[nolemmings]

1971 had the best visual appearance for me in terms of card design of the “favorites” discussed. Photo selection could have been better on some of the top players though– not anywhere near my favorite Aaron, Banks or Mays, and Gibson was hard to see (although kudos on the attempt). Second photo on back was neat surprise, but sacrificed the season stat lines for space savings and that was an irritant for me, who loved to study those.

1972 was an outstanding set, mostly due to creativity IMO. A little bold in design maybe, but I loved pretty much everything about it. I was a baseball geek who even liked the cards of the award plaques and also the Boyhood Photos of the Stars, which showed these guys at my age. Liked the traded cards too– a lot. Maybe they didn’t need to double up on both regular and “in action” cards of so many players but it was the start of a new era so I can understand why they jumped in. My only complaint was that somebody should have put the brakes on the air-brushers. I don’t mind the occasional blotted out cap, but most if not all of the efforts to paint a cap logo or uniform change were awful. I can’t understand how they could take or find so many new and interesting action photos to include but in combing their extensive catalog of shots they could not keep current on the regular photos.

1975: excellent player selection and photography, no doubt. The design was just the opposite–almost hideous. I sorted my cards by team, and Topps used mostly consistent banners, circles and team names that color coordinated each team from 1964-69 and 1971, 72, 74, 76+, so those displayed nicely. 1975 was fugly. A Tony Oliva orange over brown looked awful near a Rod Carew yellow over red, Blyleven red over blue and Larry Hisle yellow over green, for example. And then of course the team name could be yet a different color for each. No thanks.