TOPPS 75 TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION AUCTION
1971
I f you wanted to create the perfect formula for a release that’s almost impossible to assemble in high grade, you would take full bleed borders to all four sides, color those borders black, add a bunch of horizontal cards to make centering even more of a nightmare than usual, then issue your longest set yet with 752 subjects. If you did all that, you would come up with the 1971 Topps baseball cards. The photos look great against the black borders though and they added a small black-and-white head shot to the reverse of each player’s card, another first, so it wasn’t all bad news. As a capper, the backs were full bleed as well. A very small number of sixth series cards, no more than a handful of each subject, were produced with extra gloss on the fronts and are rare today. The seventh series high numbers are a little easier than those from 1970, but the condition issues really factor in with them. A long series of Baseball Coins, again made of clanking aluminum just like in 1964, came in many of the wax packs. A reissue of the 1971 Scratch-Offs, this time with a red interior instead of white, are attributed to pack inserts as well, as are a possible reappearance of leftover Player Posters, but evidence for both of these potential repacks is scarce. The large and thick Super Baseball set, now 63 in number, returned for a final bow as the one of the year’s main secondary sets, the other was a series of Baseball Tattoos, issued as sixteen accordion style panels, with multiple subjects on each. A third supplemental set called Greatest Moments was tested regionally, carrying black borders like the regular issue but in a larger size, offered 55 subjects, with 33 very difficult short prints.
563. 1971 Topps Complete Set (452) MINIMUM BID: $1,500
564. 1971 Topps Coins Complete Set (153) MINIMUM BID: $100
562. 1971 Topps Print Variations Collection (68) MINIMUM BID: $200
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