1963 Topps checklist question

[Cliff Bowman]

Originally Posted by Kevvyg1026

I know that Topps printed cards in 132 card half-sheets and understand why many of the card numbers shown on checklists do not necessarily agree with the actual print sheets, but I am curious if any one else has noticed the following conundrum.

Many price guide show the 1963 Topps card values for Series 5 (371-446), Series 6 (447 - 522), and Series 7 (523 - 576) where Series is meant to match up against the actual printing and not the checklist. The 1963 Topps set was printed in a manner that matched up the bottom border colors (i.e., cards in the same row shared the same color bottom border, with cards in alternate rows printed upside down in order to have the same border shared between two rows). Furthermore, Topps used printing schemes that had eleven cards in a row, so this means that a print run should have border colors show up in multiples of 11.

For Series 5, assuming that checklist 362 had a red border and checklist 431 was the yellow border, we get a distribution of 33R, 22Y, and 22B which nicely aligns with the expected print sequences stated in price guides.

However, if Series 6 was printed as shown in the guides (i.e., 447 - 522 plus #431 with a Red border), we get a distribution like 27R, 24Y, and 26B, while Series 7 (523-576 plus 509) yields 18R, 19Y, and 18B. In other words, the row multiples don't match up like they should.

On the other hand, if we let the Series 6 include cards 431 (red variety) plus 447 - 511 (not up to 522), and Series 7 have cards 509, plus 512-576, then the distribution appears like:

Series 6: 22R, 22Y, 22B
Series 7: 22R, 22Y, 22B

I haven't seen any uncut material from either Series 6 or 7 from 1963, but I believe that the proposal I described is what Topps actually did. Then, since each series would have 66 cards, no short prints should exist as all cards would be printed in equal quantities for bot of the last two series.

I have just now reread your entire post carefully and after all the searching and putting together I did last night I see that you had already done much of that and even nailed the part of the missing 66th card in each series, the #431 red checklist in the 6th series and the #509 yellow checklist in the 7th series. Great job. All of this should now prove that the 6th series is 447-511 at 66 cards, 22y, 22r, 22b, and the 6th series is 512-576 at 66 cards, 22y, 22r, 22b, and there are no SP's in either series. I have a feeling that is going to be difficult because it has been accepted for decades that the 7th series starts at 523 and that there are SP's in the 6th series.

[BillP]

Originally Posted by Cliff Bowman

I have just now reread your entire post carefully and after all the searching and putting together I did last night I see that you had already done much of that and even nailed the part of the missing 66th card in each series, the #431 red checklist in the 6th series and the #509 yellow checklist in the 7th series. Great job. All of this should now prove that the 6th series is 447-511 at 66 cards, 22y, 22r, 22b, and the 6th series is 512-576 at 66 cards, 22y, 22r, 22b, and there are no SP's in either series. I have a feeling that is going to be difficult because it has been accepted for decades that the 7th series starts at 523 and that there are SP's in the 6th series.

Great stuff. The 63 is aided by the colored base. If only 66 were as easy.

[ALR-bishop]

Maybe we can get George Vrecheck interested in working up an SCD article on it. His analysis is well respected and he seems to like this kind of research. He has done a prior article about DP variants in the 63 set. I can send him a link to the thread. Unless you guys want to pursue something yourselves

[BillP]

I think that's a great idea. Maybe it will spur on a uncut sheet that no one has seen. I have seen the th series uncut sheet only for 63.

[Cliff Bowman]

Originally Posted by ALR-bishop

Maybe we can get George Vrecheck interested in working up an SCD article on it. His analysis is well respected and he seems to like this kind of research. He has done a prior article about DP variants in the 63 set. I can send him a link to the thread. Unless you guys want to pursue something yourselves

If he sees this thread and gives it his blessing that would do more than anything else possible for it to be accepted that the 6th series is 66 cards 447-511 + the checklist, the 7th series is 66 cards 512-576 + the checklist, and that there are no SP's in either series. The OP should get all of the credit because he started the conversation and he initially stated nearly all of the evidence, I just didn’t realize all of it until much later.

[rats60]

Originally Posted by Cliff Bowman

I have just now reread your entire post carefully and after all the searching and putting together I did last night I see that you had already done much of that and even nailed the part of the missing 66th card in each series, the #431 red checklist in the 6th series and the #509 yellow checklist in the 7th series. Great job. All of this should now prove that the 6th series is 447-511 at 66 cards, 22y, 22r, 22b, and the 6th series is 512-576 at 66 cards, 22y, 22r, 22b, and there are no SP's in either series. I have a feeling that is going to be difficult because it has been accepted for decades that the 7th series starts at 523 and that there are SP's in the 6th series.

It still doesn't answer why those selling mail order in the 60s and early 70s were selling the 7th series as 523-576. I would assume that they purchased vending direct from Topps as the cards that I received were clearly from vending. Is Bruce Yeko or Richard Gellman around to ask? Would someone at Fritch Cards give up that information? I know they know what the true short prints are in the 60s Topps sets but were always very tight lipped about it. And they were charging extremely high prices for certain 6th series cards in the 70s that we now list as SPs. This is certainly interesting research, but it doesn't fit early hobby history without further confirmation.

[bb66]

I just want to thank everyone for their input. I have always wanted to collect this set. I really like the colors--it is a classic from the 60's for sure.Great work as usual guys. Thanks again.

[toppcat]

Interesting thread for sure. Here's a 4th series sheet, which is the latest sheet I can find an image of, although it can't really be blown up well. Really just to show how the sheets were composed-super colorful this way.

[Cliff Bowman]

Originally Posted by rats60

It still doesn't answer why those selling mail order in the 60s and early 70s were selling the 7th series as 523-576. I would assume that they purchased vending direct from Topps as the cards that I received were clearly from vending. Is Bruce Yeko or Richard Gellman around to ask? Would someone at Fritch Cards give up that information? I know they know what the true short prints are in the 60s Topps sets but were always very tight lipped about it. And they were charging extremely high prices for certain 6th series cards in the 70s that we now list as SPs. This is certainly interesting research, but it doesn't fit early hobby history without further confirmation.

I agree 100% that it is going to be difficult to change something that has been accepted for 50 years or so. I am puzzled about the idea of short prints, if the 6th series red based Harmon Killebrew and Mets team card are short prints wouldn't that mean that the other 20 cards they are connected to in their 22 card color block also are short prints?

[rats60]

Originally Posted by Cliff Bowman

I agree 100% that it is going to be difficult to change something that has been accepted for 50 years or so. I am puzzled about the idea of short prints, if the 6th series red based Harmon Killebrew or blue based Mets team card are short prints wouldn't that mean that the other 21 cards they are connected to in their respective 22 card color blocks also are short prints?

If there are 77 cards in the series, there wouldn't be 22 card color blocks. There would be cards that would appear on the sheet more times than others. Without a sheet we don't know. Dealers sold the cards as series, so why would they not sell them as they received them?

Why haven't collectors ever contradicted this in 57 years? It was common for certain areas to not get a late series. In our area (Orange County, CA) we didn't get the 7th series in 1967, but were flooded with 6th series. St. Louis didn't get 6th series cards, but did get 7th. You would think there would be childhood collections missing one series or the other that could confirm something about the 11 numbers in question.

[Kevvyg1026]

Based on that series 4 image, you can see that a manager card can be put in any inset color row, as can rookie and team cards. So with some very minor adjustments, you can get rows of 11 cards each for (border/inset) B/R, B/O, R/G, R/O, Y/R, and Y/B if the last series had 66 cards stretching from 512 - 576 and including checklist 509. Doing this allows four rows of each card to be printed, hence no SPs should exist for any card in the last two series, although the scarcity, determined by print quantity is still a price factor.

I believe the same is true for the 6th series, going from 447 - 511, and including the proper color variation for checklist 431.

I understand this can't be proven beyond a reasonable doubt without seeing some uncut material, but I believe this is what Topps did in 1963 (i.e., the last two series were 66 cards each, with no SPs. If it isn't, and the price guides are correct, then there would have to be SPs in both series, and the SPs would have to occur in multiples of 11 (except for the checklists). Having four or five SPs with different border colors and/or inset colors just doesn't make sense.

[rats60]

Originally Posted by Kevvyg1026

I understand this can't be proven beyond a reasonable doubt without seeing some uncut material, but I believe this is what Topps did in 1963 (i.e., the last two series were 66 cards each, with no SPs. If it isn't, and the price guides are correct, then there would have to be SPs in both series, and the SPs would have to occur in multiples of 11 (except for the checklists). Having four or five SPs with different border colors and/or inset colors just doesn't make sense.

It makes perfect sense. There are uneven numbers of color cards (not in elevens) and there would be 88 cards of each color on the sheet. That would mean that there would be DPs in every block of 22 for the 7th series and cards missing from every block of 22 cards in the 6th series. That would create a situation where there are unequal numbers of cards in every color, meaning that the SPs would have to be from different colors.

The SPs do occur in multiples of 11. We are just not sure of which cards they all are. We know Killebrew is tougher than other stars (Brock, McCovey). We know the Yankess and Mets that are tougher. We know the Freehan RC is tough. Other cards that are short printed just don't have the demand to differentiate them as SPs and remember we are not talking about 2 to 1, but 4 to 3. It is most likely that there are 33 SP cards but we are only seeing for sure the highest demand cards from that group as short printed.