1981 Topps Home Team vs. Super National

[steve B]

No need for the apology, that stuff was almost 40 years ago. I'm glad someone has it written down. I should have kept notes as the cards came out, but hardly anyone does that.

It's probable that I have a 1980 5 card pack somewhere and recalled it as a 1981 because of the labeling.

[ALR-bishop]

I have all these sets, including the 1980s in both gray and white. I think white exists in lesser quantities and has slightly thicker stock. The Rice pack below is white and the Cooper gray. Don't know on the single card pack. The 81 pack ( last one) is for the Giant Photo set of 60.

I have the 5 X 7 National set of 15, but no pack. Does one exist ? The SCD Standard Catalog says they were marketed in areas not covered by the other set. Ten of them have same photos as the regular set but no CLs on back. The other 5 cards are not in the other set

[tulsaboy]

Thanks for posting the photos, Al! The all yellow pack is a test pack (I believe) and should contain a white backed card. White appears to have come first, followed by the gray backs. I don't think that any packs were issued for the National set from 1980. I think that was simply distributed as sets to dealers. I have seen cases of the complete sets, where the sets are bundled together by a rubber band, but no packs or boxes. Odd, but Topps did lots of odd things.

kevin

[tulsaboy]

I also have an uncut sheet of gray backs that is battered and well worn, but is instructive because it shows that there were a number of cards that were printed in multiples. I am curious to know if the sheet was the same for the white backed cards or not.
kevin

[ALR-bishop]

Thanks for that input Kevin

[tulsaboy]

Here are a couple of photos of the uncut sheet, along with the product code that is printed on the lower left hand corner of the sheet. A couple of observations: There are 66 cards printed on the sheet, configured in six rows of eleven cards each. The 66 cards means that there are 6 double prints. Those players are:
Brett
Parker
Schmidt
Garvey
Jackson
Carew

All six of the double prints are found in the last column, at the end of each row. Three of the double prints (Jackson, Garvey, and Parker) are upside down for some reason. Hope this is of some interest. The sheet is gray backed. The product code is completely different from the product code on the bottom of the unopened box that I have, and different from the product code of a 5 card pack of gray back cards that I have.

kevin

[tulsaboy]

And just for good measure, to round things out, here is an unopened box (though note that it is an "X-Out" box and has the little white stickers for 5 cards stuck over the places where it should say "3 cards"), both the exterior of the box and what it looks like opened. This is the only one of these that I've ever seen.
kevin