"1967" Topps StandUps
 

The big, black Topps StandUp set has always been listed as a 1967 issue. But the Jim Hunter card in the set lists him with the Oakland A's. The A's didn't move to Oakland until 1968. Doesn't this definitively establish the date of the set as 1968 (or later)? Here's an example of the Hunter card from Memory Lane's auction last night, clearly listing Hunter with Oakland: https://bid.memorylaneinc.com/bids/b...e?itemid=90543. Has this obvious mis-dating of the set really gone unnoticed for all these years?

That is amazing. Good catch. TradingCardDataBase has a pic of the Hunter printed as Oakland but has it listed as Kansas City.

Apparently this has been known for a little while:
https://sabrbaseballcards.blog/2022/...-dont-deliver/

Maybe they were produced in 1967 after the A's move was announced in October. I don't know when it became clear to Topps that they could not use the Astros name but those Wynn and Staub standups with totally black caps (no logo) were likely considered unattractive, or at least less attractive than using a full color poster like what Topps went with in '68.

words
 

Wow, I never knew they were the exact words to that Supertramp song !... thats a lot of strong stuff there !

1967 Topps stand ups
 

The 1968 poster set still has the ugly airbrush jobs on Hunter, Howard (although not so bad on the blue helmet), Wynn, and Staub. In addition, Wynn and Staub are the only two that have the city name rather than the team name.

I admit to being surprised (confused?) by the airbrush job on the Houston players. I thought the conflict about the Colt 45s vs Astros had been resolved in 1965.

The 1967 Astros had "Astros" on the front of their home jerseys. The 1967 Topps cards, while showing most players in the road uniforms (with Houston on the front) do show a couple of players (Sonny Jackson, Jim Landis) in the home Astros uniform.

As I understand it, the dispute was not with the Colt 45's but with Monsanto, which claimed it had trademarked the term with its "Astroturf" and was entitled to a piece of the licensing/royalty pie. Topps apparently wanted to steer clear of that "turf" war.

I never totally got why the hats were airbrushed, an "H" over a star. I don't believe that was claimed to be a trademarked logo by Monsanto, and although astro is one translation of star in Spanish, it seemed like a stretch for Topps to worry about that-- then again I am no student of the matter.

Back to the standups-- the ones of Staub and Wynn almost look like they're wearing visors, with their blacked-out hats blending into the cards' totally black background. As for the posters, the Astro logo still snuck onto Wynn's-- the player in the background shows it quite noticeably on his sleeve.

1967 standups
 

How were the stand-ups sold? Were they in packs like the plax ?

I could be wrong but I don’t think they were sold to the public, if they were they would have been in those plain white wrappers at a few select stores in the Northeast as a test market.

They were sold in these test packs and also included instructions: