1978 Topps Jose Morales

[deweyinthehall]

Originally Posted by Cliff Bowman

I dug out my 78 set to get scans of all three Jose Morales cards, the first card is the very early printing with the incomplete red stitching, the second one is where Topps tried to correct it by putting black stitching over the incomplete red stitching and making a muddled mess, and the third is the final and most common printing with just black stitching. There were seven Roric Harrison cards in my binder, and after scanning all of them together they all look the same to me. I also included a scan of the uncorrected Larry Hisle with no stitching. As an eleven year old in Lakehurst, NJ in the spring of 1978, my friends and I noticed that the Morales and Harrison cards had black stitches rather than red and that the Hisle had no stitches, but I have absolutely no memory of anyone having a Morales with red stitching or the Bump Wills with the large black magic marker circle on it. I didn't learn about the Morales until the mid 80's from the baseball card magazines and the Wills until the early 2000's on eBay. ETA: obviously the 78 Bump Wills circle card isn't as rare as originally thought...

Outstanding! I was an 11 year old in Cheshire CT when I collected the '78 set (my first). I don't recall noticing either the Morales or Harrison at the time, but I do seem to remember talking about how maybe they fired the guy who let the Hisle slip through...

By the way, if you have any extras of the plain red or plain black stitching versions of the Morales, I'm looking to buy...