1955-1969 Topps Virtual Series Sheets

[Cliff Bowman]

This will be what I hope is an occasionally continuing thread of all of the 1961 to 1969 Topps Series sheets that Kevvyg1026 and I have reconstructed to completion that as far as I know do not have any pics or scans known of the complete sheets. I don't believe I ever showed this 1963 Topps 2nd Series virtual sheet because I didn't know the exact positioning of Dick Brown and Jim Kaat until the past year. If anyone spots an error on any of the sheets feel free to show a miscut card showing otherwise.

[toppcat]

Outstanding!

[BillP]

Great stuff.

[bb66]

Thanks!

[deweyinthehall]

From detective work done by others, here is a reconstructed image of one of the 1966 series 3 slits:

[Cliff Bowman]

Fantastic! ETA, both the 1963 2nd Series and the 1966 3rd Series are 88 cards so there are no SP's, DP's, or row changes.

[bb66]

That looks great .

[Cliff Bowman]

Originally Posted by bb66

That looks great .

The only two cards on the 1966 2nd Series sheet that aren't 100% confirmed are the Astros Rookie Stars (Sonny Jackson) and Jack Hamilton, it is possible they are flipped but I am very confident this layout is correct. Kevvyg1026 and I are two cards away from finishing the 1966 5th Series, does anyone have a severely miscut 66 John Miller or 66 Ray Washburn ? ETA, this miscut Orlando Pena is how I have Astros Rookie Stars (Sonny Jackson) in that spot so that should confirm it.

[bb66]

Wow Cliff on that 1966 work. The 5th sheet has short prints to discover. That would be awesome!! You and Kevin have changed the status of many cards in my 2011 edition of "Standard Catalog of Vintage Baseball Cards", edited by Bob Lemke!

[Kevvyg1026]

For the 1966 series 5, I show that the card in C6 of the Joe Jay row will be between 397 (Bill White) and 390 (Brooks Robinson), while the card in C4 of the Bunning row will be between 445 (Kaat) and 423 (Broglio). So, miscuts of those 4 cards could also be searched.

The series 6 from 1966 remains elusive since there are so few miscuts.

[Kevvyg1026]

Just to clarify, there is a small panel which shows Kaat (445) above Hefner. Because this is a 77 card series, at least one row (in this case, the row with Kaat), will appear above two different rows, which is why I stated in an earlier post that we are looking for the card between Kaat and Broglio.

[deweyinthehall]

Per request, and thanks to research by others, a mock up of one of the 1963 Topps baseball 5th series slits...

[Cliff Bowman]

Beautiful! That is the Series that has 77 cards but 11 of them were double printed in order to fill out the necessary amount of 22 card color blocks to fill out a full sheet.

[deweyinthehall]

Augh! I forgot to flip the 5th series checklist - looks like you're looking at it in a mirror!

[Kevvyg1026]

I believe the McBean row that is upside down in that mock layout is the one that has the cropping variations

[deweyinthehall]

Two corrections in the layout to fix reversed images...

[deweyinthehall]

OK - last time (hopefully), a new version with another reversed image corrected...any more and I will say "Ah ha! We've discovered a long-overlooked error card!"

[Cliff Bowman]

Originally Posted by deweyinthehall

OK - last time (hopefully), a new version with another reversed image corrected...any more and I will say "Ah ha! We've discovered a long-overlooked error card!"

I think you got it this time .

[deweyinthehall]

Here's a faux slit from the high series of 1966 Topps...the checklist variation with "White Sox Rookies" is shown here, but on the real 7th series sheets it was likely the "W. Sox Rookies" variant.

[bb66]

Wow Dewey that looks great>

[Cliff Bowman]

Beautiful! The core layout is the same as the 1966 High Number thread other than Mahaffey and Cuellar being flipped. The Northrup, Taylor, and Salmon rows are the 4x, the Perranoski, Mantilla, Hoerner, and G. Jackson rows are 3x.

[deweyinthehall]

From detective work done by others, this is a composite of what one of the 4th series slits from 1962 looked like:

[deweyinthehall]

On the 1966 7th Series - I'm building a set now, and am wondering about the reliability of all the "SP" designators floating around out there.

What is the prevailing wisdom on the layout of the other slit?

[Cliff Bowman]

Originally Posted by deweyinthehall

From detective work done by others, this is a composite of what one of the 4th series slits from 1962 looked like:

Great work! The 1962 set is different than other sixties set, bordering cards can be determined by the wood grains that they share with the card above, below, or beside them, and when rows of cards with completely different wood grains were married together with a line dividing them.

[Cliff Bowman]

Originally Posted by deweyinthehall

On the 1966 7th Series - I'm building a set now, and am wondering about the reliability of all the "SP" designators floating around out there.

What is the prevailing wisdom on the layout of the other slit?

Are you referring to star players, multi player rookie cards, or commons? I picked out five random commons from a 4x row and a 3x row and these are the current quantities I found on eBay:

4x row

Andre Rodgers 65
Larry Jackson 69
Dave Roberts 108
George Smith 74
Joel Horlen 67

3x row

Gary Bell 38
Dwight Siebler 25
Orlando McFarlane 27
Dave Nicholson 32
Art Mahaffey 46

[Kevvyg1026]

Irrespective of what may be shown in current price guides, the cards that were printed 3x times across the two slits (aka "SPs") came from the rows headed by Perranowski, Cards Rookies, Mantilla, and Jackson Rookie. The other three rows (Northrup, Taylor, Salmon) were printed 4x across the two slits.

[Kevvyg1026]

Irrespective of what may be shown in current price guides, the cards that were printed 3x times across the two slits (aka "SPs") came from the rows headed by Perranowski, Cards Rookies, Mantilla, and Jackson Rookie. The other three rows (Northrup, Taylor, Salmon) were printed 4x across the two slits.

[Kevvyg1026]

I think the bottom row of that 66 series 7 faux slit should be headed by the Grant rookie, not Perranowski

[deweyinthehall]

Correcting the previously-posted 1966 7th series sheet as noted above (and, it turns out, as related to me by Cliff and mis-read by yours truly when putting the sheet together).

So if this slit goes:
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
A
B
C
D
E

Presumably the other would be:
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
A
B
C
F
G

Sound correct?

If so, I'll keep it to myself - I just nabbed both Oliver and Olivo for under $10, a Purkey for maybe $13, and recently a Kroll for $15.

[Cliff Bowman]

Perfect! The other 1966 7th Series Slit goes:

C. Northrup
F. Perranoski
G. Cardinals Rookie Stars (Hoerner)
A. T Taylor
B. Salmon
C. Northrup
D. Mantilla
E. NL Rookie Stars (G. Jackson)
F. Perranoski
G. Cardinals Rookie Stars (Hoerner)
A. T Taylor
B. Salmon

The 4x rows are Northrup, T Taylor, and Salmon, the 3x rows are Perranoski, Cardinals Rookie Stars (Hoerner), Mantilla, and NL Rookie Stars (G Jackson).

[deweyinthehall]

Thanks again to the research of others, here is one slit of the full-series sheet:

[Cliff Bowman]

Originally Posted by deweyinthehall

Thanks again to the research of others, here is one slit of the full-series sheet:

Beautiful! Even with these three partial panels this was a very difficult sheet to assemble, I have my fingers crossed that it is 100% correct but I am confident it is. There is always that one card with no clues where to put it other than the process of elimination, in this Series it was Joe Pepitone. ETA, forgot to say that the Gil, A Jackson, and Cubs Rookie Stars rows are 4x, and the Ellsworth, Hershberger, Gagliano, and Amaro rows are 3x.

[Kevvyg1026]

Thanks again for everyone's help in determining the layout of this series. There are still a few more to do before all the layouts of the 1960's series are determined. As Cliff alluded to earlier, this one was difficult even with the panels found. But with patience and a keen eye for miscuts, we will continue.

Some of the ones that, to my knowledge, still haven't been determined:
1961 series 1 (one slit), series 4, series 6
1964 series 6, series 7
1965 series 1 (2nd slit), series 6
1966 series 6 (Proving to be very elusive)
1969 series 3

And I have only seen a limited amount of uncut 1960 material (1st,5th, 7th) so I would imagine that those are still require investigation.

[bb66]

Wow Kevin. That is alot to unravel. But-- amazing how much you and Cliff have figured out.So many mysteries have been solved....this work has been a game changer for me.

[quitcrab]

Do you guys need help with a 1966 series 1 sheet? If so contact me. I have a full sheet of 132 cards.
Scott

[Cliff Bowman]

I think we have everything on 1966 other than the 4th Series and the 6th Series, we’ve been stuck on 13 missing cards on the 1966 4th Series for a couple of months and the 1966 6th Series is Mission Impossible.

[Kevvyg1026]

As Cliff mentioned, the 1966 series 6 has been difficult, frustrating, and yielded little progress with a similar story for both the 1969 series 3 and 1965 series 6.

Our current project is the 77 card, 6th series from 1964, which from the available miscuts I've seen, may be possible to finish (fingers crossed). So, if anyone has miscuts from that series (447 to 522 plus, 438 CL), please share!

[deweyinthehall]

As always, made possible by the detective work of others...

[Cliff Bowman]

Originally Posted by deweyinthehall

As always, made possible by the detective work of others...

Beautiful! I’m in Florida so I can’t check but if I remember correctly the Reed, Angels Rookie Stars, and Monbouquette rows are 4x and the Javier, Bunning, Jones, and Jay rows are 3x. Topps always made sure the rows with Checklists were 3x rather than 4x on 77 card sheets, that is the reason they would go through the trouble of skipping a row on the second Slit that contained a Checklist.

[Kevvyg1026]

Yes, I also show the other slit from 1966 series 5 as: Monbo, Reed, Angels RS. Bunning, Jay, Monbo, Javier, Jones, Reed, Angels RS, Bunning, Jay.

[deweyinthehall]

Here is a mock-up of one of the 1964 high series slits....no SPs here.

[Cliff Bowman]

Originally Posted by deweyinthehall

Here is a mock-up of one of the 1964 high series slits....no SPs here.

Great work as always! Kevin had a pic of this half sheet so we only had to figure out the other 33. We just finished the 1964 Topps 6th Series which was one of the funnest ones we have done, hopefully it can eventually be shown here. It is a 77 card Series so it has 33 4x cards and 44 3x cards.

[deweyinthehall]

A faux slit from the 1956 second series sheet...

[Cliff Bowman]

Originally Posted by deweyinthehall

A faux slit from the 1956 second series sheet...

Beautiful! Great job as always. Thank you to Nicolo for showing close-ups of his blanket of the 1956 Topps 2nd Series so we could figure out the Slits. I will need to change the thread title now .

[e6phillips]

Really nice work!

I've been chasing down the second series white backs for a few years, and it is more than likely that the columns with Killebrew, Hodges, and Rizzuto on the bottom are double-printed.

The cards on the bottom row of the other columns -- Thomas, Courtney, Trucks, Yost, and the Pirates Team card -- are especially hard to find when you're just looking through boxes and binders at stores and shows.

The cards on the top row of those columns are also hard to find.

[Cliff Bowman]

Originally Posted by e6phillips

Really nice work!

I've been chasing down the second series white backs for a few years, and it is more than likely that the columns with Killebrew, Hodges, and Rizzuto on the bottom are double-printed.

The cards on the bottom row of the other columns -- Thomas, Courtney, Trucks, Yost, and the Pirates Team card -- are especially hard to find when you're just looking through boxes and binders at stores and shows.

The cards on the top row of those columns are also hard to find.

Correct, the Jacobs, Snider, and Berra columns are printed twice on the other Slit so that means the Roselli and Jones columns are 2x (SP’s) and the other six columns are 3x.

[stevepoland]

Originally Posted by Cliff Bowman

Great work! The 1962 set is different than other sixties set, bordering cards can be determined by the wood grains that they share with the card above, below, or beside them, and when rows of cards with completely different wood grains were married together with a line dividing them.

Amazing work here on series 4, and this tip on the wood grains. Has anyone done a Series 3 sheet? Attached is the most complete one I have found, but it's either missing the top 2 rows, or the bottom 2 rows. (Obviously if it hasn't been done yet, it seems this can be figured out by looking at high-res images of these cards and the expected cards above/below)

Note1: if the two rows are missing below this partial sheet, those two rows from the following image would be the 3rd and 4th row from the top. (Gary Bell #273 is 1st card in that 3rd row)

Note2: if the two rows are missing above this partial sheet, those two rows from the following image would be the 7th and 8th rows from the top. (Johnny Kucks #241 is 1st card in that 7th row)

Link to the cards (series 3 are #197-283): https://www.tcdb.com/Checklist.cfm/sid/55

[Cliff Bowman]

Kevin and I have done all of the 1962 Series Sheets but we haven’t been able to post them all yet, they are in the queue . I won’t be able to look at the layouts until tonight but Kevin might be able to fill in the missing rows if he sees this. I was hoping to do the 1964 6th Series as the next virtual sheet.

[stevepoland]

Awesome! My guess is the top2 rows are missing from this sheet, because then Mantle exists twice on the sheet... (but I'm dying to know). Thanks

[Cliff Bowman]

Ah, I see now, it looks like the bottom row was cut way too close and is missing the wood panel border below the cards. I would say this particular Slit is missing the bottom two rows so it wouldn’t contain another Mantle row. Since this is a 88 card Series that means the other Slit would contain two Mantle cards, one Slit has 44 cards printed twice and the other Slit has the other 44 card printed twice so that all 88 cards are printed three times over the two Slits.