3 best. 3 worst Topps issues

[kailes2872]

Read the if you could open a box thread and it made me think about my favorite and least favorite years. I am not sure if I am down on the 70s stuff because of the nostalgia of the 50s/60s stuff but there really seems to be a drop off

Here are mine:
Worst:
70 - hate this year and the gray borders. I didn't like if 30+ years ago when I saw it for the first time and I like it even less now. When you take the awesomeness of 67-69 and 71 surrounding it, makes it even worse.

73 - this is one that I liked a lot as a kid but dislike after I have bought the set. I loved the Aaron card catching the popup. I liked the fact that it was the last Clemente issue and the fact that Willie looked very old in the Mets uniform. However, in retrospect, the cards are usually off center and miscut. My two least favorite cards are Freddie Patek and Leron Lee. The backs seem to be dungy and dirty and hard to read. I very rarely get this album out to look at.

79 - Easy target but I find nothing redeeming about this set.

Honorable mention:
78 (polarizing but I don't like it)
64 - my least favorite of the 60s and I didn't want to just list ever 70s set except 71-72 and 75-76

Best:
65 - love the pennant design. I like the black pennant for cardinals. One of my favorite Mantle cards. The 80 issue seems like abut of a hat tip to this year and 80 was my first year of heavy collecting

59 - love the format. It is the one that I have been upgrading since August so lots of energy with it.

63 - really dig the circle picture on the card. It seems like it would have been cool to open a pack of these in 63 as the cards look fantastic. I don't particularly like the floating head cards but the rest of the set makes up for it.

Honorable Mention:
67 - built the set card by card and love the green backs and clear pictures

72 - Polarizing but it is my birth year so I have always had an affinity for the magical mystery tour set

75 - As a kid growing up and becoming a big baseball fan in the early 80s, a set that had a rookie of Brett, Yount, Lynn, Rice, Carter plus a Hank Aaron Brooks and Frank Robinson, Gibson, Brock, and Killebrew was the perfect mix of the golden age and new age in one crazy colored set!

As you can see, I am new here and this might be a tired retreaded topic. If so, my apologies - if you want to provide a link to the archive I would love to read your responses. I looked back a few pages before I posted but admittedly I didn't do an extensive search.

Cheers!

[Section115]

Best: 1966, 1972, 1960

Worst: 1970, 1976, 1973


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[nolemmings]

I'll chime in on this topic again. I try to look at the sets as if they were released when I was a kid, and of course many of them in fact were. My least favorite:

1. 1978. Hands down. It's as if the guy tasked with designing this set took the preceding year's issue--itself pretty unremarkable--and took 15 minutes to tweak a couple of things to distinguish it (must have been the same guy they used in 1969). Those things, an ugly uncreative script team name and the player's position, abbreviated no less, put inside a baseball, make it look like someone forgot to do their homework assignment and slapped together something in between classes. Hate it.

2. 1973. First year to issue all cards at once, and the first to dive headlong into "action shots", after an apparent warm reception from the '71 and '72 dabbling into that format. Between the hideous airbrushing gone wild to the long range who-the-heck-is that shot selection, these just fell flat. I will give them credit for the LHP/RHP distinction and it's not totally their fault that the action photography was not yet up to snuff; still, with the drab black backs and their vertical orientation that limited the stats, this was lackluster at best.

3. 1954. I won't totally re-hash my prior rant--it can be found here.
http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...highlight=1954
Suffice it to say that the player selection was so lousy-- a 1/10 chance at getting a coach or manager and virtually no AL Champion Indian pitchers, for example-- that any kid ripping packs that year was dismally disappointed. Topps was hugely lucky that they hit on Aaron, Kaline and Banks, or this would be universally roasted as the worst Topps set ever.

BEST.

1. 1966. My first year collecting. Love the color coordination for all players on a team--also used well in '68 and '69 (same colors even). Mad that they chose that one year to exclude World Series cards as my beloved Twins had been participants. Just liked everything about the set except maybe the capless guys from the Angels and Braves in the early series.

2. 1961. Really think this is a clean design, although the photography could be better. This was the first set I ever collected that was issued before I had started collecting-- my first effort at a set from the past, and I will always remember the first card given to me--Billy Pierce. Had never heard of him, did a bit of research and saw he was quite good and this spurred me to first study many others who had played before "my time". Really started me into vintage collecting, later followed by prewar.

3. 1956. Player selection is outstanding, love the over-sized cards, and the design and artwork are great, even if many were repeated from the prior year or two. If they could have just squeezed Musial in there somehow.

[JollyElm]

Originally Posted by nolemmings

2. 1973. First year to issue all cards at once, and the first to dive headlong into "action shots", after an apparent warm reception from the '71 and '72 dabbling into that format. Between the hideous airbrushing gone wild to the long range who-the-heck-is that shot selection, these just fell flat. I will give them credit for the LHP/RHP distinction and it's not totally their fault that the action photography was not yet up to snuff; still, with the drab black backs and their vertical orientation that limited the stats, this was lackluster at best.

Minor point, but it was 1974 when Topps issued all the cards at once. 1973 still had the various series.

[nolemmings]

Sorry, but the 1973 were also released all at once. In some parts of the country they were released in series, but they were all printed at once and at least where I grew up in Minnesota, were all available at the same time.

[JollyElm]

Originally Posted by nolemmings

Sorry, but the 1973 were also released all at once. In some parts of the country they were released in series, but they were all printed at once and at least where I grew up in Minnesota, were all available at the same time.

Sorry, but I don't buy it. The whole country had the set released in series...but not your town in Minnesota? Come on.

[Griffins]

Best- '67, '65, '71, '56, '55

'67 is the cleanest design of all the Topps issues, and IMO 2nd only to '53 Bowman for best design. '65 and '71 are both great designs and both sets feature good imagery. '56 and '55 are like the others, a good design that doesn't get in the way of the photography, as it should be.

Worst '73, '61, '59, '57, '58

'73, '61, and '57 all have bad, muddy images. '69 has the same problem, all the blue skies look slate gray. '59 and '58 both have bad designs that over power the images.
Topps had a bad run from '57-'62 until they went on a good run from '63-'67.

[digdugdig]

My 1st year collecting as a young-un is still one of my favorites ... '64, and '65 is great also.
'66 I thought was very bland.
Also like the '63's and '53's.
Not so much '57 and '58.
Think you're gonna get a wide range of opinions on this one!!

[Beatles Guy]

No love for '73 and '79 Topps huh? They are my two favorite sets from the 70's, go figure I do agree about 1970 though. Horrible design.

[vintage954]

Top 3

-1956
-1967
-1968

Bottom 3

-1961
-1966
-1970