Curious about 1973 Topps distribution

[Rickyy]

I don't recall seeing any blue team checklists at all when I was actually piecing the set together as a kid back in N. Calif in 1973...and I bought tons of packs. I do specifically recall buying a mixed series rack pack at a toy store in Sunnyvale, CA back then. It contained a mixture of Semi High and High Number cards.

Ricky Y

[ncinin]

I was fourteen years old in 1973 and the last year as a teenager I bought packs and I bought alot of them.

In my part of North Carolina 1973's were issued in series and we had all series. The high numbers were not hard to get. We had no mixed series packs.

I never saw any blue checklists and didn't know they existed until the 1980's.

[moeson]

I hope this isn't overkill, but I dug up a March 1973 issue of The Ballcard Collector, featuring this interview with legendary Topps official Bill Haber concerning 1973 Topps.

In other BCC issues, a collector reported that Ohio had all cards issued at once. Also, a Canadian columnist noted that the entire OPC set was released in late May, in a similar fashion to many parts of the US. Later in the year, the Card Collectors Company was advertising the Blue Checklist set (@$2.95), along with many test set items.

[Rich Klein]

This article answers one very well know hobby question which is why there were no Rick Reichardt, Jay Johnstone or Rusty Staub cards during this timeframe.

Reading the article, Topps did a reasonably good job of not printing cards of players they felt would not be in the majors in 1973 such as Tony LaRussa but the biggest question is how could they feel Staub would not be oin a major league team in 1973. Although being hurt in 1972, he was obviously going to be in the Mets plans for 1973 so was there something more that that. Remember in 1970 and 71 Staub was not pr8inted till later in the season so I wonder, and that is all this is, whether there was a yearly cointract battle with Staub and Topps.


Regards
Rich

[ALR-bishop]

Great input Howie. Thanks for posting that

[nolemmings]

Wow, thanks for the input guys; it's great to see others jogging their memories back to those department and grocery store days.

Howie, fantastic article with lots of nuggets. I never stopped to think that Topps would have had such a specific plan--exactly 20 action shots in each series? It's interesting to see that Haber claimed Topps was hoping to issue the entire 1973 series to "the majority of the country" and not just certain target areas. Since I could get the entire set in my little world (pre-Internet, satellite TV or even USA Today), I always thought everyone else could as well. That's one reason I started this thread-- to see what was more prevalent--distribution by series or all at once. I still can't tell with any certainty. If Topps did not in fact follow Haber's stated hope of giving the majority of the country the full set, then I wonder if Dave H.'s point came into play about how compressing four months of distribution into one big wave was such a major change for various parties that it could not be done as smoothly as planned.

Finally, despite this detailed explanation of the '73 set that Haber offered, I see that he makes no mention of any team checklists. These would have been novel and in my view noteworthy at the time, and it makes me wonder if Topps came upon this idea after the set had been produced and Haber had penned his letter.

Again, love the info and the stories, keep 'em coming. Any articles or ads from the time always appreciated.

[stlcardsfan]

The blue team checklists are interesting. My cousin game me a box full of approx. 2,000 1973s that I know he opened in packs. Not a blue checklist to be found.

And he gave me almost as many 1974s. Probably included a stack of at least 100 red checklists.