franks) must be a continuation of either row F or row G, and I lean towards row G because of the thick left edge border found on those cards). In addition, the Sullivan strip (597, 592, 549) must also be placed; the checklist (517) is most likely at the end of an SP row, and we know that Perry (598) is above Jackson (595).

In addition to the above 10 cards, the following card locations are unknown: 523, 525, 528, 531, 532, 538, 541, 542, 553, 556, 566, 569, 570, 576, 582, 583, 586, 587, 590.

I scour eBay current and completed items, COMC, Dean’s Cards, WorthPoint and just plain ol’ Google searches. Sportslots and Amazon aren’t worth the trouble to look through. Unless I am misunderstanding you, that isn’t Tebbetts directly underneath Coleman, the card under Coleman has a clear blue sky and Tebbetts has obstructions at the top of his card. ETA: It looks like it could be one of two Indians, #525 Gary Bell or #538 Bob Allen, it looks like it can't be #547 Dick Howser or #581 Tony Martinez. It looks like Bell to me. I should have said partly cloudy rather than clear blue sky :D.

I think it's gary bell under choo choo

Does nt look like tebbets is next to siebler, siebler is blue not purple i think siebler is next to bell and tebbets is next to monteguido

Definitely Bell, not Tebbets, below the miscut.

The top/bottom doesn't always mean we can place them though, yet at least; it doesn't mean Bell was necessarily next to Siebler because we don't know how the rows were placed. We know the 11 cards in a row are probably a constant as Topps didn't change that, but with some of the highs the rows weren't always placed in the same repeating order; thus a Coleman may have been on top of 2 different rows in its spot on the sheet, not always the same row beneath the Choo Choo row.

The Tebbets in the amended version of my compiled list in post 90 by Kevvyg1026 should be removed and placed with Bell or more accurately a "possibly Bell", I think.

Great searching Cliff! So Bell is under Coleman. Monteguido next to Tebbetts.And re-confirms Clarke over Horlen.

I had to laugh when I saw the Davis. I don't know which direction the Hoerner was printed but it is definitely an edge card on that jagged side.

The Davis must be on top of #568 Lindblad/Stone

The worst cut Hoerner shows Tebbets below. I'm not sure it's the same gray-color card beneath it in the next image though.

1966 high miscuts
 

I believe the worst cut Hoerner actually shows Taylor (585) below. I think one of the other Hoerner miscuts shows Perranowski above it, so both cards show the same pattern as what we already know.

Tebbets is in the middle of the sheet somewhere, on a row not yet identified.

One of the Shirley/Jackson miscuts may be above Salmon (594) or Taylor (585), while one is below one of those two cards as well. This gives some insight into a possible pattern on the sheet since 591 is below a different card than what is shown on other uncut material.

The Davis miscut, I think, shows the A's rookie card (568). This means that at some point on the sheet, the row with Davis (i.e., headed by Salmon) was definitely above the row headed by Northrup. This supports, but is not conclusive evidence, that the McCovey 4-card strip may be in the row headed by Salmon,as well.

What grabbed me was the border space in comparing the odd shaped 544 cut above to a more normal 544 cut. the odd shaped looked like it was on the top corner of a sheet. also what card has that brown border?