1974 Topps Information/Images Needed

[deweyinthehall]

I was reading up on the 1974 Factory Sets in an old thread on this site. Best estimates are that it was sold be Sears and possibly(?) Penny's, and that it included the Traded set but not the red team checklists.

Any memories run counter to this?

But the biggest surprise I found in that old thread was this document from the April, 1974 edition of Ballcard Collector.

The author indicates he purchased his first batch of '74s on March 25th.

From the way this reads it seems that not only the team checklists, but the traded cards as well were included in the initial runs. This runs counter to everything I've heard, but it seems fairly plain here.

What do we make of this? Were the Traded cards available from the get-go?

I read somewhere that the last trade accounted for occurred 12/10/73 - was that enough time?

He also notes getting 9 cards for a dime, which indicates that initial offerings were of the 8-card packs, in the BONUS team checklist wrapper. I have to think that Topps issued both the smaller packs and larger packs simultaneously to see if there was a difference in interest.