1971 Topps Baseball Set Collectors- Card Centering Question

[Tere1071]

I'm at the point in my collecting where I probably won't pursue trying to complete anymore baseball card sets due to the expense. I'm going to put together lower grade Topps Football sets form 1970 and 71; plus, a 1-263 1972 collection. For my baseball card sets, I'm working on upgrades, particularly my 71 set.

I originally began collecting it as a vg/ex set, but I can never leave well enough alone, it turned into an overall ex-mint endeavor with 29 graded. Centering wasn't much of a priority until recently, now I'm going back and upgrading certain cards. I can live with 60/40 centering side to side and 70/30 top to bottom in near-mint condition. However, there are certain cards in the set that are difficult to find even with those requirements, not to the mention those which are subtly slant cut. Some of this would be eliminated if I were to go after cards graded 8 or above, but I cannot pay those prices.

So, here's the question: which cards in the 1971 Topps Baseball set have you found to be difficult to find centered, stars and commons alike?

Happy collecting!

Phil aka Tere1071

[jmoran19]

In general sheet corner cards are the toughest follow by edge cards. For 1971 cards that have a horizontal image are very hard to find centered. Especially Munson.

John

P.S. photos of the uncut sheets can be found here

https://mrpekrul.wixsite.com/narcissism/1971

[Tere1071]

Thank you, John for the reference. Yes, I saw many of the cards that I'm upgrading, particularly in the 4-6 series sheets.

Happy collecting!

Phil aka Tere1071

[jchcollins]

I would agree the ‘71 Munson is particularly difficult to find well-centered. I seem to see plenty of sharp copies of this card in shops and at shows, but many are MC or badly OC. ‘71 in general is a bear for centering. It’s not uncommon to find all of the stars badly OC. I had a particularly tough time with the #280 Fergie Jenkins card for whatever reason. The one that came with my set was like 95/5 s-s. I upgraded it eventually for a better centered one, but it’s still not perfectly centered.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[JollyElm]

One that definitely flies under the radar in the world of tough-to-find-centered cards (at a cheap price, I mean) is the knuckling Hall of Famer, #248 Hoyt Wilhem.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

One that definitely flies under the radar in the world of tough-to-find-centered cards (at a cheap price, I mean) is the knuckling Hall of Famer, #248 Hoyt Wilhem.

I checked and my #248 was mostly spared by the centering gods for whatever reason…




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[inceptus]

Beckett used to publish a magazine called Graded Card Investor & Price Guide, and back in 2007 they did a nice data-rich piece on graded 1971 cards.

They focused on heavily/moderately/sparsely submitted cards, and among other things looked at tough cards within those respective cohorts. Within those tough card groups I suspect you'll see a lot of the cards that are difficult to find well-centered. (Claude Raymond was/is one of the more-notorious examples.)

Of course the data is almost 20 years old (!) at this point, but it's sill an interesting and potentially relevant read.

[Tere1071]

I made a list of approximately 75 cards that I found to be a bit more difficult to find centered. I'm not going to list all of the cards on my list, but here are some of them:

131 Blefary
133 Lolich
141 Quilici
187 Abernathy
246 Taylor
320 McNally
351 B. Williams
351 Shellenback
377 Garrett
451 Keough
513 Ryan
537 Egan
539 Brown
557 Satriano
564 Fitzmorris
568 Campisi
577 Lonborg
580 T. Perez
585 W. Davis
608 Wegener
617 Darymple
632 Jarvis
634 Regan
635 Murcer
650 Allen
651 Robertson
681 Butler
719 J. May
727 Lamb
734 Gardener
735 Shannon
750 McClain

More information to follow tomorrow PST.

Good night.

Phil aka Tere1071

[jimq16415]

I might just be unlucky but all of my 536 claude raymond are off-center. Long time ago I tried to upgrade and everything I found was also bad.

[rjackson44]

nice copies are getting more expensive

[Tere1071]

Last night I began to ponder that virtually every year of Topps has cards that are condition sensitive that will command a higher price in near-mint to mint condition. Then what makes the 71 Topps Baseball cards more unique? The black border presents its own challenge, but that would affect virtually every card in the set.

Since there's a challenge in finding the best card possible under budget constraints and that the 71 is one of my favorite sets that I'm trying to tweak a bit, I wondered if other collectors have run into similar issues. If I had the purchasing power to assemble a registry set, centering wouldn't be much of an issue, and I don't think that I would spend that amount of money to get the perfect Bobby Murcer anyways. I spent less than $30 each for my Munson and Ryan cards, any improvements will cost far more that my initial expense and I'd still be far from perfection.

I still prefer sharper corners over 50/50 centering, but there's that drive to better some of the harder cards to find centered. So, I'm going to post some of the examples from my set to illustrate my point. Please feel free to share examples from your collections.

Phil aka Tere1071

[Tere1071]

A few more:

Phil aka Tere1071

[jchcollins]

Phil - nice cards no matter the centering.

My high number Dick Allen is centered decently enough, but has a weird rough cut at the top. I actually kind of like it.

[Tere1071]

Originally Posted by jchcollins

Phil - nice cards no matter the centering.

My high number Dick Allen is centered decently enough, but has a weird rough cut at the top. I actually kind of like it.

Your Allen is very, very nice. I'd be satisfied with it in my set.

Phil aka Tere1071

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by Tere1071

Your Allen is very, very nice. I'd be satisfied with it in my set.

Phil aka Tere1071

Thanks. Oddly enough, the one that came with the set I purchased a few years ago is badly undersized - not sure if it's outright trimmed or what. The one pictured is one I had from before that.

[Tere1071]

I'm not going to post more images, but here's a few more that I've had difficulty finding reasonably well-centered, not a bank breaker and in ex-mint condition:

#9 George Scott
#20 Reggie Jackson
#57 Von Joshua
#129 Aurelio Monteagudo
#131 Curt Blefary
#133 Mickey Lolich
#154 Cesar Gutierrez
#170 Mike Cuellar
#187 Ted Abernathy
#246 Tony Taylor
#258 Dick Green
#261 Darold Knowles
#280 Ferguson Jenkins
#314 Jeff Torborg
#329 World Series #3
#344 Ellie Rodriguez
#350 Billy Williams
#351 Jim Shellenback
#365 Bob Johnson
#377 Greg Garrett
#382 Jake Gibbs
#384 Rollie Fingers
#385 Maury Wills
#392 Grant Jackson
#398 Howie Reed
#409 Don Pavletich
#418 Adolfo Phillips
#440 Bert Campaneris
#451 Joe Keough
#455 Don Kessinger
#459 Jim Lefebvre
#488 Jerry Stephenson
#502 Cubs Team
#537 Tom Egan
#542 Bob Miller
#544 Vida Blue
#552 Buddy Bradford
#561 Syd O'Brien
#568 Sal Campisi
#585 Willie Davis
#599 Norm Cash
#615 Jim Stottlemyer
#623 Pat Jarvis
#644 Jim Stewart
#646 Bobby Floyd
#649 Sparky Lyle
#677 Jack DiLauro
#681 Bill Butler
#705 Dick Selma
#719 Jerry May
#725 Garry Gentry
#727 Ray Lamb
#729 Dick Billings
#734 Rob Gardner
#735 Mike Shannon

A few of these I have been able to obtain without too much difficulty or cost. eBay has been my main resource for assembling this set to begin with along with the upgrades, which is why I bring up the cost and the wide-ranging interpretations of what constitutes an unslabbed ex-mint or better card. I will upgrade the Ryan and Reggie Jackson someday, the rest...I'm not sure. When I purchased 1971s from the corner liquor store at 10 cents a pack as a nine-year old, none of this mattered.

Phil aka Tere1071