by Paul Semendinger
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As we wait for the season to begin, I thought it might be fun to look back at some of the old Topps baseball card sets and rank the designs.
Here are the 1970s designs year-by-year:
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
Now comes the difficult part, ranking the designs. Some thoughts...
I like all of these as they all hold the most special places in my heart - these were the cards I collected as a young fan. Each of these cards were super special.
1970 - I really like this set.
1971 - Ditto.
1972 - Probably the most "out-there" set design. It's cool. It's also not my favorite.
1973 - I like the little position players that are on each card.
1974 - This isn't the greatest design, but I love this set as well.
1975 - Super colorful and bright. Very fun.
1976 - I like the position guys again, but the 1973 images I like better
1977 - A classic design. I like the little pennants.
1978 - I don't love the team name in script.
1979 - Very clean, but it isn't great somehow.
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MY RANKINGS:
1970
1971
1977
1975
1974
1973
1978
1979
1972
1976
How do you rank these designs?
With the Yankees/Nike removing the white outline around New York and the sleeve end stripes this year inspired me to conduct research on the Yankees uniforms. Those two elements were added in 1973. Which presents a riddle with the 1974 Gerry Moses card. He only played for the Yankees in 1973, as he was traded to the Tigers on March 19, 1974, but his uniform lacks the 1973 design elements. Were old uniforms used during spring training in 1973?
I like 1978 mostly out of nostalgia - they were my first set I heavily collected as a kid. The 1979 set is also special for me. For my birthday, a friend gave me a WHOLE BOX of 1979 baseball card packs. 36 packs of cards. 36 pieces of that gum. Oh my. Talk about living!
I collected from 1970-77, so I know these designs very well. '73 and '76 were the best designs with the colors not being over-used and the position images. I also like '70 (I particularly like the condensed block font for the team name), '74 and '76 -- clean designs that do what you want the cards to do -- convey information in a reasonable-looking design.
'71 was the worst -- those black backgrounds made the cards look funereal, like every player had died, and this was the memorial series. '72 is second-worst -- where are the positions on the face of the card? I mean, sure, I can guess Rob Gardner is a lefty pitcher from the photo. But w…
While I liked the LOOK of the 1971 cards, there was a big problem with that year's series. The "black" would wear off on many of the cards over time, making the name of the player, and his position, hard to read. That is why you there have been no "black background" designs ever, after 1971.
As big as my baseball card collection was, it grew by leaps and bounds after I completed the 4th Grade with an enormous amount of 1972 and 1973 cards. Why? Well, when I completed the 4th Grade, I was the only one in the class with perfect attendance for the entire school year. So for my prize, the teacher gave me every single "confiscat…