[ALR-bishop]

I had an interesting debate with a seller of these ...well interesting to me anyway. His position was that these are not proofs in the traditional sense. You can find blank backed proofs of 1984 Topps cards with the head out of the box. He claimed that those were true proof cards. These he said, although blank back, were not proofs but rejected prototypes that led to the design change ultimately adopted. It may be a distinction without a difference, but in his mind it made the head in a box "prototypes" more valuable than mere proofs. As for the value of this "set" over time, he has mostly been right.

Other than the 67 Maris as a Yankee and the 77 Jackson as an Oriole ( there are some other 77 proofs like that as well), proofs, unless they include a Topps Vault certificate do not seem to sell for great premiums over other blank back cards. I would add the 3 1960 "proofs" of Cimoli, Hadley and Throneberry to the value list, but I think Bob Lemke determined that they are not blank backed proofs but rather rare variations with regular backs