Reconstructing the 1963 Topps 6th and 7th Series Sheets

[Cliff Bowman]

I was able to find many wrong back 1963 Topps 6th series cards which are invaluable to trying to figure which cards were next to which. After looking at many of them I figured out what 1963 Topps wrong backs are, all of them are from sheets that had the whole back sheet printed upside down, which is very understandable considering that half of the cards were upside down on each sheet. I had noticed before that 1963 Topps wrong backs always had the same card on the flip side, for instance Glen Hobbie always has a Rocky Colavito back, Roy Sievers always has Tony Oliva on the back, Harvey Haddix always has Sandy Koufax on the back, Mickey Mantle always has Billy O'Dell on the back, and vice versa. When I figured that out I was able to ascertain with the 6th series wrong back cards that a yellow based blue inset circle card always has a red based green inset circle card on the back, a yellow based red inset circle card always has a red based yellow inset circle card on the back, a blue based orange inset circle card always has a blue based red inset circle card on the back, and then it is also true when the sides are flipped. The card in the upper right corner of the sheet, yellow based blue inset circle Curt Flood, will always have the card from the lower left corner of the sheet, red based green inset circle Jay Hook, on the back of a wrong back card, and the same is true with a Jay Hook front and a Curt Flood back of a wrong back. With that in mind, that is how I came up with how I believe how the rows go on each sheet in this order, yellow based blue inset circle row, yellow based red inset circle row, red based yellow inset circle row, red based green inset circle row, blue based orange inset circle row, blue based red inset circle row, blue based orange inset circle row, blue based red inset circle row, yellow based blue inset circle row, yellow based red inset circle row, red based yellow inset circle row, red based green inset circle row. With this pattern it fits in with every wrong back 1963 card that I saw, in other words a 1963 wrong back always has a front with the back of the card that is in the flipped position of that card on the sheet. These are the backs of some 1963 wrong back cards, they almost always have small parts of other cards and are not centered properly.