1974 Topps Factory Set

[steve B]

Originally Posted by nolemmings

There must have been a lot hair pulling and chaos at Topps in December 1973. What I'm unclear about is why Topps felt the need to have its entire set not only proofed but nearly or entirely ready to go in December, months before they would sell it at retail.

I haven't put a great deal of research into it, but it seems that the timeline goes something like this (from a few different sources not always in precise agreement):

May, 1973-- Padres are sold by Smith, who has IRS and other financial problems
May-June, 1973-- buyer/prospective owner makes serious noise about moving the team to Washington, possibly before end of season
late Fall 1973-- City of San Diego files multiple suits, seeking stadium rent for the remainder of a long lease term--and at some point wins
September 1973--owners quoted as being against move, Bowie Kuhn advocates for D.C.
December 6, 1973-- league approves sale to Washington conditionally- conditions to be met in 15 days; NL schedule printed with Wash. D.C.
December, 1973 later-- New ownership group unable to pull it all together in view of risks/costs
December/January: League looks at keeping team in S.D under league ownership, still fishing for other local buyer in Cal; one prospect fails
January, 1974: different Washington ownership group makes a play--unsuccessful
January 25, 1974: Ray Kroc buys the team, keeping it in San Diego

What was the hurry to print before December 6, and the rush to make corrections in such uncertain circumstances?

Lead times were a lot longer then. Plus the process was much slower than it is today. Everything had to be proofed so it was ready to go, and Topps did a LOT of proofing. Our place did maybe one photographic proof, and that was about it. Topps did several different types of proofs all the way through the design process.

The actual printing would have taken a while, but probably not months for the initial runs. Then packing would have been a bit longer. And all that would have to be timed with other products, like other sports, and whatever non- sports they were doing to fill in the gap between seasons. Hockey and basketball would have been active products, and maybe wacky packs? I forget what was out there overall. Plus printing for some non- card products.
Printing the boxes


Then they'd have to pack and ship orders. Some places do it in big batches, others do it package by package. There may have been a date that wholesalers had to wait for before shipping. Or retailers may have simply held off until the season began. Not a major issue for big chains, but the local convenience store would probably wait till the season, and for a couple other things to sell out first.


One of my friends families owned a 5+10 when I was in High school, in 1981 I convinced him that they should carry all three brands of cards. They did, but around the season opener. The local card shop had had them since I think February. The sales cycle was still pretty much the same then.

[jmoran19]

Paul Wright created this chart for a Baseball Card News? article back in the 90's. Indicates there were 5 different types of 1974 baseball wax packs.

The raw packs vintagebreaks.com is opening on youtube are the 8 card all 660version. Washington N.L. and traded cards are included in these packs. They have also broken a graded 8 card + bonus team CL pack.

[nolemmings]

Originally Posted by steve B

Lead times were a lot longer then. Plus the process was much slower than it is today. Everything had to be proofed so it was ready to go, and Topps did a LOT of proofing. Our place did maybe one photographic proof, and that was about it. Topps did several different types of proofs all the way through the design process.

The actual printing would have taken a while, but probably not months for the initial runs. Then packing would have been a bit longer. And all that would have to be timed with other products, like other sports, and whatever non- sports they were doing to fill in the gap between seasons. Hockey and basketball would have been active products, and maybe wacky packs? I forget what was out there overall. Plus printing for some non- card products.
Printing the boxes


Then they'd have to pack and ship orders. Some places do it in big batches, others do it package by package. There may have been a date that wholesalers had to wait for before shipping. Or retailers may have simply held off until the season began. Not a major issue for big chains, but the local convenience store would probably wait till the season, and for a couple other things to sell out first.


One of my friends families owned a 5+10 when I was in High school, in 1981 I convinced him that they should carry all three brands of cards. They did, but around the season opener. The local card shop had had them since I think February. The sales cycle was still pretty much the same then.

Thanks Steve. It still seems kind of baffling to me that they couldn't wait 2-3 weeks and see if the Washington thing was really likely to happen, given the lawsuits and conditions that needed to be met.

Has anyone seen a proof of sheet #5? I ask because Denny Doyle, who had been traded December 6, is shown with his new Angels team in the regular set, while Jim Mason, traded the same day, is not, and both are included in the higher numbers (#552 and #618) and Mason is shown with his new Yankee squad on the traded set. The Doyle card is a nondescript shot of him with some minor sort of airbrush job, almost certainly swapped out late from a better photo. I wonder if the proof sheet would show a different pic of Doyle. Also seems they could have corrected Mason in the regular set but chose otherwise. Since all of their "trades" were completed just 5 days after December 6, 1973, it makes you wonder why they couldn't wait another week, although maybe the plan all along was to have a traded set and they needed to fill it with players.

[JollyElm]

I'm sure their printing deadlines were very tight back then, needing to get the thing done and out before moving on to the next endeavor. They probably didn't have the luxury of waiting another week to finish up...much to our dismay decades later.

Your Doyle/Mason conundrum reminds me of how Topps treated the Jim Fregosi/Nolan Ryan trade in the 1972 set. Fregosi had his regular card and received a 'coveted' Traded card in the high series, while The Ryan Express only appeared once, as an airbrushed member of his new team, the California Angels, in the regular set. A real shame.

[rats60]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

I'm sure their printing deadlines were very tight back then, needing to get the thing done and out before moving on to the next endeavor. They probably didn't have the luxury of waiting another week to finish up...much to our dismay decades later.

Your Doyle/Mason conundrum reminds me of how Topps treated the Jim Fregosi/Nolan Ryan trade in the 1972 set. Fregosi had his regular card and received a 'coveted' Traded card in the high series, while The Ryan Express only appeared once, as an airbrushed member of his new team, the California Angels, in the regular set. A real shame.

Fregosi was a 1st series card. Nolan Ryan was a 5th series card. The traded cards were 6th series. In fact, 5 of the 7 traded cards were 1st series cards with only McLain (2nd series) and Carlton (4th series) coming later. You also have to look at when these trades occurred. Most happened between Nov 29 and Dec 10, so by then the 1st series must have been too far a long to get players on their new teams. the McLain trade (Mar 4) and Carlton trade (Feb 28) were even later, so by the end of Feb., Topps must have been too far along with the first 4 series. Ryan was traded on Dec. 10, so being 5th series that would have been enough time to get him on the right team. The 6th series was late enough to catch McLain getting traded on March 4.

[nolemmings]

The more I think about it, the more I believe that the traded set had been configured by mid-December. Topps decided upon a 44 card set, which is one sheet with the cards printed thrice. There’s no way they can count on there being that many total trades in December/January–recent past history strongly suggested otherwise–much less trades of meaningful players worthy of their own cards. Thus they already had to know that almost if not all of the trades were in the bank before going forward. As it turns out, 39 of the 43 players in the traded set switched teams between December 3 and December 11, with the others having done so earlier.

By December 12, then, Topps probably had its traded set composition, and it was just a matter of airbrushing selected photos and drafting some brief text for the card backs. If they tried to acknowledge a change in the regular set, there would a hole to fill to get back to 43 Traded (plus checklist), and they would have to count on subsequent player movement, little of which really happened (the only trades involving players on a regular 1974 card made between 12/11/73 and 2/1/74 were for Jack Aker, Mike Ryan and Jackie Hernandez, the latter two being swapped on the last day of January).

Sooooooooooooooo, instead of having planned all along to have a traded set, it seems to me Topps was so overwhelmed with player movement in that first week plus of December that they knew they couldn’t make all necessary changes before print time and decided to issue a traded set because they knew they would have 43 players to fill it. Rather than changing a couple or so of these in the regular set and then wait for the January trades, they finalized their selection well before year end, and printed the Traded set then or shortly thereafter.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by nolemmings

The more I think about it, the more I believe that the traded set had been configured by mid-December. Topps decided upon a 44 card set, which is one sheet with the cards printed thrice. There’s no way they can count on there being that many total trades in December/January–recent past history strongly suggested otherwise–much less trades of meaningful players worthy of their own cards. Thus they already had to know that almost if not all of the trades were in the bank before going forward. As it turns out, 39 of the 43 players in the traded set switched teams between December 3 and December 11, with the others having done so earlier.

By December 12, then, Topps probably had its traded set composition, and it was just a matter of airbrushing selected photos and drafting some brief text for the card backs. If they tried to acknowledge a change in the regular set, there would a hole to fill to get back to 43 Traded (plus checklist), and they would have to count on subsequent player movement, little of which really happened (the only trades involving players on a regular 1974 card made between 12/11/73 and 2/1/74 were for Jack Aker, Mike Ryan and Jackie Hernandez, the latter two being swapped on the last day of January).

Sooooooooooooooo, instead of having planned all along to have a traded set, it seems to me Topps was so overwhelmed with player movement in that first week plus of December that they knew they couldn’t make all necessary changes before print time and decided to issue a traded set because they knew they would have 43 players to fill it. Rather than changing a couple or so of these in the regular set and then wait for the January trades, they finalized their selection well before year end, and printed the Traded set then or shortly thereafter.

That's pretty interesting.


The actual press sheets are 264 cards, So there would have been an "extra" sheet to use for the traded set, or the team checklists. I wonder..... amaybe they replaced one of the sheets with Washington players with the traded set, at least for a while.


Ah Topps, such simple sets with so much mystery.

[Arsenal83]

So did we conclusively determine if the '74 factory set contained the red team checklists?

Did it contain the Washington variations or the Padres?

Did it contain the other variations (Apodaco, no position Alou)?

Which version of the Freisleben did it have - Washington, large San Diego or small San Diego?

[steve B]

Originally Posted by nolemmings

Thanks Steve. It still seems kind of baffling to me that they couldn't wait 2-3 weeks and see if the Washington thing was really likely to happen, given the lawsuits and conditions that needed to be met.

Has anyone seen a proof of sheet #5? I ask because Denny Doyle, who had been traded December 6, is shown with his new Angels team in the regular set, while Jim Mason, traded the same day, is not, and both are included in the higher numbers (#552 and #618) and Mason is shown with his new Yankee squad on the traded set. The Doyle card is a nondescript shot of him with some minor sort of airbrush job, almost certainly swapped out late from a better photo. I wonder if the proof sheet would show a different pic of Doyle. Also seems they could have corrected Mason in the regular set but chose otherwise. Since all of their "trades" were completed just 5 days after December 6, 1973, it makes you wonder why they couldn't wait another week, although maybe the plan all along was to have a traded set and they needed to fill it with players.

I wouldn't be surprised to see proofs of Doyle both ways.


The one I've always wondered about was one I heard as a kid rumor in 74, which was the first set I really collected, aside from a bit in late 73.

Supposedly there was confusion about who would be the As manager, so the card had a question mark instead of a picture of a manager.

Al Dark was signed on Feb 20, so that shouldn't have been a problem. But there'd been some legal wrangling about Dick Williams being under contract so he couldn't manage the Yankees. (Why that wouldn't have affected the Yankees manager card the same way I have no idea, it was a 5th grade rumor. ) So maybe it's plausible?