1966 Topps High's - Any uncut sheets or partial sheets known?
 

I know there are as many opinions about the high series as there are cards in it. I think there is clearly a scarcity division between single prints and double prints, though there seem to be several different tiers of short prints that I'm just not seeing myself. Example, I have no difficulty finding Grant Jackson or Choo Choo Coleman more than any other SP really. It's just that everyone is asking $50 for their beater. Is it the last card people need to finish because it's the rarest, or because a card of a common player goes for a pretty penny that people don't really want to pay until it's the only thing in the way of completion?

The cards considered scarce fluctuate with time. I recall when Perry and McCovey were considered awfully tough, and today they aren't. My 2015 Standard Catalog doesn't even list Snyder as a SP at all, but I recall when he was considered one of the toughest SP's and was frequently one of the last ones folks needed. From my own experiences, the SP's seem to all exist in roughly equal population over time, though some can seem tougher over a certain stretch. There have been good threads on Net54 before on these, but I've never seen any uncut material that might help show whether Coleman, Jackson and others are actually tougher, or if people just think so.

In my opinion, there are definitely 1966 hi #'s which are SP's and the reason we see the tougher ones is,, they are more likely to be asked for.

One aspect that grading brings to the fray is one is more likely to have those tougher cards graded (or a higher percent thereof) so what you see in the graded population does not match what you see in the "raw" population.

And yes, I'd love to see a sheet (s) to see myself. I know there are 1967 hi # sheets and yet the major dealer stocks don't agree with the partial sheet we saw because,,, there are truly more of what we call DP's in 1967 although the sheet Dave Hornish has shown does not verify those DP"s.

Rich

IMO, the only reason you have no difficulty in finding the Grant Jackson card is because owners of this card are asking $50+ for their beater. Instead, if they were asking $10 for their beater you would have great difficulty finding this card.

I had trouble finding Grant Jackson and Gaylord Perry in 1973. No trouble finding Mccovey, but maybe just lucky. If you bought a pack, you would probably get at least 1 SP.

It would be interesting to see an uncut sheet and see if these cards are on the same row or different rows. The 1967 sheets/partial sheets really helped define which cards are truly SPs and which are not.

Topps definitely tweaked the high number sheets in 66 and 67. You would need both 132 card half sheets from each year to tell but the SP's are legit. I've never seen a 66 high # sheet (I don't think), but have seen a 67 sheet and a scrap of another, different sheet. Some cards get legendary status they deserve and some don't. Like Brooks Robinson in 1967, where the scarcity was perceived but not real because of an early hobby find that must have only come from cards printed on one half sheet. And I believe the 66 Jackson is not all that tough compared to some other cards in the highs. There is a lot of disparity too in which cards people think are the SP's in '66 to boot.

There's 11 true SP's in 1967 and I studied the hell out of those highs to figure it out but I never really looked at the 66's. 1965 had a 77 card high series as well but it's not yielded any type of true SP's. 66 and 67 were both 77 card runs as well and something intentionally happened when those were printed. We just don't quite have all the pieces yet.

I have no expert opinion on this card, but have casually looked for it a few times as it also includes Dodger Bart Shirley. This card and the McMullen (Rose RC) are two only vintage Topps Dodger base cards, outside of the 52 Topps Hi #'s, I don't have and probably will never own.

At the times I have looked for it, even the beater copies were selling for close to $100, but there seemed to be a fair number of high quality/graded copies sitting unsold at higher than expected asking prices.

I would tend to believe that it is like the Andy Pafko 1952 Topps. The card itself outside of high condition really should not be worth that much. The price for that card I believe was driven by the fact that nice copies were harder to find due to rubber bands and such damaging the first card (or top card) in the set. The crazy prices on the high end copies then seem to filter down to the worse condition copies, as set builders, team collectors and player fans are forced to buy the cheaper copies and fight for them so they don't have to spend the big bucks on a high end copy.

I can't come up with a better answer, as the Jackson/Shirley card doesn't seem to be any less plentiful than the average SP card from other similar era Topps sets that routinely sell for less.

I don’t doubt the short prints exist at all. Perry, Jackson, Coleman, Piersall, Northrup, Clarke are all, I think, properly labeled short prints. What I question is how certain short prints are labeled extra short prints and said to be much tougher than other short prints. It just doesn’t seem to be that there are several different tiers of short prints from what I have seen over the years. Maybe one day we will find a sheet, the 67 sheets are very helpful for the set. I dread starting the 67 highs after I finish these

i have a first series sheet. If I recall Koufax and Catfish Hunter was a DP.

I have seen over the past 30 years or so, at least 3 8 card sheets of 66 highs and at least 1 12 card sheet. If I recall, Jackson, coleman, #544, perry, twins team, tigers team, mclain, cards that I consider the shorter sp's were not among them. I don't consider mccovey or Clarke very short sp's. Never a full one. Not to shift the conversation but, why has topps never come forward with information? Print qtys by series, uncut sheets? surely there must be some archive records somewhere. Even sales volumes by month by year could help people understand why selected years (1965) appear to have lower production numbers.

I collect 66 highs and think that the #591 is artificially high. #598 last card in 6 or better I get the cost. The all these, they are available if you have means. Any card really.

Also, the 66 highs about a third of the time are diamond cut, I dislike that.

Comments welcome.

Bill:

In all honesty I don't think Topps kept that information nor cared about that information back in those days. Sorry but it's up to us to find the information!

That's awesome! Hunter Sounds right, a 66 Catfish seems to be in every lot of random 60's Topps stuff I buy.

True on the Pafko. It shouldn't have the same grade level curve than others of the first series do. The off condition cards are plentiful.

Keep in mind that for the high number cards, they came out later in the season. For a number of reasons such as waning interest, less handling time, etc, they were 'played with' less by kids than the first series. I would offer that for these high numbers, the population percentage of nice condition is probably much higher than there earlier series counterparts (though I'm not sure things like PSA pop reports would accurately reflect this). It's easy to imagine some kid opening late series packs, flipping through the cards, then putting them in a box somewhere and maybe not looking at them again.

What are the current thoughts on the difficulty of #580 Billy Williams as a SP? I recently picked one up - but more because I'm a Cubs fan; I'm not going after the '66 set. '67 unfortunately is a different story...

I’ve never found him to be one of the ‘tougher’ short prints, but he seems a little undervalued to me relative to a lot of other highs. Williams, McCovey and Perry are about the only star players among the SP’s, but Williams doesn’t go for much more than a common in mid grade raw

Any true SP''s should be found in multiples of 11 in 1966 or 67, or just about any year from 1959 through 71. From 1968 the print quantities seem to have stabilized and the effect is far less pronounced.

Never thought about that, but completely agree.

43 of the 76 cards are credited as Single Prints in the Standard Catalog (5th Vintage Edition). Snyder is not, but he used to be considered one, at least.

The credited SP's, for what its worth, are

524 Giants Rookies
525 Bell
526 Twins Team
528 Gonder
532 Monteaguado
533 Adair
535 Willie Davis
538 Bob Allen
540 McClain
541 Oliver
543 Craig
544 Cards Rookies
545 Green
547 Clarke
548 Kroll
550 McCovey
551 Purkey
552 Tebbetts
554 Northrup
555 Perranoski
556 Queen
557 Mantilla
559 Pena
561 Coleman
564 Chance
565 Piersall
566 Cuellar
567 Howser
569 McFarlane
570 Mahaffey
571 Dave Roberts
576 Nicholson
577 Lamabe
578 Olivio
580 Billy Williams
583 Tigers Team
586 Raymond
589 Klimchock
590 Nicholson
591 N.L. Rookies (Jackson/Shirley)
593 Camilli
596 Astros Rookies (Colbert)
598 Perry


I'm not sure all of these actually are less common than credited Double Prints, but the experiences of any 1 person are not too helpful, I think, when none of these cards are rare (just rare in comparison to others, there are still thousands of each). I'm sure uncut sheets will be discovered the week after I pay up for the "extra short" SP's

I'm going to take my shot at the 11 truly sp's of the 66 highs:

526 twins team
538 allen
540 mclain
544 cards rookies
555 peranoski
556 queen
561 coleman
583 tigers team
586 Raymond
591 Jackson/shirley
598 perry

that's my list with allen and Raymond my last 2 in.

comments welcome, billp

As well as Pete Rose and Mickey Mantle on the opposite 132 card series 1 sheet.

In total 4 rows were printed 3 times (132 cards) and 6 rows were printed twice (132 cards) on the 264 card sheet. Equates to 110 unique cards

John

will post all i got. These two partials go together, too lazy to cut and paste them together LOL. The 3 pic. extends the Dick Egan and CHI CHI rows to the right

Attachment 354645


Attachment 354646

These two go together as well

Attachment 354647

Attachment 354648

Tony Martinez continuation to the right with alt. configuration of two cards below him. In total the partials show 44 different cards i think. JOhn

So the Egan row is definitely DP's

this is great stuff. It throws 3 of my 11 off the list.

Maybe 570 mahaffey, 543 craig and 590 skowron are in the 11.

Sorry about the old bad picture but hope it helps.

Mike


[IMG]https://i138.photobucket.com/albums/...psgwhmzvkg.jpg[/IMG]

I wonder if at the end of the day the 66 and 67 full high number sheets (two half sheets) have the same configurations. I wonder why this was done as well, it would seem to be easier to run off three consecutive 77 card runs across both half sheets and then overprint the remaining 33 cards. Packaging considerations? Seems unlikely but who knows.

And has anyone ever seen 1965 high number sheets? 77 card high series from 1965-67 and yet the 65's seem not nearly as wonky.

I only have one half of the 264 card sheet for 1965 and 1967 high #'s (see below).

Although i dont have definitive proof I'm pretty sure 77 card series had 4 rows printed 3 times on the 264 card sheet (132 total) and then 3 rows printed 4 times (132). "IF" both half sheets are identical it would result in 2 rows, #7 and 8 on each sheet below, printed twice (44 total) and 5 rows printed 4 times (220 total)

John

Attachment 354777

Attachment 354778

So #591, everybody's major SP is on the same row as mcLain, Howser and Navarro interesting. Either it was replaced on a 2nd sheet with the 7th series checklist or it's just as common as those other 3.

With the red print lines on some copies it seems like it was on a border.

Another great view, whats interesting here is that the row above the accepted true 11 sp's (Belanger rookie row)is a once printed row of 11 accepted highly common DP's printed only once on this sheet. Also the row with Pinson on it is out of order with the normal sequence. It repeats earlier than the row 2-5 above. I think Topps basically screwed up the sheets and therefore we've got this crazy distribution that makes 67 highs so challenging. billp

You could do this manually, but a simple search of ebay listings (both current and sold) could give some idea as to the relative population of these cards. And maybe give some insight into the true 'SP' numbers. There may be some skewing of the data as far as between stars and commons, but I think there is some information hidden in those numbers.

I been eBay searching for a 1957 Clemente and Koufax for a while, and the numbers certainly show that Clemente supply is way more than the Koufax supply. This lines up with the fact Koufax is an SP and also in the tough mid-series. Just doing a quick search now turns up 185 Clemente and 88 Koufax cards.

Anybody up for a try?

For whatever reason the 67 high # sheet shown above is the one that always pops up. Keith Olbermann has a remnant of a high # sheet with a different configuration though. So for 1967 the half sheets have different configurations. Topps clearly mucked with the '67 arrays for unknown reasons, as my attachment will show.

I've blogged about it here: https://toppsarchives.blogspot.com/s...High%20Numbers

And here is the KO remnant (from the top left corner):

Mucking with the placement of the rows was common practice for 109/110 card series

from the 65 sheet above, which has the same pattern as the 67 sheet, i.e. the 1st and 6th rows repeat and the 7th and 8th don't, if someone had the other 65 sheet then maybe the total 67 would follow suit. The olbermann sheet let's call a s'alesmans sample.

but for an uncut sheet, what luck getting those cards of severe DP's on a sheet

Not sure why it would be a sample, it's from a production sheet.

The 65 and 67 mirroring is interesting, hadn't realized that. Maybe something to do with avoiding repeat cards in the wax packs somehow?

Why are the 65's so much easier though in terms of SP's? Maybe just more of them?

I wonder how many high number A and B sheets we can show patterns for from 1961-67?

The only 77 card series where i have copies of both sheets is 1969 series 6, see below. Using the first picture rows 1, 3 and 4 end up being printed 4 times across the 2 half sheets (132 total) and rows 2, 5, 7 and 8 are printed 3 times (132 total). The 3 prints include Nolan Ryan and Jim Palmer.

Breaking down the layout of each sheet shows the first one has row 1 repeated in row 6 and rows 2 thru 5 being repeated in rows 9 thru 12. The 2nd/right half sheet is def. configured different. It has rows 1 and 2 repeated in rows 7 and 8 and rows 3 thru 5 repeated in rows 10 thru 12.

John

Great read on this subject. Im wondering how uncut sheets in the 50's and 60's every got out? Topps vault purchases?

Most current price guides suggest that there are 43 SPs in the high series for 1966. If correct, this means that Topps probably used a print pattern of four rows printed 3x each and three rows printed 4x each for the full print sheet for the 7th series of 1966.

Based on the images shown in this thread, there appear to be seven unique rows of cards, as expected. The rows are as follows:

R1 (headed by Northrup) - 554, 568, 584, 581, 534, 558, 573, 536, 529, 572, 574.

R2 (headed by Mantilla) - 557, 588, 545, 526, 589, 593, 563, 578, 548, 524, 539.

R3 (headed by Shirley/Jackson) - 591, 540, 527, 577, 596, 551, 543, plus three more, not yet identified

R4 (headed by perranowski) - 555, 562, 559, 564

R5(headed by Cards rookies) - 544, 565, 547, 546

R6 (headed by Taylor) - 585, 530, 560, 571

R7 (headed by Salmon) - 594, 535, 575, 580

In addition, there are two other rows that have to be placed in this matrix. These include the McCovey row (550, 538, 579, 537) and the row with Sullivan (597, 592, 549). The McCovey row has to be placed above the 5th card in the Northrup row, so it must be in either R4, R5, R6, or R7 (since we only know 4 cards in those rows).

The location of the checklist is almost guaranteed to be in a row of SPs, and the location of the Sullivan row will probably be in a non-SP row.

If the row numbers are looked at carefully, it is clear that sometimes rows contain cards that are identified as SPs while other cards in the same row are not.

For example, Northrup is listed as a SP (#554), but no other card in that row is identified as such.

Another example: the row containing Shirley (#591) has seven identified SPs but also has card # 527 which is not listed as a SP.

A 3rd example: the row with Mantilla (#557) contains 8 cards that are commonly identified as SPs, but three cards which are not (588, 563, 539). Other examples also show this pattern of having both SP and non-SP cards in the same row, which really shouldn't be the case.

Hopefully, additional uncut or miscut material from this series will surface to help clear up these types of questions as well as identify the location within the printing of the other cards issued (e.g., Perry, Raymond, etc.).

Thanks Kevvyg1026. Really enjoying your posts on the 63's and 66's. Not sure what to think about some of these cards that look like they should have been SP's, too.Great work to you and to all on this site!!!

I just posted some stuff in the 1961-63 SP thread that is relevant here: https://www.net54baseball.com/showpo...19&postcount=7

This about nails it, I think. For the Mantila row, "DP"'s 588, 563 and 539 are the last 3 non-"SP" High Numbers still on my want list (16 cards to finish the set, all highs). Pretty sure now these are actually in one of the rows printed less often. Looks like I was completely wrong on 554 Northrup being an actual SP.


I still wonder where the perception of rarity came from originally. Some cards being printed 4 times and others 3 seems to roughly equate to what I've seen collecting the set; there are noticeable SP's, but they are not THAT much tougher to find. Why does 544 Hoerner carry such a premium? When did people decide Grant Jackson/Shirley was a magic Super SP? I've been collecting 60's Topps since the late 90's and everything periodical and guide I have repeats the accepted claim that some cards are extra SP's, and not in multiple of 11's.

1966 topps highs
 

I grew up in the Phoenix area and I do not recall ever seeing 7th series for either 1966 or 1967 in their release years. Now, as I've just got back into collecting, I do find some cards harder to find (e.g., on eBay) than others.

For example, a recent survey I conducted, showed some of the 1966 highs had 20 to 30 copies for sale while others had between 70 to 100 copies. Finding Shirley/Jackson for under BV is an issue but only because of pricing. There are a number of these cards on the market but asking price is typically BV or higher for cards in VG-Ex condition. Same thing for Perry.

The Hoerner card (544) is another example. Finding a well-centered card might be somewhat of an issue since it is on the far left of the sheet and one of the three rows containing this card may well have on the bottom of the sheet. Yet, a recent survey of the PSA distribution showed over half of the cards submitted (234/460) were at grade 7 or higher. This card does exist on the market in reasonable quantity (e.g., last week, there were over 50 available on ebay), but the asking price always seems to be more than BV, even for VG examples, so there is a perceived scarcity.

Interestingly, the two cards I struggled to obtain to complete my 1966 set were 565 Piersall and 569 McFarlane. Although there are a number of both cards available for sale, I was unwilling to pay $30-$40 for VG (at best) cards. After several months, I eventually was able to acquire the cards, but I probably overpaid a little simply so I could complete the set.

I imagine the 7th series was limited distribution. From the anecdotal side, my 3 uncles who collected in that year in the SF Bay Area have "complete sets" that end at the 5th series. They found out series 6 and 7 only existed last year when I showed my not quite complete set after finding out they still had their childhood card collections. The 1964 and 1967 sets are missing the last series, 1965, 68 and 69 sets are 100% complete. One has a 61-63 set run that is missing the highs in all three years, and the last 2 series in 63.


I am in that same boat on finishing, I have all the stars and most of the highs but the remaining ones are a bit hard to justify the price tag on for cards which I don't think are actually nearly as tough as stated. 66 and 67 are odd in how highs are priced, with some cards of commons being quite expensive in low grade even (well, relatively expensive depending on ones wallet), and others on the same row being pretty cheap. I love the 66's best of the 60's sets, so I will end up coughing up at some point. Skowron I found to be expensive too, and Bob Allen I haven't found for a reasonable price yet. Plenty of all cards for sale at all times, but some the prices don't seemed based in actual print runs or scarcity.


Off topic from the highs, but series 1 and 6 (especially 6, the difference is night and day), appear to have stock variations that are never mentioned. 6 has the very bright white stock or cream that is clearly not toning or aging.

I may have old SCD article about the distribution of the 1967 highs but the gist was there were issues, especially outside of the Northeast. Will try to dig it out later.

We got the 7th series in 1966 in Orange Co. CA, but never saw the 7th series in 1967.

Are there any specific facts known about the actual distribution of cards within the packs from the high series? Here's why. There are always great discussions about whether or not the print sheets had SP's involved, and/or how many cards were actually short printed, but there really could be much more to the issue. For instance, like multiple people here indicated, their neck of the woods either didn't get the late series cards, or they only received a limited number of them. The logical conclusion would lead you to believe that Topps didn't print as many cards for the late series and sent a lot of cardboard to the furnaces as they began to concentrate on football, basketball and hockey cards instead.

But which cards got destroyed (or were never distributed)? Was it an equal amount of each card across the series? Or was there something else to it? Were there more cards on the second print sheet that got eliminated? Or maybe the cards appearing on the low end of the sheets, for some reason? In other words, where were the cuts made to decrease the amount of cards printed? If you can see what I'm getting at here, it may help to determine why some cards may NOT appear to be SP's (when looking at uncut sheets), but in reality there were far fewer of them sent out to the stores. Food for thought.

No luck on the 67 high number article from SCD. I did find a reference in a message I was exchanging with a St Louis collector years ago who said they never got the 6th series there but did get the 7th.

I did find a 9/18/92 Brigandi Coin Co. ad showing the following semi-highs as purported SP's:

#460 Killebrew
#475 Palmer
#476 Perez

The problem with the old ads like these is they never listed the SP commons, only stars. Anyway, Brigandi's take on the high # SP's was off so who knows what their source was.

I think this is unlikely, as I don't think there were 2 sheets used to print a Topps series. The 2 half sheets are different, but they were printed together as one large 264 card sheet before being cut into the 2 easier to manage half sheets and then cut into individual cards. I can't imagine why Topps would print out X number of high series sheets, cut up off the left half of it and distribute, and then throw away most of the right half of the sheet, doubling their print costs to accomplish nothing. If anything, Topps was pretty smart about minimizing costs, shrinking card size and lowering quality after knocking out their competition, experimenting with further size reductions (such as in 1975), being late to adjust to the late 80's increase in quality, etc.

Further, it doesn't seem there actually are cards that are actually that much rarer than the others today. Just cards commanding a lot more money due to a reputation that does not appear to be grounded in fact. It's easy to find 591 or 544 or 598, they aren't that much tougher than any of the others. A 3:4 ratio makes sense with what appears to be available both online and in collections.

It may well be that the way distribution worked made certain cards greater rarities in a specific geographic location; that a high pack may have only had cards from one half sheet (they probably did), and that if one row was on the right side more than the left side, and a pack in Y city/region only had left side cards, it would make certain cards tougher. I would think this would be sequenced (Topps STILL uses sequences today that make it easy to predict the next card in the pack if one has opened enough of them) and would balance out in the next box, but who knows.

They are definitely a card stock variation. All you need to do is find 1 of each and split the card to see it is the stock and not toning. Unlike some other white/grey, white/cream sets, the '66 set gets no 'variation' love for this. :)

Post #21 by Jmoran19 showing a partial sheet can be extended. I have a miscut Choo-Choo Coleman that shows a very thin sliver of the upper right corner of the next card. Comparing the coloring and pattern carefully to every other high number, it can only possibly be Bob Chance that was on his left. Chance is the last card show in the second row of this partial sheet in post 21. So that's one more clue filled in.

This site won't let me attach higher quality images than 78kb that won't show much here; PM for an email if anyone wants a better confirmation. Below is Coleman next to Chance plus some of my favorites in the high series, because we can always do with more cards.

Great work G1911. One more card always helps.If we can ever figure out the 7th Series sheet alignments!

Up to 51 of the 77 cards placed into their row. Taking the partial sheets above + Coleman and typing out ('SP''s are the generally stated ones in catalogues). The 550 McCovey row would seem it must be a continuation of one of the rows at bottom, and not a separate row as there should be 7 total rows.


550 McCovey SP, 533 Adair SP, 579 Orioles Rookies, 537 Franks

554 Northrup SP, 568 A’s Rookies, 584 Yankees Rookies, 581 Tony Martinez, 534 Mets Rookies, 558 Red Sox Rookies, 573 Griffith, 536 Egan, 529 White Sox Rookies, 572 Priddy, 574 Mets Rookies (COMPLETE ROW OF 11)

557 Mantilla, 588 A’s Rookies, 545 Dick Green SP, 526 Twins Team SP, 589 Klimchock, 593 Camilli, 563 Twins Rookies, 578 Olivio SP, 548 Kroll SP, 524 Giants Rookies, 539 Astro’s Rookies (COMPLETE ROW OF 11)

591 Rookies (Grant Jackson) SP (START OF ROW CONFIRMED), 540 McClain SP, 567 Howser SP, 527 Navarro, 577 Lamabe SP, 596 Astro’s Rookies SP, 551 Purkey SP, 543 Craig SP

555 Perranoski SP, 562 Snyder, 559 Pena SP, 564 Chance SP, 561 Coleman SP

544 Cards Rookies SP, 565 Piersall SP, 547 Clarke SP, 546 Siebler

585 Taylor, 530 Robin Roberts, 560 Horlen, 571 Dave Roberts SP

594 Salmon, 535 Willie Davis SP, 575 Wilson, 580 Williams SP

1966 topps highs
 

Thanks for the Coleman addition. Hopefully, some other miscuts will surface to allow the placement of the remaining 26 cards.

The Perranowski, Cards rookie stars, Taylor, and Salmon must be the start of rows since they are under Northrup and we know all the cards in Northrup's row.

And yes, the McCovey four card panel (McCovey, Adair, Johnson rookie, and Franks) must be cards 5, 6, 7, & 8 in one of the other rows. Therefore, these four cards must be in one of the three rows headed by either Cards Rookies, Taylor, or Salmon since at least five cards are known in the either four rows. I lean towards the Salmon row, but only because that would put several SPs together (Davis, Williams, McCovey), even though it should be clear that current price guide listings of SPs is not completely consistent with the card patterns observed,

Those guide SP patterns are often off because only one half sheet was observed or a box or case was open that had the typical Topps collation of the time (i.e. terrible). This information, right or wrong, ended up in guides for decades (still does sometimes) and the origins often predate the modern guides of the late 70's. Other patterns were often due to to dealer ad hyperbole I'd say.

1966 SP patterns were not known until after the 67's were semi-sussed out but from what I've been seeing in the many 70's hobby pubs I've been scanning is that the 66 highs in general were more expensive in the late 70's than the 67 highs were. One of the innovators in cracking all the series and SP breakdowns was Lew Lipset around 1976-77, who I believe was a Wall St analyst for decade after college (or something quite similar) before turning to stamps, then cards. He seems to have applied his data and analytical expertise to card pricing and figured out a lot of the "good" information. I'm still not to the point where the 66 SP info began appearing in the guides so it would have been in the late 80's. I randomly took out my S-A/Beckett Guide #6 from 1984 and the only '66 SP info was that the #598 Perry card was in short supply even for a set-ender.

Thanks for this background; I've assumed the "SP"'s date from the 70's or 80's, but I only started collecting this set around 2000 and don't have many of the old periodicals. As I recall, 20 years ago Gaylord was still the pre-eminent SP, not 591 Jackson/Shirley. Would love to see what some of the other older material says on this matter. None of the 70's Sport Hobbyist issues I have include dealers designating individual highs as extra special/tough.

Definitely some kind of 80's deal for the most part. Beckett's first two price surveys were sets only, plus a couple of odd series like 52 highs. I'll track it down eventually in the old guides.

CCC ad in The Trader Speaks, August 1979. Check it out:

Boy do I wish I had a time machine, 1,200 67 highs for $100. Looks like they still weren't calling out "SP's" as late as 79 then.

In the Vol.1 #1 issue of Current Card Prices (Jan 1983) to which Mr. Hornish was a contributor, commons for 1966 from the last series (523-598) were listed at $1.75 each. Cards in that series that carried a premium were 526 (Twins team), 530 (Robin Roberts), 535 (Willie Davis), 540 (McLain), 550 (McCovey), 558 (Scott), 565 (Piersall), 567 (Howser), 580 (Billy Williams), 583 (Tigers team), 590 (Skowron) and 598 (Perry). No mention of 591 or 544 being special!!!

Not sure if this is of interest, but here goes. There were several times during the period 1965 to 1969 that Topps had a print run of 77 cards. This print run would have 7 unique rows of 11 cards each. The big question for some of us is to try to determine the specific pattern that these 7 rows were distributed across the full sheet, which consisted of two half-sheets (or slits) of 12 rows each.

For the half-sheets that I have seen, this is the pattern of the rows observed. I labeled the rows A through G, with A being the row which was at the top of the half-sheet. Just the left half-sheets are shown below.

1965 Series 5 - (Bateman as leading row): A, B, C, D, E, A, F, G, B, C, D, E
1965 Series 7 - (Gaines as as leading row): A, B, C, D, E, A, F, G, B, C, D, E
1967 Series 7 - (Pinson as as leading row): A, B, C, D, E, A, F, G, B, C, D, E
1969 Series 6 - (Rookies as leading row): A, B, C, D, E, A, F, G, B, C, D, E

Wow. These sheets all exhibited the same pattern so I thought I was on to something!! But, unfortunately, Topps used a different pattern on the right half-sheets I have seen.

1965 Series 5R (Blanchard as leading row): A, B, C, D, E, A, B, F, G, C, D, E
1969 Series 6R (Green as leading row): A, B, C, D, E, F, A, B, G, C, D, E

Still have all the issues I worked on (until early 1985) here and plan to pull them out and look at some of the pricing structures. I can tell you the SP information was almost all culled from other guides and publications, although we created CCP content from the ground up (unlike CPU, which got busted for plagiarizing Beckett's guides). E&V info came from Ralph Nozaki in part and also from the guides; the guy who put out CCP (Richie) was a card dealer as well and knew a lot about what was hot and the card market in general. I put together the inaugural Football and Hockey magazine from scratch over a weekend and then we had a huge blowout from out of the blue and that was it for me.

Checked out two of my old Wholesale Cards Co. (Bruce Yeko) price lists.

The 1972 list has no short prints and cards 523-598 were 20 cents each and the full 7th series was available fir $12.95. (First scan)

Six years later in 1978, still no short prints listed but the price of the 7th series went up to 30 cents each. The complete 7th series was no longer available. (Second scan)

That ties with my recent findings from the era. Yeko may have ended up with the excess 66's that normally went to CCC as he was on good terms with Woody Gelman, who I more and more think along with Bill Haber, brokered the unsold Topps cases to other major dealers; in fact I think one dealt with primarily unsold overstock from the Topps warehouse (Woody, in addition to his own stock) and one dealt with jobber returns (Haber) but that is just educated guesswork on my part. I'd love to find the shipping originator on a case of aftermarket CCC cards that went out from their ads, I wonder if it would say Duryea. Gelman and Haber probably split the vast majority of unsold test material in the early 70's as well.

Overall, it was a lot harder to find 66 highs than 67's in the 1970's ads I've seen, and I've seen a bunch now.

I believe Yeko got the 1963 highs too. I know he was out of 591 and 598 from the 1966 set by 1973-74. Larry Fritsch got the 1972 high number football cards. CCC got the 1967 high numbers. It seems strange that German would let competitors get some close outs.

I believe that more 1966 high numbers ended up at retail than 1967, but that may have just my perception from what was available locally. CCC had lots of 1967 high numbers so that made it easier for collectors to have access to them. 1961 highs, 1963 semi highs and 1966 highs were the cards that I had difficulty with in the mid-seventies.

I think it makes sense when looking at Woody as a Topps employee, with several side gigs (and not just cards-he was a magazine and book publisher as well, plus he wrote/illustrated some risque smaller books like "Sam, the Ceiling Needs Painting"-google it for a good laugh). Topps may have wanted multiple outlets for this stuff-you never know when an employee might bolt, even one as unique as Woody. Or, maybe just friendship-Woody was apparently one of the mellowest and nicest dudes on the planet and was friends with everybody and anybody.

There was an issue with 1967 high number distribution west of the Mississippi and that is one thing that makes me think Woody dealt with unsold warehouse overstock vs. returns (which was more Fritsch territory-Bill Haber even worked for Fristch briefly in the mid-70's which sort of led me to that side of the equation and also knowing the origin of some Fritsch stock was items already out of the Topps warehouse), since he had so much.

It could have even broken down by the type of buyer-Topps had different unions send out to different buyers (jobbers, consolidators and direct retail at least and some of that was divided by day, evening and night shifts) and possibly also by packaging type (wax, cello, rak and vending). Then more I look at it the more complex yet interlocking everything seems. So many moving parts at Topps.

Fascinating stuff gents! Thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge. Are any of the old Topps guys you reference still living? Would br great to hear them address some of the questions raised in this thread.

1966 high # miscuts
 

Does anyone have any 1966 high number severe miscut images they can share? Looking to see if the placement of several cards can be identified.

I have a mis cut Perry. Will post by end of weekend.

An important key to the SP's potentially.

stlcardsfan hope you get to post that Perry card. Really appreciate getting to see that!

Great information on availability in the 70's, thanks for sharing gents. And thank you in advance stlcardsfan for the Perry image, this would be, I think, the most interesting card to place that hasn't been put into a row yet.

Perry
 

Here is the mis cut Perry. It appears to me at least that Larry Jackson (#595) would reside on the row right beneath GP. Hope this helps. For some reason I cannot load photos of much size on this site. And they always come out upside down. I have seen folks fix this in the past. I would try but wanted to get this for everyone’s view.

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Thanks Cliff!

One more clue here, Perry over Jackson. I've had little luck scowering COMC and eBay scans for anything that isn't already known

The one year we need Topps usual quality control.....

Dan Jackson-the upside down or sideways phone photos can be fixed. Some suggestions here: https://www.ricksdailytips.com/turn-...tate-on-phone/

There are also some apps that can do this. I think the issue is actually how this site handles some information but it could just be a setting or two on your phone.

Thanks Dave.

I guess a side to side mis-cut Perry would have been more helpful. Now we need a side to side mis-cut Jackson and then a top to bottom mis-cut whoever is next to him to see who’s next to Perry😬. Like being stuck on a puzzle!

As many know, the 7th series checklist has two varieties: Version A has White Sox (529) and Cardinals (544) spelled out while Version B has 529 as W. Sox and 544 as Cards. Although not very scientific, a quick survey of ebay this morning revealed that the Version A is more prevalent by approximately a 2:1 ratio. Furthermore, five version A cards were found marked up to only # 522 and none of version B were found marked in that fashion. This leads me to suspect that version A was the checklist that was in the 6th series printing and version B was the checklist printed in the last printing.

The Sports Americana Price Guide (1979) does not have price distinctions for most of the common high series cards from 1966, although some cards have premiums applied (e.g., team cards, semi-stars, or stars).

The CCP guide from 1983 also does not appear to have price distinctions, although team cards, star cards (Roberts, McCovey, McLain, Williams, and Perry), and presumably semi-stars (Davis, Scott, Piersall, Howser, Skowron) do have a premium applied.

The Baseball Card Price Guide, April 88 issue shows a 2x multiplier for #524, 528, 544, 545, 547, 548, 551, 556, 561, 570, 576, 579, 591, and 593 in addition to premiums for stars and teams. Cards such as 535, 543, 554, 555, 558, 563, 566, 567, 574, 584, 589, 596, and 597 have a minor premium applied to the standard common card pricing, presumably because, they have Dodger, Yankee, Met, Red Sox, or Tiger players.

So, it appears that the SP idea may have germinated sometime between 1983-1988, but as mentioned in an earlier post by Toppcat, the cards apparently designated as SPs probably achieved that distinction because of poor collation or distribution issues rather than actual print quantity variations.

Thanks Kevvy for the new insight. I had never thought about the 7th Series checklist and it's two variations like that. Also, very interesting on the relative price-values from the decade of the '80's.The evolution-change is amazing. Sadly when I got back into the hobby it was the late 80's and prices for the high number 1966 cards were already sky-high(with my budget).Great detective work that is very appreciated by 66 lovers like myself!

I'll second that. As a 1966 fan and a collector of the high series, I enjoy the insights. One thing I saw in a previous thread, somewhere it says in an ad that cards 591 and 598 were no longer available. That's real interesting as back then 591 would have been just another high number. So I'm still feeling that 591 was replaced on one on the sheets by a checklist or it's position on the outside of a row caused it to be damaged and thrown away,

billp