Joy of a Complete Checklist Set Circa 1965

With a less than 11 months (about 10) to go in my quest to Strive for '65 set build I have completed another small hurdle one of many such small feats - The subset of checklists complete with the known printing variations. Back in the 1960s and even up until the very early 1970s Topps released the card sets in series during the season, now-days they release the full set at the beginning of the season or before and then at the end of the season release an update set. OH wait now they release a dozen sets every other month during the entire year confusing the heck out of everyone. The big bonus I got is I somehow managed to get all of the checklists UNMARKED.

 

The 1965 Topps Baseball card set consists of 598 cards divided into 7 series with 7 checklist cards. Two of the checklists (79 and 508) have two print variations:

 1965 Topps Baseball 1st Series Checklist 79 A & B Front (B on left A on right)

The variations for card number 79 is better documented and more "official" as far as variants go. On the back of this checklist card number 61 (Chris Cannizzaro Mets) a card I don't yet have is listed on one variant (61a) as just "Cannizzaro", and one the other (61b) as "C.Cannizzaro" (I noticed on my copy of this card when examining with a magnifying glass it looks like the period got double printed or is really a comma, or someone might have tried to highlight the period as it seems to have two periods. UGH might have to replace yet another card before I have even completed the set)

 1965 Topps Baseball 1st Series Checklist 79 A & B Back (A on left B on right)

1965 Topps Baseball 7th Series Checklist 508 A & B Front

  (Large font version A on left Small font version B on right)

 

The variations for card number 508 is much more subtle. It is a matter of print size and apparently only a variation of half a font point, a font point or maybe even 2 font points. Maybe they should just say the difference is in the space between the print and the bottom red border. When you know what to look for it seems to be more obvious on the front than the back unless you have a misprint version that has all the type setting way off. On the backs it looks like the card number is closer to the text of the list in the larger font version.

1965 Topps Baseball 7th Series Checklist 508 A & B Back

(Version B on left Version A on right)

*I do have one duplicate each of 3rd Series 189 almost fully marked front and back, 4the Series 273 Unmarked (got the duplicate when I got 4 of the checklists at once replacing the marked versions) and 5th Series 361 marked on back.

2010 Topps Baseball Million Card Giveaway

TOPPS GIVEAWAY CARDS

As part of the promo for the 2010 Baseball cards Topps is giving away One Million Vintage to last year cards. As they say "The cards your mom threw out". Topps randomly inserted some "Million Card Giveaway Code Cards" into packs. There are ten different styles of these they are numbered TMC 1 - 10. Each front shows a highly sought after vintage card or a Hall of Fame player card and on the back they have a code.

Back of Giveaway Code Card

(Code rubbed out in scan on purpose. Code redeemed)

These codes are used on Topps website http://www.toppsmillion.com After you register you type in the code from your giveaway card to "unlock" a random card you have won. The codes are good from now (they started on Feb 15th? I think) until 1 Feb, 2011. Once unlocked you can "flip" the card by virtually turning it in and pulling another card, you can trade the card with another member, or you can redeem the card and have it sent to you. I think eventually all the cards will be redeemed (Starting March 15 I think).

For my first box breaking session I had bought a blaster and 3 Jumbo Rack Packs. I pulled 4 of the Million Card Giveaway cards (TMC 6, 7, 8, & 9 - I plan on getting the others and keep the 10 as a subset used codes or not). So for my first 4 cards, hopefully of many more to come, I pulled two cards from 1975 and two cards from 1973.

These are the cards I unlocked/pulled in this order (I entered my codes in ascending order 9 - 6)

1975 Jon Matlack - Mets #290

1975 Burt Hooton - Cubs #176
1973 Reggie Smith - Red Sox #40
1973 Stan Bahnsen - White Sox #20

I was pleased as I like the earlier 1970s cards and I am currently building the 1970 - 1976 sets. I am mostly concentrating on 74 and 72 with 73 and 75 close behind. I have a long way to go in all of them, even though I used to have many of the 74 and 75s back in the day. Most of my original 75s were foolishly traded away in a card flipping/tossing game with a friend who was a shark at the particular style we played.

My second foray into entering some Million Card Giveaway codes, I hung back a day or two and watched the averages of what were pulled. I looked and saw lots of 1978s and 79s the later 70s are my least favorites of that decade. Then later in the night I saw some earlier 70s and some 60s. So then I went for it. With My TMC cards 7, 8 & 10 yes now I have number 10 so I have the last 5 cards, I need to get TMC 1 - 5 now for the subset. I unlocked some 1960s cards.

1962 Chris Cannizzaro - Mets #26

1967 Ron Swoboda - Mets #264*

1968 George Brunet - Angels #347

* While editing some of my scanned images of cards acquired in the last say 6 months or so; I noticed I had a 1968 card of Ron Swoboda. I had gotten it from a sportlots.com auction of some 60s cards (or maybe a Mets lot). It is off-centered running down to the bottom, his name is partially cut off at the bottom. Other than that it is a a pretty good conditioned card.

1968 Topps Ron Swoboda Mets #114