1970 Topps Variations?

[4reals]

As many know this year was notorious for miscuts. I was going through my Dodgers team set to upgrade to more centered examples and I noticed a few things. I would appreciate thoughts and feedback.

Many of the cards in this set have white and black lines that appear at the tops of the cards. Assuming these were cut lines I largely ignored them, until I noticed some players have miscut variations with both white and black cut lines like Joe Moeller.

After attaining them I also took notice of the back which appears to have card stock variations of cream and white. I am familiar with "tanning" which occurs when paper is exposed to light and air but this doesn't seem to fit that diagnosis. I went through the rest of my Dodgers and they're pretty close to 50/50 on each back.

Am I wrong or are these indeed examples of card stock variations?

http://i773.photobucket.com/albums/yy19/joeoneone/cards%20blog/1970toppsvariationsfront_zps3c893c40.jpeghttp://i773.photobucket.com/albums/yy19/joeoneone/cards%20blog/1970toppsvariationsback_zps6d7903c3.jpeghttp://i773.photobucket.com/albums/yy19/joeoneone/cards%20blog/1970toppsmotavariationsfront_zps759d1af4.jpeghttp://i773.photobucket.com/albums/yy19/joeoneone/cards%20blog/1970toppsmotavariationsback_zps467d4aa8.jpeg

[JollyElm]

This is not a scientific survey, but I whipped out my 1970 album and looked at the backs of all the pages and, sure enough, an occasional card with a blatantly white back showed up now and again. They were prominently in the lower numbers and then disappeared altogether until the 500-600's when a couple more of them reappeared.

In my set, at least, everything was cream colored except these aberrational white backs. For you specifically, Joe, I noticed a white back #5, Wes Parker, but now I hate you, because this exercise did nothing except make me realize how many more cards I need to upgrade in this set. Ugh!! :(

[brewing]

Just flipped through my set.
Every page has at least 1 card with white stock until card 173. Then it is about 1 card every other page until the mid 200s.
Then it's kind of sporadic, but white stock throughout.

I notice the yellow is a different shade on those too.

[steve B]

Yep, all those are real varieties. Both the cut lines and the stock. The same stock thing happens for 68 and 69 too.

And some cards have different cut lines for the same color. Like wide or narrow white line.

I believe the white backs are really on the same stiock, but have had a layer of white added for some reason. Maybe to brighten the backs? But it's odd they'd do it off and on for three years.

I've been slowly collecting them for a while. so I have four groups, centered white back, centered cream back, and both with lines or not. it makes sorting a new batch a nuisance. :)

Steve B

[4reals]

Thanks for looking guys.

So Steve, am I right to assume the entire set can be compiled in both backs? Based on the findings of the others it seems it isn't limited to one sheet or series.

[D.P.Johnson]

What about the front gray border? Some are very light gray and some are super dark. Are these considered variations also?

[ALR-bishop]

Within the hobby I think different folks have different definitions of what they think constitutes a variation. For my own purposes, I define a variation as a card that differs from it's counterparts because of some intentional change the manufacturer made to the card itself, or in the printing process involving the card.

Many cards contain unintentional print defects, some recurring, that cause the card to differ in some regards to it's counterparts . I personally refer to these as variants.

I would be the first to admit that in some cases it is impossible to determine after the fact if some recurring print defects just accidentally occurred on some print runs, or were discovered and intentionally changed.

I would also admit that no matter what definition of variation is adopted, there will be gray areas

Finally, no matter what definition anyone adopts, what really matters is hobby recognition via a catalog such as SCD or Becketts, or the Registry. Only then does a variant card become a must have for master set or player collectors, which in turn gives the card a premium value.

And, trying to predict what variants might some day make into master set lists can be a crap shoot, as exemplified by PSA adding the 61 Ron Fairly, with an errant green smudge of varying degrees in the baseball on the card back, to it's 61 master set list.

Persistence and or customer volume and status my be factors in what gets officially recognized these days as a "new" variation.

Either way, I find variants like those under discussion here fascinating, and I like to at least get examples of such differences for all my sets, and label them with notes in those sets. I had not noticed the back differences in the stock before, but the backs do differ some between yellowish and orangish as well. I was aware of the line issues that pop up in this set and the 68s and 69s, and have examples with each set

The internet, particularly ebay, and grading services have caused much closer scrutiny of cards, front and back in recent years. I tend to think that if you look long enough you might find some print variant of virtually any card

http://i1267.photobucket.com/albums/jj555/Bishop539/WhitenOldClothes724_zps48909a12.jpg

[4reals]

I agree print defects (anomalies) fall under a different category than true variations. Setting aside the cut lines portion of the topic and focusing on the card stock backs I would heavily lean towards calling them variations since the '52, '56, '59, and '60 sets all have accepted card stock back variations. The main difference would be (aside from 1970 being a dull year) that those others were limited to a certain range of card numbers or a certain series whereas 1970 appears to have the entire set in both variations.

Does anyone have any 1970 OPC's lying around? Maybe the white card stock was the same used for that release?

[onlyvintage62]

The real variations are the 1970 Phil Roof (shown as and Oakland A and the Danny Cater, also shown as an Oakland A).

Does any body have a picture of the Cater card as an A?

[ALR-bishop]

Well you certainly have my attention. I have never heard of those two variations. Do you have an scan of the Roof.

The variations listed in SCD which I have been able to attain are

- CL 2 ( 128), R Peranoski or R. Peranoski
- CL3 ( 244) red or brown bat..or gray
-Ayea ( 303) ball or no ball in cartoon on back...see above scan of one
- CL 4 (343 ) red or brown bat
-CL 5 (432) baseball on front is red or white
- CL 6 ( 542) gray or brown bat
- CL 7( 588) Adolpho or Adolfo

CL 1 (9) can be found with bat touching the border or not

Cards 484 and 609 have white baseballs on back...only 2 player cards that way...errors not variations

Card 666, the Devil, Phillips can be found with a botched height figure on back.

Some other print oddities are posted above

[nolemmings]

http://www.sportscollectorsdigest.com/features/keith-olbermann-archive/olbermannproofiii

"1970 – Four player photos were swapped out after late trades.
The proofs of No. 359 Phil Roof and No. 437 Danny Cater show them in Oakland A’s batting poses, No. 24 Dick Selma shows him with the Cubs, and No. 644 Gerry Nyman depicts him with the White Sox, the latter two each in follow-through pitching poses. The issued cards show capless head shots, and list each player with his new club (Roof with the Pilots, Cater with the Yankees, Selma with the Phillies and Nyman with the White Sox).

There are also three intriguing variations for the team cards of the Red Sox (No. 563), Cubs (No. 593) and Pirates (No. 608). The issued cards identify each team by city and club name; the proofs give only the club name.

Since Topps also produced a set of test “cloth” stickers featuring about half of the 2nd Series (with three photos differing from the issued cards), it’s long been assumed that these might some day show up on a proof sheet somewhere. But, 35 years later, No. 139 Rich Nye (Cubs pitching pose instead of capless portrait), No. 178 Denny Lemaster (pitching pose instead of portrait) and No. 257 Dennis Higgins (Senators pitching pose instead of capless portrait) still haven’t surfaced.

Some 1970 items that exist in enormous quantities are thin, square-edged blank-backed proofs of the large Super Baseball set. These have been so common so long that I bought some of these sheets at an antiques shop in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., circa 1972 (the 1971 Super proofs are a little less frequently seen, but still widely available). There are no varieties known among the Super proofs.
- See more at: http://www.sportscollectorsdigest.com/features/keith-olbermann-archive/olbermannproofiii#sthash.BazQssR5.dpuf "

[ALR-bishop]

Thanks for the info Todd. Not variations but unissued proofs. There is a much sought after group of them from 1977 as well, including the R Jackson as an Oriole. Also appreciate the link to the KO article. I think I have the others in that series. I found them all on line as well with search for "Olberman SCD Proofs"

[savedfrommyspokes]

For anyone who still has it, in the June 86 issue of Baseball Cards magazine KO has an article discussing many of these Topps proofs....except for these 4 players from the 70 set.

[ALR-bishop]

He did a 5 part article for SCD. Todd's post reminded me that I probably had copies somewhere. Found all 5 parts stored with my 1960 set, since that was the first group of proofs discussed

[inceptus]

If anyone has $4K to spare, you can raise the Roof here: http://www.preciouspaper.com/ItemDetail.aspx?ID=528

[K-Nole]

IMO, those lines at the top of the cards are just there due to the miss cutting on the sheet.
Those are not "variants" or anything other than a card that was on a sheet that was not cut right.
No extra value or anything.

[4reals]

I think we all agree they're cut lines and hold no premium value, however, if there are two different miscut cards and one has a white cut line and another has a black cut line I would personally consider that a variation in my own collection.

[ALR-bishop]

I took the different colors to be Joe's point, as well as seemingly different color stock on some card backs. As for value, some long recognized hobby variations carry no premium because neither version is scarce

[Kevvyg1026]

Based on the uncut material I have viewed, the 1970 Checklist #5 432 with yellow lettering was issued in the 4th series printing while the one with white letters was issued in the 5th series printing.

Also, the 1970 checklist 588 with Adolpho spelling was issued in the 6th series, while the one with Adolfo was issued in the 7th series.

I haven't been able to see images of sufficient quality to ascertain the info on the others, but I would speculate that the R Perranowski version of #128 was issued in series 1, while the R. Perranowski version was issued in series 2. You can see that the checkbox is missing the bottom line in the no period version, while the corrected version (with period) has a complete box.

[Kevvyg1026]

Based on the uncut material I have viewed, the print sheets and the checklists aligned in 1970. This means that:

Series 1 had cards 1-132, with a pattern of 6x2 for each slit (i.e., 66 cards printed 2x on one slit, while the other slit had the other 66 cards, also printed 2x each).

Series 2 had cards 133 - 263 plus check 2 (#128) printed again. The pattern used was the same as that for Series 1. Fairly certain that the R. version of #128 was in the series.

Series 3 had cards 264 to 372 plus check 3 again (110 cards). The pattern used looks like each slit had 3 rows printed 2x and two rows printed 3x. Thus, there were 66 cards printed twice on the complete sheet while 44 cards were printed 3x each.

Series 4 had cards 373 to 459 plus check 4 again. Each slit had 44 cards printed 3x each. Check 5 (432) is the yellow version in this series.

Series 5 had cards 460 to 546 plus check 5 again (white version). Each slit had 44 cards printed 3x each.

Series 6 had cards 547 to 633 plus check 6 again. Each slit had 44 cards printed 3x each. The check 7 version included was the Adolpho version.

Series 7 had cards 634 to 720 plus check 7 again (Adolfo version). Each slit had 44 cards printed 3x each.

[G1911]

Many of the Topps sets have this era have stock variations that are ignored. 1966, 1969, 1970, all appear to have white vs. cream versions. White backs are usually easier in the first series and then get progressively tougher or even disappear for a series before coming back again. The 1966 sixth series is the most visually obvious example of the white vs. cream difference. If the 1956 and 1959 white and grey backs are variations as they use clearly different stock, so are these though it seems the hobby only wants to acknowledge ones where the color difference meets some vague arbitrary level beyond being readily visible.


I have a ton of 1970's with the black and white lines too, was picking them up as a complement to my base set for awhile. Not rare, but a fun little expansion to the set. Most of the cards appear to be possible with them, though the lines are not usually present on the uncut material I have seen.