1974 Topps Factory Set

[moeson]

Originally Posted by rats60

No, 1974 Topps weren't available until April 1974. The traded cards weren't released until the summer. These were sold at the end of 1974.

1974 Rack Packs, including the traded cards, were available well before summer in New York City. I used to buy racks from a toy wholesaler on the NYC lower east side. I remember being frustrated at the disproportionate number of traded cards when sorting opened packs to make sets.

[toppcat]

Originally Posted by moeson

1974 Rack Packs, including the traded cards, were available well before summer in New York City. I used to buy racks from a toy wholesaler on the NYC lower east side. I remember being frustrated at the disproportionate number of traded cards when sorting opened packs to make sets.

I was always able to get Raks in Nassua County, Long Island, in March and sometimes very early March, in the early 70's. After 12/11/73 but prior to Christmas '73 would be way too tight a window for the complete boxed set. Christmas 74 seems much more likely but also available prior? I have to think most stuff in the old Sears and Penneys catalog et al had to be locked in sometime in June or July at the latest as they would make orders for xx sets.

Now, I googled the 1974 Wish Book and alas it is not yet on this site but be prepared to spend the rest of your night surfing here: http://www.wishbookweb.com/

[nolemmings]

So did the first print run have the Padres designation, then Washington, then San Diego again? If not, it seems real odd that they would change the Freisleben card from Washington to two different-sized San Diego Padres fonts (unless maybe there were two different printers).

[rats60]

Originally Posted by moeson

1974 Rack Packs, including the traded cards, were available well before summer in New York City. I used to buy racks from a toy wholesaler on the NYC lower east side. I remember being frustrated at the disproportionate number of traded cards when sorting opened packs to make sets.

There were no traded cards in the boxes of 1974 Topps that I bought in April. They came much later, maybe before late June, but I don't know what you mean by "well before" because we are only talking about a 2 month window. There was definitely a significant amount of time where traded cards weren't in packs of 1974 Topps.

The Washington National League cards were definitely in the first printing of cards and replaced quickly with San Diego Padres cards. There were multiple printings of 1974 Topps. I believe that San Diego cards replaced Washington cards before the Traded Cards were added to the print run. So, there would have been at least 2 different print runs for Padres cards.

[nolemmings]

Maybe someone here can check their January 1974 edition of the Trader Speaks for some info, as a few of the cards are pictured on the cover.

[moeson]

Originally Posted by nolemmings

Maybe someone here can check their January 1974 edition of the Trader Speaks for some info, as a few of the cards are pictured on the cover.

I don't believe that issue had an article on the set. Here is a review from an early April 1974 issue of the Ballcard Collector which discusses the inclusion of traded cards, as well as San Diego and Washington versions of Rich Morales in the same box.

[jmoran19]

Originally Posted by moeson

I don't believe that issue had an article on the set. Here is a review from an early April 1974 issue of the Ballcard Collector which discusses the inclusion of traded cards, as well as San Diego and Washington versions of Rich Morales in the same box.

Thanks for posting this. In addition vintage breaks has been busting 8 card wax packs on YouTube and some of the packs have contained both a traded card and a Washington Padres card. No team CL’s though. John

[deweyinthehall]

I'm relatively new to this forum, and I love this discussion.

Interesting the way he described the red-bordered team checklists - as if he hadn't seen the 73 blue version...I've heard that some collectors back then were unaware that the checklists were even issued because of odd distribution.

As to the 1974s, when I was building my set I did some research and found some information which painted the following picture:

1) All 1974 sheets were proofed initially solely with San Diego designations
2) O/a December 6 when the league approved the sale to DC, the sheets were re-done to reflect Washington; this includes all 5 sheets. They weren't lettered in 1974, so arbitrarily listing them here alphabetically:

A - Grubb, Troedson, Grief, Colbert, Jones, Team, Beckert, McCovey
B - Kendall, Hilton, Romo
C - Roberts, Gaston, Morales
D - Arlin, Alou, Winfield, Tolan, Corkins, Hernandez, Freisleben Rookie, Lee
E - Corrales, Thomas, Murrell

3) Even though issued in a single series, they were still apparently printed in consecutive batches - sheets A, B, and then C went to press before D and E. It was after Kroc bought the team that they stopped the presses to assess the situation - too many of the first three sheets had been printed to take a loss and reprint from scratch with San Diego, so they knowingly let all the printed Washington cards into circulation, reformatted the sheets, and began printing them with San Diego (Washington cards from sheet C appear to be scarcer than the rest, so perhaps fewer of sheet C had been printed when they changed over.

4) The other two sheets were reformatted, and as far as anyone knows none were ever printed, let alone cut, with the Washington designation (so, no Winfield Washington rookies out there to be found). When they examined sheet D, they simply missed Freisleben because they didn't look closely at the 4 player rookies. After that sheet had gone through a lot of print runs, they discovered what had happened, and hastily put San Diego on his card, and started the presses. Then, someone with an eagle eye saw the font was different from the other rookie cards. They stopped again and created the accurate "small lettering" version, and resumed. They got so deep into the print run that the Washington version of Freisleben is the common version. The small lettering is hard to find - it took me a while to find one in NM shape that wasn't slabbed.

Anyway, just FYI for anyone who didn't know or might find it interesting.

And, as a bonus, here's a photo I downloaded from a Padres' fan site a long time ago of the very same Freisleben in the uniform of the ill-fated Washington Stars.

[ALR-bishop]

Great post