1973 Topps Coaches Variations

[johnlenhardt]

deweyinthehall
You make some good points here. I totally agree that "one card isn't going to get inked differently than others" and all coloration would be the same on the same sheet. In the past I have tried to purchase some of these cards on Ebay as they look different colors when viewing the item. However depending on how they were posted and what was used to take the pictures sometimes you just get the standard colored card, even when it appeared to be different. So I do not have any of these so called variations and was going to work on them last. I may consider just to remove then altogether or just add a note about the different shades. I focus on trying to get the ones that can be easiy identified such as boarder breaks and other misc variations like the Kaline.

[ALR-bishop]

Great post and observations Dewey. It was fun going back through my set using your post and Mike's illustrations.

At one time Lemke listed some 73 border breaks in the SCD Big Book but dropped them after realizing how common they were not only in 73 but in other years as well. It can be fun finding all the border breaks and double border breaks in 73 (Cliff helped me run down many of them). I mention this only because the Ozark card has a double border break version

The 73 set has a lot of interesting recurring print defects, but agree they would not fit many folk's definition of a "true" variation.

For those more familair with the printing process in 73 were there any double prints and if so did any involve the manager cards ?

[Rich Klein]

All series were 132 cards and IIRC the sheets are also 132 so i don't think there ever were double prints. Having said that, at times certain cards seem to be slightly more difficult to obtain but nothing ever was proven that there were no double/single prints.

[deweyinthehall]

Each series of 132 was printed in one of two ways - slits either had all 132 cards in 12 different rows, or a block of 6 rows printed one on top of each other. The illustrations here might help - https://mrpekrul.wixsite.com/narcissism/1973

We don't know what a true full sheet looked like, but it is reasonable to assume that the full 132 card slit was paired with an identical 132 card slit and that the other full sheet variety had the 6-over-6 on one side and the other 6-over-6 on the other.

If this is accurate than regardless of which version full sheet was used, each card was printed twice.

No short- or over-prints.

[ALR-bishop]

DP was a misnomer by me, meant was there more than one print set up for some cards. If so would that increase the odds for minor print differences like color or cropping in a card

[deweyinthehall]

Yes - that is what caused it I think. Each card was set up multiple different times.

This is the reason for all those often minor checklist variations from 1972 on back...the same card being set up and printed off multiple different sheets.

[ALR-bishop]

I collect these darn things in sets from 1951 to 2010. Still do sets but not these thngs

[toppcat]

Originally Posted by deweyinthehall

Yes - that is what caused it I think. Each card was set up multiple different times.

This is the reason for all those often minor checklist variations from 1972 on back...the same card being set up and printed off multiple different sheets.

This set up method makes sense for so many variations over the years. There's also the extra checklist from the next series also printed with the earlier series that adds an extra, third variant to many checklists.

Here is a good look at the 1973 sheets and the reasons why there are two types of arrays for all but the high number sheet: https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=349917

I wonder if there's some kind of correlation between the 66/66 and 132 half sheets and the coaches backgrounds? If there are no variants in the fifth series and the "All 660" used "reprints" of the first four sheets in an array of 132 but never adapted the high number sheet from 66/66, it could make sense. I can't resolve any of the scans in the linked threads to any degree of clarity though.