A place where Colorado Rockies baseball card collectors (all 3 of us) can waste some time reading about our favorite sport. The Rockies and their cards will be the primary focus, but I like to go off on tangents as well so anything and everything baseball related may be covered here.

Friday, March 30, 2012

The Best Topps Set Countdown #'s 55-51



I got several comments from you guys in part 1 of this countdown.  Most of the comments were regarding the "Why isn't set x in your bottom five?"  I will respond to that with, there are 61 total sets and there are some that people hate that can't be in everyone's bottom five.  My age has a little to do with my slight bias here as well.  A lot of you would be putting some of the overproduction era sets at the bottom of your lists and that's fine, but they were the current sets when I started collecting so I have a little bit of a bias to some of them.  I tried to be somewhat objective with this, but pure objectivity is just an utter myth anyway.  No matter how hard you try, you cannot completely be objective about anything, especially something you love.  Okay, that's enough with the quoting of my anthropology professors.  Let's move on with the next five in the countdown.


#55 1957

PLUSES - First modern sized Topps card set.  Generally good photography.  I like the card number inside the baseball.  Stats are easy to read with the blue on white.

MINUSES -Very boring design (or lack thereof).  The Yellow/white color combo shown above isn't too bad, but the blue/red combo is horrible. 


#54 1969

PLUSES - I like the name/position bubble on the front.  It gives the needed info without impeding the photo.  I also like the nice use of the Topps logo with the card number inside the "T cradle."

MINUSES - Most photos were the exact same as the 1968 set.  The front design is too similar to the 1967 set.  The color of the back leaves a lot to be desired.  Overall, the set just looks like it was phoned in.


#53 1979

PLUSES - Nice large photos without much interference.  The Baseball Dates was a nice idea for the card back.  This is the only set with the old-school Topps logo on the front. (not so much a plus, just a factoid)

MINUSES - Like many 70s sets, coloration is not team-colored and clashes in most cases.  I don't like the ribbon team name plate.  The team name is larger than the player name which is a bit odd.  The green back is sort of hard to read.


#52 1998

PLUSES - I like the team colored name plate on the front.  Generally a nice look to the front of the card.

MINUSES - The team name is way too small on the front and make it difficult to read.  The back of the card is horrible.  Small, badly-placed card number.  The coloration of the name makes it hard to read.  The photo causes the stats to be squished. 


#51 1976

PLUSES - All needed info is on the front and is located well.  The generic player is kind of kitschy and works with this set.  The best part of the set is the card number being located on the bat/ball combination.

MINUSES -  When the best part of a card is the card number, it is usually not a good thing.  The photography is generally boring (the shown card is the rare exception).  70s coloration strikes again.  Stats are extremely hard to read with the brown on green color palette.  Overall just a boring set.



There's the next five in the countdown.  I originally had the 1957 set several spots lower, but I didn't get the 57s to scan until this past Wednesday so I bumped it up a little bit.  On a redo, I would put it at #58.  

Other than 1990 and 1994, what are other sets did you expect to see by now?  Are you surprised at any of my choices for bottom 11? 

5 comments:

Rosenort said...

I am suprised 1976 is so low, it would probably make my top 15, I love the different icons for each position. Also suprised 2006 hasn't made an appearance yet.

night owl said...

I'd also rank '76 higher, but I was 11 at the time, so the set means a lot to me.

2008 should have been way, way down. Any design that forces itself on photos THAT MUCH is inexcusable. So many horrid photos in that set.

moremonkeys138 said...

I'll take Night Owl's side on this one, 2008 would definitely be in my bottom. Too much white space and not enough photo.

Community Gum said...

The 2000's did have a lot of bad designs, but I can't say I expected to see anything specific. After all, like you say, your opinions are your own and who am I to say it should even come close to my list?
--Jon

Johngy said...

Again good choices, except maybe 1976. I am biased though as it was my first set to really collect.