1966 Topps Series Release Dates ... Approx?

[G1911]

Originally Posted by obcbeatle

Thank you, I still have problems wrapping my head around how Topps used sheets in series , and their whole printing process , but it sounds like they ONLY used sheets when printing? And didn't make any effort to say print more of one sheet than another? Is there a website that shows all the 1966 series sheets ? Thank you!

Sheets from 1957 and on contain 264 cards, with the sheet split into 2 half sheets. A individual series contained between 66-132 cards. If the subject count of a series a number that multiplies evenly into 264, generally there is no short printing. They didn't print cards in any other way (that is, for full production cards, some proofing probably used very small testing sheets etc. but it would have been extremely impractical and senseless to print a card at a time or some other scheme for such mass produced goods).

If a subject count didn't align to 264, then there is some short printing, with certain rows of 11 subjects appearing less on the layout of the 264 sheet. This affects a minority of series, and has nothing to do with short printing stars. The short printed rows were picked seemingly at random and don't feature the 11 'best players' in that series. At other times Topps even went to effort to make the stars more common. Like the triple printed 1958 Mantle and Musial AS's and the 1952 DP's of repeating Mantle/Robinson/Bobby Thomson to fill out the 100 card sheet used then.

Series were printed to expected demand. Series 1 tended to have the largest print run and be the most common. Usually, big stars are in the earlier series that have the larger print runs (remember that the hot rookie card to get today may not have been a notable subject at time of issue). So #1 Willie Mays is among the most common subjects and #598 Gaylord Perry among the least. The later series are less common because as the season wore on, interest tailed off among buyers.

The 66 highs (series 7) thread where we figured out the sheet is a fun one (fast forward to the end for the results): https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=258947. Cliff has recent threads with series 5 and 6. There are images of 132 card half sheets for the more common lower series that have survived and don't require piecing them together with this much work.