One more post on the 1978 for good measure -
There are 59 paint jobs in the set, reflecting transactions which occurred as early as 2/28/77 (Buddy Schultz) and as late as 11/30/77 (Kingman, Maddox, Brohamer).
Surprisingly, 31 took place before or during the 1977 regular season, and a full 18 took place before 8/1/77, when most teams still had series to play in Candlestick and Shea, or Yankee Stadium and Oakland.
Seems Topps could have gotten an image of Doug Rader as a Blue Jay (acquired 6/8), Tom Murphy as a Blue Jay (acquired 7/27), etc, etc.
The last transactions captured in time for the 1978 set were Kingman, Maddox and Brohamer on 11/30. Baseball Reference lists Ron Schueler as joining the White Sox on 12/3, but newspaper accounts place this on 11/17. Dave Bergman's card reflects a 12/1 date, but all else points to 11/23.
The first transaction in December involving any players that would be featured in the 1978 occurred December 5 when the Angels Traded Bobby Bonds, Thad Bosley and minor leaguer Richard Dotson to the White Sox for Brian Downing, Chris Knapp and minor leaguer Dave Frost. Neither this trade nor any subsequent transactions were reflected in the 1978 set.
Therefore, I think we can conclude that Topps locked the player/team combinations in order to finish the proofing process and start runnin the presses for the 1978 set as of 12/1/77. It would be interesting to see whether other sets at this time share a similar cut off date.
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