1973 Topps variations
 

Does anyone have any insight on the manager variations? Some are obvious with the natural background and orange backgrounds. Or the weird crops without ears. But there are others that just say pale vs orange.

With so many color printing inconsistencies in the set I find it quite difficult to tell the difference on some.

Some of the 'pale' variations are very similar to the 'natural' backgrounds except they don't have trees, etc., appearing. Case in point, card #252 (ebay pic grabs), orange (top) vs. pale…

Attachment 263019

Yeah, I see what you mean. They're kind of like 62 green tints. Hard to tell unless they're against each other. I know they're recognized variations, but they seem like a bit of a stretch to me in some cases. This set has so many cards that take on different tints from how they were printed. Like look at this Red, the photo of him is as differently tinted as the orange manager backgrounds. I feel like whenever I work on upgrading this set I find tons of cards with different tints.

Topps started by printing these inset pictures with natural backgrounds. on many of them you can see trees, and sky behind the mini photos....then after a few printings they realized that they didn't look too clear with the extra noise in the background, so they doctored the photos to be a solid orange/pinkish color. That way, the coach picture would show up better. They made mistakes on a few of them with skimming off ears, etc when they placed the orange mask on the photo...so a handful have a third variation with the cropping fixed.

These are all mostly easy to find, and are quite easy to decipher when holding in hand

here's one nicked from ebay where poor lew burdette lost his right ear to the cropper.

http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/DscAAO...~v/s-l1600.jpg.

here's the precrop with ear = aka brown and first version:

http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/OAAAAO...kh/s-l1600.jpg

here's a better discussion from Bob...RIP.

http://boblemke.blogspot.com/2010/01...2-1973-as.html

I have always listed 5 different variations of the #179 Dick Williams card on my master list.

The top row shows the trio of 'with ear' variations: 1) Natural background; 2) Bright orange; 3) Pale background.

The bottom row shows the two 'without ear' variations: 1) Bright orange; 3) Pale background.

Attachment 263099

Noren's left shoulder and Hoscheit's right shoulder come and go across the 'with and without ear' variations.

Some may consider the orange and pale versions just to be slight color differences in the printing process, and I can understand that thought. However (these are all ebay screen grabs, so the colors aren't consistent with each other), there's no doubt the color differences between the pale and orange cards are quite striking. For my money, they are separate variations.

Along the same lines as the Dick Williams card, here is #257 Yogi Berra:

http://i1036.photobucket.com/albums/...psleqn3qhw.gif

I list 5 variations of this card:
1) Dark background, Walker's ears show and Yost's hat brim pokes out.
2) Pale background, Walker's ears show and Yost's hat brim pokes out.
3) Bright orange background, Walker's ears show and Yost's hat brim pokes out.
4) Bright orange background, Walker's ears are clipped and Yost's brim disappears.
5) Pale background, Walker's ears are clipped and Yost's brim disappears.

Note: There are other small cropping differences in the coach photos, but I just highlighted the 2 readily seen.

This is what I find difficult about this set. Most lists that I come across just say there are two versions of each manager card. The subtleties on some of them are so minor that I have a hard time telling the difference. I guess my problem is are these really variations? Or did they just came off presses with slightly different?

Here's an example of what I'm talking about. Photo courtesy of Aaron Shirley from OBC

Well, sure, there will always be slight color differences when you have a group of the same cards, but you can easily put them into the categories I listed here. From what I can see, the top 4 cards in your Fox pile would be 'orange' and the bottom two would be 'pale.' If we could see the full cards, I think it would be readily evident where they fit.