Curious about 1973 Topps distribution

[toppcat]

Given the wide (yet limited) range of places with "All 660" packs described in this thread, it seems possible to me that Topps was testing how to do a full distribution through each of the major hubs they had at the time (three plus NY I believe) while at the same time issuing the cards in series elsewhere. Kind of like priming the pump of the jobbers as there would seemingly have to be a lot more cases of cards going to each one all at once in the "All 660" distribution. They were compressing four months of distribution into one big wave essentially, which was major change for all parties.

Can't recall if the 73's came out earlier than normal, which was usually around March 1 but I vaguely remember them being issued in series but also having a couple of Blue checklists. When I started collecting again in '81 after laying off in '76, the Blue checklists were familiar to me. I was buying packs (mostly racks but some packs from the ice cream man) on Long Island in '73 as a kid but the Blue checklists could have come from a year end dumping of cards at Newberry's or Woolworth's by Topps and I also spent summers in Massachusetts then so who knows?

A team checklist in just the "All 660" packs makes some sense though as Topps would usually try to churn each upcoming series by lagging earlier series compared to the regular checklists by 22 cards or so. But if you had all 660 cards at once, perhaos they changed tactics to let the kids know all the cards issued from their favorite team to keep them hunting.