3 best. 3 worst Topps issues

[nolemmings]

I'll chime in on this topic again. I try to look at the sets as if they were released when I was a kid, and of course many of them in fact were. My least favorite:

1. 1978. Hands down. It's as if the guy tasked with designing this set took the preceding year's issue--itself pretty unremarkable--and took 15 minutes to tweak a couple of things to distinguish it (must have been the same guy they used in 1969). Those things, an ugly uncreative script team name and the player's position, abbreviated no less, put inside a baseball, make it look like someone forgot to do their homework assignment and slapped together something in between classes. Hate it.

2. 1973. First year to issue all cards at once, and the first to dive headlong into "action shots", after an apparent warm reception from the '71 and '72 dabbling into that format. Between the hideous airbrushing gone wild to the long range who-the-heck-is that shot selection, these just fell flat. I will give them credit for the LHP/RHP distinction and it's not totally their fault that the action photography was not yet up to snuff; still, with the drab black backs and their vertical orientation that limited the stats, this was lackluster at best.

3. 1954. I won't totally re-hash my prior rant--it can be found here.
http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...highlight=1954
Suffice it to say that the player selection was so lousy-- a 1/10 chance at getting a coach or manager and virtually no AL Champion Indian pitchers, for example-- that any kid ripping packs that year was dismally disappointed. Topps was hugely lucky that they hit on Aaron, Kaline and Banks, or this would be universally roasted as the worst Topps set ever.

BEST.

1. 1966. My first year collecting. Love the color coordination for all players on a team--also used well in '68 and '69 (same colors even). Mad that they chose that one year to exclude World Series cards as my beloved Twins had been participants. Just liked everything about the set except maybe the capless guys from the Angels and Braves in the early series.

2. 1961. Really think this is a clean design, although the photography could be better. This was the first set I ever collected that was issued before I had started collecting-- my first effort at a set from the past, and I will always remember the first card given to me--Billy Pierce. Had never heard of him, did a bit of research and saw he was quite good and this spurred me to first study many others who had played before "my time". Really started me into vintage collecting, later followed by prewar.

3. 1956. Player selection is outstanding, love the over-sized cards, and the design and artwork are great, even if many were repeated from the prior year or two. If they could have just squeezed Musial in there somehow.