[G1911]

1971 Topps is my favorite vintage football set, and the first set I collected and put together, from ages 8-12. The corny cartoons, vivid borders, and some fun posed shots amidst the portraits, I love the design.

As far as I'm aware, there are no variations. I always like to add variants and recurring print defects to my complete sets, but there's not much to ad for this year, besides some miscuts/out of focus cards and the occasional blank back (I have Dixon and Yempremian).

I'm now working on the Game cards as a compliment to my set, but don't have any of the Posters. For a 1 per pack insert, the Game cards seem to be extremely common and cheaper than the base cards.

Much of my love for this set is sentimental now, as the first set I collected with my father. I quickly turned to vintage, my first 71 being a Jim Otto given to me by our neighbor from his childhood collection. I loved the All-Star Blue and Red borders, and my father and I slowly put it together mostly from card shows and my local card shop, sadly long since closed, with every penny I could scrounge up. Bradshaw and Simpson were the final cards, as a Bradshaw was pretty expensive to me at that time (even a creased one took quite a few mowed lawns to afford). My mother didn't think it appropriate to spend my hard earned cash on a picture of OJ, so I got that one on the sly from my Dad to finish it.

Most of my set is what PSA would grade as Excellent but I call VG-EX, have a few I need to upgrade now but I'll be keeping the Poor condition Otto and a few sentimental favorites in my binder set. This is the only set I've done to any kind of a condition standard.

Sentimentality aside, it still measures up as a great set to me. 263 cards is not that many to put together, the design screams 'the 70's' to me, and the second series, like 1968-1970, is not at all difficult even if notably less common than the first series. Rookies of Bradshaw, Houston, Lanier, Mean Joe Greene, Schottenheimer, Charlie Sanders and Wehrli. I'm putting together 68, 69, 70 and 72 (ignoring the third series for now), but none of them do I like as much as the 71's.

The 1971 O-Pee-Chee CFL set carries a similar design, and the front design was recycled for the 30 card 1974 Wonder Bread issue, which is pretty easy to put together as well. The Wonder Bread cards can be found in a version without the series name at top on the card backs, which is much more difficult to locate and put together. Upper Deck pilfered the design for their 2001 UD Vintage set, though none of the recycled design sets use the cheesy cartoon player Topps inserted in place of a team logo, since they apparently did not have licenses to use team logos on their cards.

Is anyone else a fan of the 71 issue? Have any favorite cards, any cool print defects or proofs or uncut material? Opened a pack or box of these?