1974 Topps Factory Set

[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?

[toppcat]

I just posted on the 74 factory sets and got some info from someone who has one. Traded and Red Checklists no (amended thinking per next post), Wash NL no, not sure about #599's font-didn't get that info:

http://toppsarchives.blogspot.com/20...tle-thing.html

[Arsenal83]

I'm the Brian you cited in your blog. Steve from BBCE thinks the red checklists did come in the factory sets, but a few members on the Collectors Universe forum are saying that the red checklists were inserts that weren't included in factory sets.

To update your page, undisturbed factory sets did have the vending pattern.

[toppcat]

Outstanding, gonna update tomorrow,on the red checkists too.

[Arsenal83]

I've got a NM empty factory set box with flaps all intact so if you need any images, just let me know.