1973 Topps Coaches Variations

[deweyinthehall]

For your consideration -

I was going through my 1973 set, and my attendant collection of coach variation cards, and comparing them to the list here: https://baseballcardvariationsguideb...25/1973-topps/

We all define 'variation' in slightly different ways, but I think I've finally come to the conclusion that those cards with solely light box/dark box variants are products of something which likely impacted the entire printing sheet and so should not be considered variations unless you also count ALL the cards from the sheet as such.

Here is what I mean:
In series 1, Quilici, Lockman and Houk were obviously edited to cut out the natural backgrounds, creating a true variation of each. It seems pretty certain that Zimmer likewise was cropped, resulting in the Podres ear variation, so another true variation by any standard. Kasko is different - the image of Kasko himself appears brighter on the card with the brighter boxes and more shaded or darker on the card with the darker boxes. This leads me to believe that it is possible Kasko's card was not intentionally changed in any way and that, because one card isn't going to get inked differently than others on the same sheet, the lightness/darkness issue applies to all cards in the first series as well.

In series 2, Williams (natural background, Hoscheit's ear), Mathews (Burdette's ear) and Berra (Yost's brim, Walker's ear) present what I would consider 4 true variations. The Weaver and Fox light/dark variations can, like Kasko, be tied to perceptible color variations in the Fox and Weaver images (and hence the entire 2nd series of cards). On Fox, the light versions are said to have a variation where the shoulders of Amalfitano and McMahon are either visible or not, but I attribute this to the coloring issue (you can make out a bit of McMahon's shoulder on the supposed shoulderless version.

In Series 3, Tanner, Mauch, Anderson and Martin can, I think all be attributed to the same general coloring issue (interesting that only Mauch and Martin are listed in the linked document as having variations).

For Series 4, Virdon (Maz's ear) and Aspromonte (Spahn's ear) are two definite variants. Ozark and Schoendienst, to me, are again victims only of the general coloration fluctuations in the printing process.

In series 5, Crandall, Durocher, Herzog, Alston and McKeon all don't have any claimed variants, which tells me there was little if any of the coloration issues which impacted the first 4 series.

You can say that well, even if due to coloration issues they still appear different so they should be counted, but I would say these coloration issues would of necessity apply to all cards from the sheet (for example, if the Mauch card is considered a variation then all cards in the 4th series would have the same coloring differences and hence should also be considered to have variants). Even if the differences are more immediately recognizable in the backgrounds of the boxes on the coaches cards, it can't be said that only the coaches cards are variants.

So, my master set has been reduced and now only includes Zimmer, Quilici, Lockman, Houk, Williams (x2), Mathews, Berra, Aspromonte and Virdon.

And the Kaline with a boo-boo on his noggin.

Does any of this make any sense to anyone?