1969 and 1970 MLB Photostamps Info

[Archive]

Posted By: Karl

FYI, according to a dealer acquaintance who seems very knowledgeable about this issue:

1969

216 were issued, each in two varieties, so 432 total possible. Variety Type 1 has a dotted line on the back and is printed on off-white stock, Type 2 has a solid line on the back and is printed on slicker, whiter stock. The solid line variety is more scarce. Neither variety is perforated. Some of the Type 1 stamps have additional language on the backs about pasting the stamps in the Official Album, but the players whose stamps have that language ALWAYS have that language. It's not a variation.

1970

ALL 216 of the 1969 Type 1 stamps were REISSUED in 1970. There is no way to distinguish them from the 1969s. An ADDITIONAL 75 stamps were issued - these are all players that were NOT in the 1969 set. These 75 stamps differ from the 1969s in that the cap logos are NOT airbrushed out, and they have long dashes on the backs (NOT dots or solid lines).
There was also a sheet of 12 stamps issued in 1970 that are PERFORATED with airbrushed caps and the long dash marks on the back.


To summarize:

1969 (432 possible):

216 hand-cut with dotted line backs, some have "Official Album" on backs but no players exist with both "Official Album" and regular backs

216 hand-cut solid line backs


1970 (303 possible):

216 hand-cut with dotted line backs, some have "Official Album" on backs but no players exist with both "Official Album" and regular backs - IDENTICAL RE-ISSUE OF THE 1969s

75 hand-cut with long dashes on backs, cap logos are NOT airbrushed, none of the players included in the 1969 set

12 perforated with long dashes on backs, all caps airbrushed

[bobafett72]

i was doing a search on these and stumbled across this post. fantastic information.

[sschauer]

Here are the 2 backs from Roses I have

Originally Posted by bobafett72

i was doing a search on these and stumbled across this post. fantastic information.

Thanks. It's still a work in progress, and a lot of the info was provided to me by Mark Mosier, who's probably forgotten more about baseball cards than I know.

As noted above, the original 216 stamps were on 18 sheets of 12 stamps each, they were issued with two types of stock and backs, and they were issued for baseball's 1969 centennial but then re-issued and sold throughout 1970 - so they should be listed in the Standard Catalog as "1969-70".

There are 75 stamps unique to 1970 that I've listed below. These players were NOT in the 1969 set, their cap logos are visible/NOT airbrushed, their backs have long dash marks (see scan) and they are slightly smaller than the 1969-70 issue (1 7/8" x 3" instead of 2" by 3 1/4"). These came on 7 sheets (6 had 12 players, a 7th had only 3).



Alomar
Belanger
Bolin
Bonds
Boswell
Bradford
Brand
Butler
Campbell
Cardenas
Carlton
Clendenon
Colbert
Comer
Cuellar
Davenport
Didier
Dietz
Dobson, C.
Dobson, P.
Francona
Fuller
Gladding
Granger
Green
Hansen
Hebner
Hegan
Hernandez, J
Hisle
Hoerner
Holtzman
Hovley
Jackson, G
Jackson, R
Johnson, A
Johnstone
Kelly, P
Kilkenny
Kirby
Laboy
Lemaster
Lyle
May, Rudy
McNertney
Melton
Messersmith
Moose
Murcer
Oliver, A
Oliver, B
Perranoski
Perry
Piniella
Pinson
Raymond
Reberger
Reed
Reese
Romo
Russell
Ryan
Sanguillen
Satriano
Sims
Sizemore
Sparma
Stoneman
Tatum
Tolan
Weis
Williams, W
Wilson, E
Wine
Yastrzemski

There's a THIRD stand-alone issue of MLB stamps/photostamps from 1970 that is comprised of just one sheet of 12 All-Star players. The stamps are the same size as the other 1970 stamps with the same long dash marks on the backs, but they use the same airbrushed logo photos as the 1969-70 stamps. This is also the only sheet that's PERFORATED. The 12 players are listed below. These 12 are the only players that have MLB stamps in 3 formats (2 x 3 1/4, dotted backs, off-white stock from 1969-70; 2 x 3 1/4, solid line backs, white stock from 1969-70; 1 7/8 x 3, long dash backs, perforated from 1970):

Aaron
Banks
Bench
Gibson
Howard
Killebrew
McCovey
McDowell
McLain
Powell
Seaver
Stottlemyre

Hopefully I can put together enough evidence to support getting the Standard Catalog entry fixed (if they even continue to carry this type of issue in the future). If anyone sees any errors in what I've written, please let me know. Thanks.

[Big Red Machine]

I have owned a couple of the 1970 Sports Stars magazine that contained the 12 perforated cards on the insert sheet. Those are very difficult to find centered. Both of the magazines I have owned had the perforated lines way off center on the cards.

[hcv123]

I have some sheets (unfortunately I don't remember which ones). I know for sure Ryan was on one of them. I also have an album that went with the stamps. They are all unfortunately buried in storage and will be for the near to intermediate future. I'll try to find this thread when I put my hands on them. Thanks.

-Howard

[a761506]

Wow, I thought I knew this issue pretty well, but learned something new here... never knew about the back variations.

I had always known that the Standard Catalog had them listed incorrectly when it has all the players listed by team as opposed to by Series, which is how they were issued...

I have always thought that PSA doesn't know anything about them either, as they seemed to just arbitrarily assign the year as 1969 or 1970 to the ones which have always been known as the 1969 issue. I had always thought there was no such thing as a 1970 Clemente, even though PSA has graded 15 of them as such. Now, knowing of the reprinting, there technically is a 1970 issue, although, since they can't tell them apart, they really should just consider all cards from sheets labeled Series 1-18 as 1969, and all 75 cards from Series 19-25 sheets as 1970. I have always thought that those 75 cards are much tougher than the 1969 cards.

Looking at the PSA pop. report, of the 137 total graded under 1970, only 65 of them can actually be determined to be from 1970.