1968 Topps Baseball Design

[cardinalcollector]

When I was buying packs of 1970 Topps cards I noticed that the 1st series did not have a vertical white line between the name of the player and his position.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1970-Topps-1...item51a8ba0d55

The remainder of the set does have this vertical white line added. An exception may exist for players with a long name.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1970-Topps-2...item35c4b25a49

Has anyone else noticed this?

Randy

[toppcat]

1st series 67's are missing the dot between the players name and position.

[cardinalcollector]

Hi Dave, I knew there was another one, but I couldn't come up with it.

[goheels]

Thanks for the kind words, Al and Larry. A slight correction here--Topps 1968 Milton Bradley is not a set of 76 with one variation but rather a set of 77 with no variations. To be technical, a variation exists when a card is corrected. These two checklist cards are separate and distinct, and were not corrected. The tan broad mesh ("burlap") CL #107 MB card is at the far left end of a row of eleven cards, as is the brown fine mesh ("mesh") CL MB. The burlap CL 107 is adjacent to a Don Wilson #77 card and the mesh CL 107 is adjacent to a Dodgers Team #168 in both the regular and MB series. For both the regular and MB cards, a severe left off center checklist card with a large right side border can be matched with the extreme left of a Wilson or Dodgers team card (with good eyes and a magnifying glass!). The crosshatch has a distinct pattern.
In the full MB set, four rows of BB burlap mesh 1st series cards (including the 107 CL) and three rows of BB mesh cards (44 + 33) as well as 33 1967 Topps FB cards and 22 Hot Rod cards made up a half sheet of 132 cards. Huggins and Scott has a very nice set of all 77 BB cards coming up in their April 2013 auction with more information on the set.
https://mar12.hugginsandscott.com/cg...l?itemid=55671


Both the Colavito cards like the two separate MB checklists are at the very left of a row, with this off centering you can see both have a white left border, as do badly right off centered CL cards. The MB is pictured first, with a bottom border (top of a hot rod or football card) that is unique to the MB cards.

The third picture shows side by side, MB with the yellow back is on the left, the regular card is on the right. Shadowing isn't great here but under good light there clearly is a distinct color difference.

[ALR-bishop]

I stand corrected. Carlton has been great in sharing info here and on CU

[savedfrommyspokes]

Carlton, Have you seen or do you know of a full uncut sheet of these 67-68 MB cards?

[goheels]

I have never seen a half sheet of 132, or a proof sheet for that matter, of the Topps Milton Bradley 1968 set.

There isn't one at Milton Bradley. I have spent some time many years ago in their archives. Some of the old hands there involved in the game are long gone. Ralph Shea (MB president during the 1960s) and his son are both deceased. I asked his son before he died about a sheet and he wasn't aware of one. Mr. Shea was a baseball nut, his son not quite as much.

I am not aware of one at Topps either. When they had their massive Topps archive fire sale they didn't have any MB items. Remember that this game was very short lived with a limited print run. Also, after this collaboration flopped, Topps wasn't too happy about the other black and white Milton Bradley cards produced in 1969, 1970, and 1972. Milton Bradley put out a cheapo set in 1984 just before their merger with Hasbro, who killed any further baseball projects and began steering toys towards electronics.

No one has really written much about this set. I never saw any articles in the old stuff like The Trader Speaks, The Sport Hobbyist, and amazingly the set was left out of the first modern guide--Bert Sugar's Sports Collectibles Bible (1975).
It was ignored until Lemke put it in his book about 5 years ago.

I am 95% done with putting a virtual sheet together. I hope to publish that in a blog or an article for a hobby journal in the coming months.