The Dallas Cowboys were the defending Super Bowl champs. The Pittsburgh Steelers would soon answer with their latest Lombardi Trophy. The two titanic teams of the 70s were well represented in Topps' lone football card product, including Tony Dorsett and John Stallworth, two future Hall of Famers whose rookie cards were on the checklist. This edition of Vintage … [Read more...]
Vintage Pack Facts: 1976 Topps Football
Those who collect vintage football card packs don't have a lot of trouble finding reasonably priced options during the last half of the 1970s but there's one that's a problem. If not for that Payton guy.... While 1977-1979 packs have gone up in value over the last several years, they're a piece of cake compared to the year that brought us Sweetness. Walter Payton's … [Read more...]
Vintage Pack Facts: 1973 Topps Football
"Biggest Series Ever" screamed the packaging. Topps wasn't lying. While they'd pumped out a unique, three-series set in 1972--one that kept collectors hunting for high numbers well into the next four decades--the 528-card 1973 Topps football set was an unprecedented whopper. No, it wasn't as big as the company's last several baseball sets, but NFL fans had … [Read more...]
Vintage Pack Facts: 1978 Topps Baseball
As the sun began to shine a little more and spring training camps began to open in 1978, collectors were hit with another cold slap in the face. The price of a pack was up again and you'd need to buy more cards to complete a set. Just a five years earlier, wax packs were a dime each. Even in '74, you could still snare one for that price, although there … [Read more...]
Vintage Pack Facts: 1979-80 Topps Basketball
It wasn't a great time to be a basketball card collector. After a mammoth 330-card set in 1977-76 and a unique postcard-sized set the next year, Topps all but waved the white flag on hoops for the next three years. The checklists shrunk to 132 cards. By 1979-80, the design of the cards and pack were decidedly uninspiring. Dealers were taking just about … [Read more...]
Vintage Pack Facts: 1971-72 Topps Basketball
Fans of the 11 teams in the American Basketball Association had to be stoked when they picked up a pack of 1971-72 Topps basketball cards. For the first time, the league's players were welcomed into the basketball bubble gum fraternity. Kids across America were intrigued by the red, white and blue ball, the unique team names, the unfamiliar uniforms and the players … [Read more...]
Vintage Pack Facts: 1980-81 O-Pee-Chee Hockey
Coming off a wild season where Gordie Howe retired, Wayne Gretzky rose to prominence, and the New York Islanders won their first of what proved to be four straight Stanley Cup championships, Canadian kids were ready to bust open packs of 1980-81 O-Pee-Chee. No one could possibly expect then that this set would prove to be arguably the decade's best in terms of rookie and … [Read more...]
Vintage Pack Facts: 1964 Philadelphia Football
After eight years with Topps at the forefront of NFL trading cards, the 1964 season brought a big change. Philadelphia Gum, founded by a former Bowman Gum executive 16 years earlier, snared the exclusive rights to make football cards for the next four seasons. Their first effort came in the fall of 1964 and it's the focus of this week's Vintage Pack Facts. … [Read more...]
Vintage Pack Facts 1965 Topps Football
You can imagine the challenges faced by the Topps Company as it plotted some drastic changes in its 1965 football card product. Having settled for the AFL as it watched Swell’s Philadelphia Gum take over the much more desirable NFL trading card contract, Topps must have felt like it needed to make its product stand out. Instead of the 2 1/1” x 3 ½” dimension that had … [Read more...]
Vintage Pack Facts: 1975-76 Topps and OPC Hockey
It was a good news/bad news proposition for hockey card collectors as the 1975-76 season approached. Topps boxes now contained 12 more packs than the year before. If you wanted to collect the entire set, though, it would require more dimes and nickels as Topps increased the size of its set from 264 cards in 1974-75 to 330 for '75-76. While the 1975-76 Topps … [Read more...]