1955-1970 Topps Virtual Series Sheets
 

This will be what I hope is an occasionally continuing thread of all of the 1961 to 1969 Topps Series sheets that Kevvyg1026 and I have reconstructed to completion that as far as I know do not have any pics or scans known of the complete sheets. I don't believe I ever showed this 1963 Topps 2nd Series virtual sheet because I didn't know the exact positioning of Dick Brown and Jim Kaat until the past year. If anyone spots an error on any of the sheets feel free to show a miscut card showing otherwise.

Outstanding!

Great stuff.

Thanks!

1966 Series 3 Reconstructed Slit
 

From detective work done by others, here is a reconstructed image of one of the 1966 series 3 slits:

Fantastic! ETA, both the 1963 2nd Series and the 1966 3rd Series are 88 cards so there are no SP's, DP's, or row changes.

That looks great .

The only two cards on the 1966 2nd Series sheet that aren't 100% confirmed are the Astros Rookie Stars (Sonny Jackson) and Jack Hamilton, it is possible they are flipped but I am very confident this layout is correct. Kevvyg1026 and I are two cards away from finishing the 1966 5th Series, does anyone have a severely miscut 66 John Miller or 66 Ray Washburn :D? ETA, this miscut Orlando Pena is how I have Astros Rookie Stars (Sonny Jackson) in that spot so that should confirm it.

Wow Cliff on that 1966 work. The 5th sheet has short prints to discover. That would be awesome!! You and Kevin have changed the status of many cards in my 2011 edition of "Standard Catalog of Vintage Baseball Cards", edited by Bob Lemke!

1966 series 5
 

For the 1966 series 5, I show that the card in C6 of the Joe Jay row will be between 397 (Bill White) and 390 (Brooks Robinson), while the card in C4 of the Bunning row will be between 445 (Kaat) and 423 (Broglio). So, miscuts of those 4 cards could also be searched.

The series 6 from 1966 remains elusive since there are so few miscuts.

1966 series 5 more
 

Just to clarify, there is a small panel which shows Kaat (445) above Hefner. Because this is a 77 card series, at least one row (in this case, the row with Kaat), will appear above two different rows, which is why I stated in an earlier post that we are looking for the card between Kaat and Broglio.

Per request, and thanks to research by others, a mock up of one of the 1963 Topps baseball 5th series slits...

Beautiful! That is the Series that has 77 cards but 11 of them were double printed in order to fill out the necessary amount of 22 card color blocks to fill out a full sheet.

Augh! I forgot to flip the 5th series checklist - looks like you're looking at it in a mirror!

1963 Topps series 5
 

I believe the McBean row that is upside down in that mock layout is the one that has the cropping variations

Two corrections in the layout to fix reversed images...

OK - last time (hopefully), a new version with another reversed image corrected...any more and I will say "Ah ha! We've discovered a long-overlooked error card!"

I think you got it this time ;).

1966 7th Series Slit
 

Here's a faux slit from the high series of 1966 Topps...the checklist variation with "White Sox Rookies" is shown here, but on the real 7th series sheets it was likely the "W. Sox Rookies" variant.

Wow Dewey that looks great>

Beautiful! The core layout is the same as the 1966 High Number thread other than Mahaffey and Cuellar being flipped. The Northrup, Taylor, and Salmon rows are the 4x, the Perranoski, Mantilla, Hoerner, and G. Jackson rows are 3x.

1962 Topps 4th Series faux-slit
 

From detective work done by others, this is a composite of what one of the 4th series slits from 1962 looked like:

On the 1966 7th Series - I'm building a set now, and am wondering about the reliability of all the "SP" designators floating around out there.

What is the prevailing wisdom on the layout of the other slit?

Great work! The 1962 set is different than other sixties set, bordering cards can be determined by the wood grains that they share with the card above, below, or beside them, and when rows of cards with completely different wood grains were married together with a line dividing them.

Are you referring to star players, multi player rookie cards, or commons? I picked out five random commons from a 4x row and a 3x row and these are the current quantities I found on eBay:

4x row

Andre Rodgers 65
Larry Jackson 69
Dave Roberts 108
George Smith 74
Joel Horlen 67

3x row

Gary Bell 38
Dwight Siebler 25
Orlando McFarlane 27
Dave Nicholson 32
Art Mahaffey 46

1966 series 7 SPs
 

Irrespective of what may be shown in current price guides, the cards that were printed 3x times across the two slits (aka "SPs") came from the rows headed by Perranowski, Cards Rookies, Mantilla, and Jackson Rookie. The other three rows (Northrup, Taylor, Salmon) were printed 4x across the two slits.

1966 series 7 SPs
 

Irrespective of what may be shown in current price guides, the cards that were printed 3x times across the two slits (aka "SPs") came from the rows headed by Perranowski, Cards Rookies, Mantilla, and Jackson Rookie. The other three rows (Northrup, Taylor, Salmon) were printed 4x across the two slits.

I think the bottom row of that 66 series 7 faux slit should be headed by the Grant rookie, not Perranowski

Correcting the previously-posted 1966 7th series sheet as noted above (and, it turns out, as related to me by Cliff and mis-read by yours truly when putting the sheet together).

So if this slit goes:
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
A
B
C
D
E

Presumably the other would be:
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
A
B
C
F
G

Sound correct?

If so, I'll keep it to myself - I just nabbed both Oliver and Olivo for under $10, a Purkey for maybe $13, and recently a Kroll for $15.

Perfect! The other 1966 7th Series Slit goes:

C. Northrup
F. Perranoski
G. Cardinals Rookie Stars (Hoerner)
A. T Taylor
B. Salmon
C. Northrup
D. Mantilla
E. NL Rookie Stars (G. Jackson)
F. Perranoski
G. Cardinals Rookie Stars (Hoerner)
A. T Taylor
B. Salmon

The 4x rows are Northrup, T Taylor, and Salmon, the 3x rows are Perranoski, Cardinals Rookie Stars (Hoerner), Mantilla, and NL Rookie Stars (G Jackson).

1969 7th Series Faux-slit
 

Thanks again to the research of others, here is one slit of the full-series sheet:

Beautiful! Even with these three partial panels this was a very difficult sheet to assemble, I have my fingers crossed that it is 100% correct but I am confident it is. There is always that one card with no clues where to put it other than the process of elimination, in this Series it was Joe Pepitone. ETA, forgot to say that the Gil, A Jackson, and Cubs Rookie Stars rows are 4x, and the Ellsworth, Hershberger, Gagliano, and Amaro rows are 3x.

Thanks again for everyone's help in determining the layout of this series. There are still a few more to do before all the layouts of the 1960's series are determined. As Cliff alluded to earlier, this one was difficult even with the panels found. But with patience and a keen eye for miscuts, we will continue.

Some of the ones that, to my knowledge, still haven't been determined:
1961 series 1 (one slit), series 4, series 6
1964 series 6, series 7
1965 series 1 (2nd slit), series 6
1966 series 6 (Proving to be very elusive)
1969 series 3

And I have only seen a limited amount of uncut 1960 material (1st,5th, 7th) so I would imagine that those are still require investigation.

Wow Kevin. That is alot to unravel. But-- amazing how much you and Cliff have figured out.So many mysteries have been solved....this work has been a game changer for me.

Do you guys need help with a 1966 series 1 sheet? If so contact me. I have a full sheet of 132 cards.
Scott

I think we have everything on 1966 other than the 4th Series and the 6th Series, we’ve been stuck on 13 missing cards on the 1966 4th Series for a couple of months and the 1966 6th Series is Mission Impossible.

1960s virtual sheets
 

As Cliff mentioned, the 1966 series 6 has been difficult, frustrating, and yielded little progress with a similar story for both the 1969 series 3 and 1965 series 6.

Our current project is the 77 card, 6th series from 1964, which from the available miscuts I've seen, may be possible to finish (fingers crossed). So, if anyone has miscuts from that series (447 to 522 plus, 438 CL), please share!

1966 Topps 5th Series
 

As always, made possible by the detective work of others...

Beautiful! I’m in Florida so I can’t check but if I remember correctly the Reed, Angels Rookie Stars, and Monbouquette rows are 4x and the Javier, Bunning, Jones, and Jay rows are 3x. Topps always made sure the rows with Checklists were 3x rather than 4x on 77 card sheets, that is the reason they would go through the trouble of skipping a row on the second Slit that contained a Checklist.

1961-69 Virtual Sheets
 

Yes, I also show the other slit from 1966 series 5 as: Monbo, Reed, Angels RS. Bunning, Jay, Monbo, Javier, Jones, Reed, Angels RS, Bunning, Jay.

1964 Topps 7th Series
 

Here is a mock-up of one of the 1964 high series slits....no SPs here.

Great work as always! Kevin had a pic of this half sheet so we only had to figure out the other 33. We just finished the 1964 Topps 6th Series which was one of the funnest ones we have done, hopefully it can eventually be shown here. It is a 77 card Series so it has 33 4x cards and 44 3x cards.

1956, Series 2
 

A faux slit from the 1956 second series sheet...

Beautiful! Great job as always. Thank you to Nicolo for showing close-ups of his blanket of the 1956 Topps 2nd Series so we could figure out the Slits. I will need to change the thread title now :D.

Really nice work!

I've been chasing down the second series white backs for a few years, and it is more than likely that the columns with Killebrew, Hodges, and Rizzuto on the bottom are double-printed.

The cards on the bottom row of the other columns -- Thomas, Courtney, Trucks, Yost, and the Pirates Team card -- are especially hard to find when you're just looking through boxes and binders at stores and shows.

The cards on the top row of those columns are also hard to find.

Correct, the Jacobs, Snider, and Berra columns are printed twice on the other Slit so that means the Roselli and Jones columns are 2x (SP’s) and the other six columns are 3x.

1962 Series 3?
 

Amazing work here on series 4, and this tip on the wood grains. Has anyone done a Series 3 sheet? Attached is the most complete one I have found, but it's either missing the top 2 rows, or the bottom 2 rows. (Obviously if it hasn't been done yet, it seems this can be figured out by looking at high-res images of these cards and the expected cards above/below)

Note1: if the two rows are missing below this partial sheet, those two rows from the following image would be the 3rd and 4th row from the top. (Gary Bell #273 is 1st card in that 3rd row)

Note2: if the two rows are missing above this partial sheet, those two rows from the following image would be the 7th and 8th rows from the top. (Johnny Kucks #241 is 1st card in that 7th row)

Link to the cards (series 3 are #197-283): https://www.tcdb.com/Checklist.cfm/sid/55

https://www.preciouspaper.com/cdn/sh...g?v=1627774689

Kevin and I have done all of the 1962 Series Sheets but we haven’t been able to post them all yet, they are in the queue :D. I won’t be able to look at the layouts until tonight but Kevin might be able to fill in the missing rows if he sees this. I was hoping to do the 1964 6th Series as the next virtual sheet.

Awesome! My guess is the top2 rows are missing from this sheet, because then Mantle exists twice on the sheet... (but I'm dying to know). Thanks

Ah, I see now, it looks like the bottom row was cut way too close and is missing the wood panel border below the cards. I would say this particular Slit is missing the bottom two rows so it wouldn’t contain another Mantle row. Since this is a 88 card Series that means the other Slit would contain two Mantle cards, one Slit has 44 cards printed twice and the other Slit has the other 44 card printed twice so that all 88 cards are printed three times over the two Slits.

Ahh, well I'm not sure about this specific sheet image. But I wasn't thinking about a second slit. So if the wood on bottom lines up with the Gary Bell row, then 2 rows are added to the bottom ... then the second slit would be the middle 4 rows printed twice [up and down], and the top/bottom 4 rows printed once [middle]?

Is there a way to know which is slit A and which is slit B? [if they are distinguished as A/B, or 1/2]

I also count 197-283 to be 4+83=87 cards. Any idea what the 88th card would be? Or maybe these series card number ranges are incorrect from TCDb? "Distributed in seven series: #1-109, #110-196, #197-283, #284-370, #371-446, #447-522, and #523-598".

I'll await to hear what you [or Kevin] say later. Thanks

It has two Checklists, one of them is from the previous Series. That was standard practice for Topps in the sixties.

Correct, this is missing the bottom two rows as Mantle is only on this slit once

John

I just now looked, Kevin and I have reconstructed the 1962 Topps 1st, 4th, 6th, and 7th Series so apparently there are already known scans or pics of the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th Series. The rows in the 7th Series are already known we just figured out the order of both Slits. The 1962 4th Series has already been shown in this thread, so hopefully the 1st, 6th, and 7th will eventually be shown here. Full complete sheets of 1961 1st and 7th, 1963 3rd, and 1964 6th still need to be shown too.

I haven't seen the scans/pics of 1962 3rd series (Mantle). I'd love to know the order of both Slits if anyone finds this.

1962 Topps series sheets
 

Here are some of the series I have. A recap: (each row has 11 cards).

Series 1 has 110 cards, so 4 rows are printed 3x each, while the remaining 6 rows are printed 2x each.

Series 2, 3,and 4 have 88 different cards, so each row is printed 3x each across the two slits. One slit will have 4 rows 2x and four rows 1x each, while the other slit will reverse that.

Series 5, 6, & 7 have 77 different cards each. For these series, there are 3 rows printed 4x each, and four rows printed 3x each.

Cliff & I have created the layouts for both slits of series 1, 5, 6, and 7 based on miscuts, uncut material, etc. I haven't seen that info made into a visual layout, although we have it in Excel format.

Attachment 590068

Attachment 590069

Attachment 590070

Nice! Question- How do you know that Series 3 1962 sheet is Slit A?

I presume Slit A is left side of a full sheet?

Here's a photo (I don't own it) of the other Series 3 slit from 1962.

Slit a vs b
 

Unless we find a miscut with a distinguishing mark indicating slit a or b, we just call one of them A and the other B. Perhaps I should just say one slit looks like blah blah blah while the other looks like etc.

1966 Uncut Strip
 

I found this at a flea market and was wondering what it was. It is blank backed. Thanks.

1966 series 5 uncut panel
 

Nice find on that uncut panel. It is from the 1966 series 5 print sheet. It certainly would have save Cliff and me some work when we were reconstructing that 5th series sheet. LOL

These are five cards cut from the Julian Javier row. They come from columns 7 thru 11 of that row.

My guess is that this is a printer waste strip that was discarded but someone salvaged it from the waste bin. Other thoughts?

For what seemed like a year we knew it was a Met to the right of Bill Hoeft but we didn't know if it was Bill Wakefield or Jim Hickman.

1964 Topps 6th Series
 

Once again, owing to the dogged research of others, here is a faux slit from the 1964 6th series.

Great work as always! The Baumann row, Angels Rookie Stars row, and Cardinals Rookie Stars row are 4x, the Romano row, Colts Rookie Stars row, Virdon row, and G Thomas row are 3x.

That looks great. Thanks for the info!

1964 series 6
 

Yes, this was one of the harder ones to reconstruct. Fortunately, there were many miscuts for the 1964 6th series, which enabled us to piece together the patterns.

However, the 6th series from both 1965 and 1966, continue to be highly problematic, and may be impossible to reconstruct unless some uncut material magically appears.

1969 Topps virtual sheets
 

It seems like all of these virtual sheets exist except for Series 3.

Are all of these virtual sheets posted somewhere on a website to view? I'm interested in Series 1 of 1969 at the moment. Thanks!

10969 virtual sheet, series 1
 

I am not aware of any site where all of the work is published for the reconstructed sheets. And yes, all series layouts for 1969 are now known, except for series3.

Attachment 595208

Attachment 595209

There are four 1961-1969 Series sheets Kevin and I haven’t finished, 1965 6th Series is impossible, 1966 6th Series is impossible, 1966 4th Series is very frustrating but we are only about seven cards from finishing it (of course the Tommy Helms card is a huge hold up), and 1969 3rd Series is a huge project. We know the ten leading cards of each row on the 1969 3rd Series and most of the right edge cards, the order of each Slit, and we have several combos of the cards in the interior but it’s just a huge blank hole in the interior. I’m sure JMoran or Kevin have scans of the 1969 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 6th Series Slits and can post scans. ETA Kevin just did.

1960 to 1969 virtual sheets
 

To add to Cliff's comments:

For 1960, we know all of the cards in the ten unique rows for series 1, but not the slit patterns. Series 2 and series 3 are just about impossible to reconstruct, series 4, 5, & 7 slits are known, and 4 of the six rows from series 6 are known.

I have also attempted to reconstruct the series from 1957 to 1959, and can post that progress, if interested.

Yes please!

1957-59 Virtual sheets
 

1959 -
Series 1 is a 110 card series. I have not seen much uncut material, just a few salesman samples. Therefore, this will e an extremely difficult series to reconstruct.

Series 2 is an 88 card series amnd a full slit is known, so the full sheet can be reconstructed.

Series 3 is an 88 card series with a few miscuts available and a [panel of 44 cards. Thus, half of the pattern is known, but the limited miscuts make this series hard to reconstruct.

Series 4 is an 88 card series, and enough information is available to reconstruct the sheet.

Series 5 is a 66 card series, and one full slit is known, so the entire sheet can be reconstructed.

Series 6 is a 66 card series and only a few miscuts are available. It will be extremely difficult to reconstruct this sheet.

Series 7 is a 66 card series and enough info is abvailable to reconstruct the entire sheet.

Attachment 595249

Attachment 595250

Attachment 595251

Attachment 595252

Attachment 595253

A couple more 1959 partial sheets that i didnt see posted above. John

1959 Sheets
 

Well, that makes it easy to complete series 3 and series 6. Thanks

Awesome stuff guys, I love the research.

So much new information that Cliff and Kevin have put together. Finally knowing the truth about some of these '60's short prints! Huge amounts of new info for the collector! Thanks to Dewey and others too for additional help.Kudos to everyone that has contributed!!!!

The 1969 series 3 layout is difficult to reconstruct for the following reasons:

a. There are 10 different rows, containing 110 cards.
b. There are not very many uncut partial panels (2 to my knowledge, with 18 cards).
c. There are not a lot of significant horizontal miscuts, which makes it difficult to tie vertical strings together.
d. The design of the cards requires a very significant miscut in order to get the information required to match up.

Having said that, Cliff and I (mainly Cliff!) have been able to put together a probable layout for the two slits, and place 82 of the 110 cards. The last few cards to place will be difficult.

The ten unique rows are headed by:

A. Harrelson
B. Hunter
C. Willis
D. Jerry May
E. Ricketts
F. Cottier
G. Jarvis
H. Kekich
I. Schultz
J. Weiss

The pattern for one slit is: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, A, B, I, J while the other looks like: H, A, B, I, J, C, D, E, F, G, E, F.

Hence the four rows headed by Harrelson, Hunter, Ricketts, & Cottier are the 3x rows, while the other six rows were 2x. FYI: the Reggie Jackson card, 260, is on one of the 3x rows.

btw, this 1962 Series 3 "slit A", is for sale by this guy. It's the pic above, which is a partial. https://www.preciouspaper.com/collec...-mickey-mantle

This is for deweyinthehall to show how Topps welded 1962 cards together with different wood grain patterns on the 132 card sheets.

1962 series 7 weld lines
 

As Cliff pointed out in a previous post, cards in 1962 can sometimes be located above or below a card that has a different wood grain pattern. Those cards often can be found with a "weld" line between them, as he showed in the Maris miscut.

In the 1962 series 7, a 77 card series, the 7 rows are:
A Gernert
B Schaffer
C Rigney
D Nicholson
E Rookie Stars
F Henry
G Osborne

and the pattern we proposed requires that a top line be found on cards from rows A & B, while a bottom line would be found on cards from rows A, E, & G.

A search on ebay does indeed show those lines exist on cards from the appropriate rows. Conversely, I have not founds cards from rows C, D, or F with such lines.

Here are examples of a card from row A (#528, T Lown), showing that line at both the top and the bottom of the card. It is at the top of the card where row E and row A are melded, and it is at the bottom where row A melds with row B.

Hopefully, it is obvious that the wood grain patterns do not match when this melding occurs.