1974 Topps Factory Set

[nolemmings]

Originally Posted by steve B

Lead times were a lot longer then. Plus the process was much slower than it is today. Everything had to be proofed so it was ready to go, and Topps did a LOT of proofing. Our place did maybe one photographic proof, and that was about it. Topps did several different types of proofs all the way through the design process.

The actual printing would have taken a while, but probably not months for the initial runs. Then packing would have been a bit longer. And all that would have to be timed with other products, like other sports, and whatever non- sports they were doing to fill in the gap between seasons. Hockey and basketball would have been active products, and maybe wacky packs? I forget what was out there overall. Plus printing for some non- card products.
Printing the boxes


Then they'd have to pack and ship orders. Some places do it in big batches, others do it package by package. There may have been a date that wholesalers had to wait for before shipping. Or retailers may have simply held off until the season began. Not a major issue for big chains, but the local convenience store would probably wait till the season, and for a couple other things to sell out first.


One of my friends families owned a 5+10 when I was in High school, in 1981 I convinced him that they should carry all three brands of cards. They did, but around the season opener. The local card shop had had them since I think February. The sales cycle was still pretty much the same then.

Thanks Steve. It still seems kind of baffling to me that they couldn't wait 2-3 weeks and see if the Washington thing was really likely to happen, given the lawsuits and conditions that needed to be met.

Has anyone seen a proof of sheet #5? I ask because Denny Doyle, who had been traded December 6, is shown with his new Angels team in the regular set, while Jim Mason, traded the same day, is not, and both are included in the higher numbers (#552 and #618) and Mason is shown with his new Yankee squad on the traded set. The Doyle card is a nondescript shot of him with some minor sort of airbrush job, almost certainly swapped out late from a better photo. I wonder if the proof sheet would show a different pic of Doyle. Also seems they could have corrected Mason in the regular set but chose otherwise. Since all of their "trades" were completed just 5 days after December 6, 1973, it makes you wonder why they couldn't wait another week, although maybe the plan all along was to have a traded set and they needed to fill it with players.