Quote:
Originally Posted by nolemmings
Yes and no, IMO. I think the changes were more significant, and they began in 1973, not 1974. That was the first of what I consider the "canned" 660 series sets-- five in a row of exactly that same size, with the cards printed all at once and available all at once (at least in parts of the country for '73). It also was the first year where Topps began to transition to "action" rather than posed photos as the standard card depiction, having experimented with a couple handfuls of such photos in 1971 from some New York games and then creating a subset of "in action" cards for 1972. I know it's all relative to where you were at any particular time, both geographically and developmentally, but for me 1973 marked the beginning of a new era in cards and the end of a better one.
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Yeah, I didn't mean to completely diminish the significance. I just don't think it was significant enough to be the start of a major era... Major change at the time, YES. Major change, in terms of lasting impact on the hobby. Not so much... It's one of the reason's I'm undecided on where the current era should start. Yes, high gloss, inserts, autographs, refractors and the such were major changes, but the competition factor that started in '81 is what really fueled all of those. I think the pre-rookies/inserts probably more currently fuel the hobby, and could be more worthy of an era change than high gloss..
'73 is a nice debate, but it wasn't exclusively a single series release for everyone, as that appears to have been a test to see what they would do going forward. So I'd be more inclined to look at '74 as the first decidedly single release year..