Topps Series Release Date Question

[mojorob]

First post here on Net54.

Up until the early 70's Topps would issue their Baseball product in Series's
1 through 7.
I was just wondering if any one here has ever run acrossed any information
re. when those release dates actually happened.

From my recolection as a kid buying nickle packs in the late 60's it went something like this:

Late March/April 1rst Series
Late April 2nd series
May 3rd series
June/July 4th series
Late July/Aug 5th series
Late Aug/Sept 6th series
Late Sept/Oct. 7th series

Can any one add to this with corrections or dates?
For years I have been looking for this info.

Any help or comments would be greatly appreciated.

[toppcat]

My experience as a kid was about 3 weeks earlier than you have shown for each series. In 70, 71, 72 I clearly recall having cards by the first week of March, just after Spring Training opened but I suspect the further West you were, the later they came out. I also remember having 1970 high numbers before the playoffs started that year and in 71 I had high's before school started (i.e. around labor day).

[mojorob]

David,
Nice call on the 1rst series issue date.

I have a complete run of The Sporting News from 1968 and in one of the ads at the back of News paper it states the the first series will be issued on March 1rst, 1968.

Also you mentioned that the 7th series was out by labor day during that time frame which would be September 7th.

So it is conceiveable that the series were issued in the first week of each month starting in March and ending in September.

[Flange]

As a kid in 1970 I remember having the entire 5th series by the third week of June that year. I was trading them on the playground at the end of the school year. This was in the metropolitan New York City area. (Westchester County)

[toppcat]

I should have mentioned Topps would mix series as well and 1st and 2nd especially. It's hard to really state x series came out a y time in a way because of this.

[mojorob]

Topps would mix series as well and 1st and 2nd especially.

Dave,
When you say mix series ...... do you mean for an example that the 1rst & 2nd series would be released at the same exact time and the cards from both series's would make up a pack?
Or that packs from the fist series and second series would be placed in the same 24 count box?

[toppcat]

Topps had two methods for mixing things up series-wise from what I have seen--take this as a generalization as I don't have time right now to check that each theory is bulletproof.

In the early days (58-60, maybe a little later) they would print a 110 card first series but the corresponding checklist was 1-88. Next sheet had 88 cards and the checklist for that series went to #176 even though 198 cards had been printed. So there could be mixing due to this as you moved up the ladder to the next series.

The other method was used in higher count packs such as Raks where they would mix series sometimes from separate print runs (say 5th/6th/7th). I believe high number wax in the late 60's would sometimes have 6th and 7th series cards together and there are other examples. Sometimes even years would get mixed--it happened in '53 where 52 highs were sold with them (possibly in the undated packs--unsure though) and I think this happened at least once in the 60's.

The end result is that there were never more than 6 disparate sheets printed in a given year, even though there were 7 series. This had to be part of the marketing plan in that you would "seed" the next series in a little bit, helped along by the fact the next series checklist was seemingly always double printed on the prior sheet so the kiddies could see what was coming next. This checklist double printing wreaked havoc with nice, divisible by 11 numbers I call this the "Theory of Checklist Relativity!" Look at the '67 highs: 534 to 609=76 cards but #531 (7th Series Checklist) was printed on the high # sheet (and also the semi high sheet) as well , giving us 77 in the series, divisible by 11 (length of a row). This is why there are so many checklist variations as many were printed on two, if not three different sheets.

[mojorob]

Dave,
Again thanks for the informational reply.
I appreciate it.
I think you have probably forgotten more of this kind of stuff, than I will ever know quite honestly.

All the things you mentioned do make sense to me now that I look back trying to remember opening the packs as a kid in the day.

I do seem to remember the upper series being combined, 6th & 7th. etc. during this time frame.