1967 Topps Venezuelan--Pirated Issue?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by ALR-bishop

Doubt if there is anyone left at Topps that would have the slightest idea or way to find out

People who were in their 20s and 30s could easily still be alive, but equally importantly, isn't it likely that over the years we would have heard something about this?

[toppcat]

Trust me, Topps would have no idea about these

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by toppcat

Trust me, Topps would have no idea about these

Even if they did remember they would not care. I have several friend/relatives that worked in the industry and I never ask about cards because they didn't care because it was just a job.

[toppcat]

I'm not sure why the producer would be named on a bootleg though. Any thoughts?

[Rrrlyons]

Not an expert by any means but have been buying a lot of Venezuelans lately. All the red flags are there stated in the original post. To add the first two series aren't topps products which to me is odd the trend was promoting their products. Then in 68 went back to the trend of 60-62-64-66. My vote would be topps didn't have as much to do with the 67's as the other years. Rick

[TheNightmanCometh]

Surely, Topps has a Master list of every set list they've ever officially made, but maybe that's being naive.

[ALR-bishop]

The SCD Standard Catalog still seems to me the best comprehensive resource for Topps pre 1980 sets, inserts and test sets, including Venezualans, which are in a separate section. It is a great resource for anything baseball that Topps turned out

They have stopped listing post 80 stuff, but their older catalogs are good for 80s and 90s. Less so after 2000

If Topps has a master list, Dave would have unearthed it by now :-)

[hcv123]

Originally Posted by toppcat

I'm not sure why the producer would be named on a bootleg though. Any thoughts?

What if it wasn't "bootlegged"? What if Topps licensed it or gave their permission for it to be produced even if they didn't produce it? That would explain no issue with Sport Grafico printing their name on it.

[RCMcKenzie]

I have about 20 cards from the local teams, including the Cox rookie. Pretty neat set...

[jason.1969]

Originally Posted by hcv123

What if it wasn't "bootlegged"? What if Topps licensed it or gave their permission for it to be produced even if they didn't produce it? That would explain no issue with Sport Grafico printing their name on it.

Right. That’s something I don’t think we can rule out. Though just a crumb, one more small thing that suggests the whole set was unauthorized is the DiMaggio card in the Retirado subset. Joe D didn’t say yes to much back then.

[toppcat]

Originally Posted by jason.1969

Right. That’s something I don’t think we can rule out. Though just a crumb, one more small thing that suggests the whole set was unauthorized is the DiMaggio card in the Retirado subset. Joe D didn’t say yes to much back then.

The Retirados may be unrelated in terms of licensed/unlicensed where the Topps cards could have been and the VWL cards were fair game. For all we know, Topps was onboard with the idea of co-mingling all three as a test to see if it stimulated sales. Or not. It's a great set (all three subsets I mean) either way, certainly the most interesting one out of Venezuela in my book.