Questions re: 1977-78 Topps basketball
 

Forgive me if this has been covered - I searched but didn't see anything. Two questions: is there any difference in value between the two (dark/light) backs? And if I wanted to sell a set of these, would buyers be expecting all the backs in the set to be the same, or would a mix be just as good? Thanks for any help.

There was a post about this a couple of years ago I think but I do not remember the title. If I remember the post and the few responses correctly, there is no premium for either back although the lighter one is very slightly less common. I also believe that any responses indicated that having the backs all the same is a personal preference but not worth an extra premium.

I hope I summarized the older post correctly but I might have remembered it wrong. I hope others chime in also.

Alan

The white backs are WAY MORE common than the dark gray backs but this set is so unpopular there isn’t much of a premium for the dark gray backs. There are six recurring print error partially missing black ink cards in this set including Nate Archibald missing his entire name but they have never caught on. I pick them up whenever I run across them.

Thanks for the help.

Just out of curiosity, what is the ratio in your set? I wouldn’t be surprised if some sets are mainly dark gray backs because of how each color back was distributed regionally where someone bought packs in 1977-1978.

I just looked at my backs. I never realized there were different backs until I saw this post. About half my cards have white backs, the rest have off-white backs. I don't have any dark gray backs.

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I probably shouldn't say dark gray but the gray's are noticeably different than the white's. I got these scans from Dean's Cards, they currently have twelve white back Nater's and one gray back Nater. If you pick any card and do a quantity search on eBay, COMC, or Dean's Cards it will usually be ten or more white backs to one gray back in ratio.

If anyone cares, here are four of the six recurring print error partially missing black ink cards from the set, the other two are John Havlicek and Gail Goodrich. I have never found any of them with gray backs. Archibald is completely missing his name, Nater and Wilkes are missing their cities, and Burleson is missing his position.

I put together a gray back set a few years ago and I'd say that there seems to be a ratio of at least 5:1 or greater white backs to gray backs. Sometimes it seemed more like 10:1. At the time i thought i detected some signs of a slight premium on the grays when buying from COMC.

My Archibald error:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...20no%20ink.jpg