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Posted By: Eric Brehm

Todd -- I was disappointed in the '67's also. Though many now hail them as one of the best sets of the 1960's. As you said, at least in '68 and '69 they brought back the familiar color-coding for teams as they had used in '66. I built sets in '70 and '71 also, and that was about it for me, until the revival of the 1980's, when all of us now grown-ups revisited our childhoods. I also got interested in vintage cards like T206 and Goudey at that time.

Here are the team colors they used in '66, '68, and '69, which as I said earlier, always come to mind even today when I think of those teams:

Red - Yankees and Dodgers, and American League Leaders
Blue - Twins and Reds, and National League Leaders
Yellow - Tigers and Cardinals
Dark Green - Senators and Giants
Light Green - Orioles and Astros
Orange - White Sox and Cubs
Grey - Indians and Phillies
Bluish Purple - Athletics and Mets
Greyish Purple - Angels and Braves
Pink - Red Sox and Pirates

Edited to add: actually it is only the Kansas City Athletics that seem purple to me; once they moved to Oakland I saw them properly as green with yellow trim. And the Philadelphia Athletics are a grey team, I guess by association with the Phillies.

Topps themselves had some difficulty with the A's move to Oakland, and had to show the players in '68 with no hat or a blanked out hat, presumably to hide the "KC" from the year before: