[brian1961]

Unless the first set you collected as a kid was the 1975 set, the Topps black beauty of '71 is by far the more popular. Nice mix, with game action shots sprinkled in here and there for the very first time. The Munson is considered one of Topps' top 100 of all time. World Series cards. We should not forget the addition of the last great subset from Topps---the coins.

One of the cons about the '75s are the Minis. Charles Conlon feverishly bought almost all of them, hoarded them, and then began selling them a box here and a box there, never revealing he was sitting on cases of them. You wanted Minis, you had to go to Conlon. Shrewd business move on his part, though I can easily say that, since I was not a buyer.

My point, after his death a few years back, REA handled his collection estate. There were STILL more '75 Minis than you could shake a stick at. It finally hit everyone that there was kind of a glut of them, and it all seemed to throw a tidal wave of cold water on the whole of interest in '75 Topps baseball. Regardless, the Yount and Brett rookies both have great eye appeal, and as I recall, so does the Nolan Ryan.

Nothing really changed with the black beauties--condition sensitivity, scarce series, poor quality control on the centering of the cards, and even whatever Larry Fritsch had available did not alter the fact that few cards will grade 9s and 10s.

Just an aside, though if this is common knowledge, I beg your pardon. The year 1971 was the second in which Topps charged a whole dime for one pack of cards, with gum. In 1975, Topps decided to reduce their overhead yet again, now charging 15 cents a pack for I believe 15 cards and a smaller stick of gum. The money they saved on wrappers and a smaller gum portion was substantial, no doubt, as well as forcing the customer to buy what would have been at least 3 packs of cards 6 years before, 1969 being the last year of the nickel packs.

Just my 5 and 10s worth.

Cheers.------------------Brian Powell