The only problem I have with your content is that there simply isn't enough of it. The amount of homework you did for this in mind-boggling. Thanks as always for the time and effort you put into your videos. Outstanding!
ha ha, thanks. This video and the next took me about 5 months of research and I was still editing this video after I thought I was finished (I would discover new information). Thankfully it was a fascinating project that kept my attention.
AWESOME video, and yes I agree that nostalgia plays a big role in what sets we hold near and dear. This was the first year I began collecting cards, so obviously remains my favorite
You sure put in the work of peeling back all the layers of the 73 set. Great job pointing out how thin the staff was back then having to put out so many sets. Thanks for posting.
Great video. After purchasing a 73 Clemente I really started noticing how this set had a different feel to it. As I've started adding more 73 to my collection weirdly it started becoming one of my favorites, and this video really put it over the top for me. Thank you
Excellent video!! It's funny, I find those quirky strange "action shots" to be some of my favorite cards of all time. By the way, love the background info on the George Scott card. Great stuff! You found a new fan and subscriber.
@@vintagecardcurator Two interesting & curious 1973 Topps cards are #555 Bill Hands & #645 Bob Locker. Hands is seen in a Twins uniform obviously air-brushed by Topps because the photo is of Hands pitching at Wrigley Field. One of my favorites is the Bob Locker card who is pitching at the Oakland Coliseum, but for the Cubs. Topps did a nice job with the air-brush on this card, but they didn't put a number on the back of Bob Locker's jersey. 😆
Outstanding review of this set. The most valuable card in my opinion was the Roberto Clemente card. He had tragically died in the off season but they still released a card of him.
You commented on the airbrushing and wondered why they couldn't have included better pictures in the later series, but, I belive that 73 was the first set that wasn't released in series. This was the year that all cards came out at the same time so there are no hard to collect high numbers.
Fantastic job… you obviously put a lot of time, effort, and love into this video. Thank you! I973 Topps has a special place in my collecting heart… as a kid, it was the first set for which I had enough money to buy packs on my own.
Thanks so much! Yes, it was definitely a labor of love. The next video is twice as long, but I think even better! I've definitely learned to love '73 Topps the more I got into it.
I would love to do that, it's just the time commitment. I started working on this project in August with the intent to decode the John Ellis card. It just snowballed out of control.
I've collected baseball cards since the 60's era and, I'm now 62 years young. The 70's brings back a lot of great memories even though Topps cards were never too good for me. We can bicker about who was the best card company in 1973 or any era but, the truth and facts remain the same. I think in 1951-1957 was when Topps was the very best, the old red background Bowman really produced some dandy cards: Sandy Koufax, Roger Maris, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobbs just to name a few.....I know! I never mentioned Mickey Mantle, sorry but, I never liked him as a baseball player, in fact most of his own teammates with the Yankees called him a name you hardly ever hear " The Villian", it was not just his confidence, he truly had an attitude no one understood. Which takes me back to the 60's when I used to go the Shea Stadium to watch the Mets play, The great one Willie May's stood out for me, the subway series between the Mets vs Yankees. They took down Shea Stadium, a childhood memory for me, now called Tinker Field. If you want to talk about a story or Topps to tell, I've seen many get out of the hobby because today 2024, it's simply not as popular as it was in the 70's, 60' or 50's simply because Topps has truly the one that lost thier way by thier own demise. I remember some of these facts you brought up in your commentary. I'm not the one that can tell you directly why Topps is losing out but, I can only give you a hint on how they can gain more credibility and, popularity again. They need to give card buyers today more chances to obtain more history of the older picture with the old red background: by putting an older picture on new card stock say: 1 in different products they sell, stop talking about foil board, relics or autographs on thier boxes and surprise the hobby again. The reason why I say this is because thier products have become so expensive with nothing to show for, us old timers keep losing out and, it's why people are leaving the hobby, more thefts are occurring, you want truth and, fact.....? These are the facts!!!
I really liked this video it showed a lot of stuff that none of us really thought about. I did notice through the years that these cards were a little messy. A lot of the action shots were somewhat random and too many people in the shots. If you were not a baseball fan, you might have a hard time determining which player in the photo was the actual player for the card. This year cards was the first year I was not buying the packs at the store. It had nothing to do with the cards themselves as I was 13 years old and kind of grew out of buying baseball card packs. I will be checking out some of your other videos I really liked this one.
My favorite design of all time. Come close to buying the set, one day I will. But I’m not giving an arm and leg for a set that needs a lot of work to get in decent shape.
Thanks! Yes, it was a much different era and I worry that people will kind of forget about what it was like back then after collectors of my generation pass on. It seemed important to tell the story and get it down.
Now THIS is why I come on RU-vid, to actually LEARN something. This might be the best video I have ever seen regarding baseball cards. I love the 1973 set and it's great how you broke everything down. I actually do love the action shots (the Bonds card is my favorite). I never knew the story behind the background in the George Scott shot. You obviously went to a lot of trouble to find a lot of great info on this set. 73 was my very first set and I still love it, even though looking back at it, you can see the set has a lot of shortcomings. Please keep producing these great videos!
Thank you so much for those kind words Rick. The project started out just wanting to explore the John Ellis card and it really snowballed. '73 Topps was a giant onion, with more and more great mysteries and stories that I feel need to be told. The research started in August and produced nearly an hour of content over two videos (next one next Wednesday). It was a set I didn't really care for until I started going through the binder and seeing so many different patterns throughout. Now I can't unsee it and I want to explore other sets for similar patterns.
The '73 Topps set was, unfortunately, the oldest set I was able to complete. I actively collected from 1976-1990, and bought the 1992 Topps set complete. From 1979-1990 I bought complete sets from dealers, mostly my cousin Scott and his father, my Uncle Don. I was never crazy about the look of the 1973 set, but it was the oldest set that I completed so it has some nostalgic value for me. In terms of looks and eye appeal I always liked the 1971 Topps set.
Keith, it's these type of videos that make your channel a must watch.. The Facts are absolutely incredible and the stories are always so intriguing. I love it when you break down sets and give numbers and percentages no one else comes close to.. Awesome work!!
Thank you so much Todd. I appreciate the support from you over the years. It's definitely a labor of love with me...maybe partly obsession. I think you are going to love the next video...I was really excited when I started to put it together.
Awesome video and 1973 was the first set I collected. I am fascinated on how you know the dates of the games of the action cards. I would guess spring training was much more relaxed in the 1970's which allowed the photographers the time and accessibility to the players. Favorite card was the horizontal shot of Willie Stargell
The spring training pictures certainly do make it look like there was a lot more openness and accessibility back then. Of course, Topps also had a contract to shoot these players photographs.
1971 is my all-time favorite set. I search RU-vid for videos on 1971 and it's slim pickings. If you could do something in the future on 1971 similar to this gem, that would be awesome.
I would like to; it's a set that's near and dear to my heart too. I did a video on the 1970 set a few years ago and had designs on doing 1971 next, but it seemed kind of daunting. I'm not sure what angle to take with that one...there's a lot to say about it.
This is amazing! So amazing! Great research! I learned so much about one of my favorite sets. It makes me want to start putting one together. Yeah, a lot of the photos were terrible, but I’m one of those who loves it for nostalgic purposes. 1973 was probably my biggest year collecting as a kid.
I got the set complete at a card show a couple of years ago and then just did some minor upgrades. As I took pictures for this video I realized some of my cards were not in the shape I thought they were. Now I have to replace a few more. It's a pretty accessible set to build. Nothing terribly expensive like the Mantles in earlier sets. The Yaz, Morgan and Ryan cards are really tough to find centered. The last series checklist is one of the more expensive raw cards too. Now I want to send off some of the more infamous cards to get autographs through the mail from the players.
Sadly he died in 2001 at the age of 52 of a heart attack in Puerto Rico. Jorge Orta (other player on the card) is still alive but doesn't sign autographs through the mail.
@@vintagecardcurator Unfortunately, we have lost too many of the baseball heroes of our youth (I’m 59). I am fascinated when people put together vintage sets with autos. You know you’re going to miss some players who died way too early. I know some copies can be purchased. I saw something once on someone doing 1981 Donruss with autos. One player in that set apparently died shortly after the set’s release, so the likelihood of autographed cards of him is remote.
just hit the subscribe button. this set was the first that i actualkly bought the cards off the ice cream truck myself.been buying eer since. you answered so many questions i had inre to the photos used and why so many seem to appear in more than one yearplease keep it going. did you also do 74 75 and on?do ou also do the 3 othger major sports from the same time frame?thanks for your time in compiling this to me golden information which takes me directly back to a simpler for me era.
Just learned about your channel and very happy for that. I'll be watching the longer '73 video later tonight. I hope you talk a bit about the Willie Davis and Graig Nettles cards. Not to be too critical against Topps, but for a set with a lot of curious photo choices and treatments (Nettles), those two for me qualify as beyond the pale, lol. ... Again, they experimented and made an attempt at furthering things, which of course is a good thing. There are certainly going to be missteps along the way. ... I hope this year's Heritage includes at least a few similar "interesting" action shot choices. I think collectors like all of the viewers of this video would take note and appreciate that kind of nod to the past. ... Great stuff, many thanks.
Thanks John! I don't go over the Nettles because I did so in a previous video. The Davis is not really explored, other than talking about the game itself. The card kind of speaks for itself. '73 Topps is a mixed bag. The '70's were all about experimentation and pushing boundaries...art, cinema, etc. I think we owe '73 Topps credit for pushing the action photography, which translated into better cards in later years even if they didn't get it right in '73.
Absolutely love this. I can’t wait to what’s next. I have seen a lot lately of ‘73 cards. But probably only the more notable players. I always liked the design. Most the shots you are pointing out here I don’t think I have ever seen - much less considered with this kind of scrutiny. I thoroughly enjoyed this. Happy New Year!
There were plenty of good seats available in San Diego, San Francisco, and Oakland in those days. I have the Canadian set under the O-Pee-Chee name, which is identical to the Topps set except for the backs of the cards being in both English and French.
Best baseball card channel on RU-vid hands down. I am currently working on a 73 set...heading to a local card show tomorrow to check off my want list. Great piece
Thanks Jonathan, really appreciate those kind words. Good luck at the show. The big shows in the Northeast here are the best places to pick up vintage cards for set builds. That's how I upgraded or built most of my '70's sets.
Just one correction: the Jerry Kenney car is actually not from spring training, but is taken in Yankee Stadium. The color billboards in the background were the back wall of the bleachers, in this case the left field bleachers. I went to quite a few games in Yankee Stadium during this time and recognized it right away. Of course, Kenney is still in his Yankee pinstripes, with the airbrushed Indians hat, which is not a bad job by the Topps artist. Kenney was traded to the Indians that winter, I believe as part of the Graig Nettles trade. Dunning & Heidemann are wearing old Indians uniforms, I think, but Topps had to update the caps from the previous black ones they wore in 1970 to the red they wore in 1972.
My favorite set probably because it was my first ! Spent many hours riding my bike to the convenience store to get sets completed with a huge wad of bubble gum and Welch’s grape soda I’d sit in front of the store opening 109s of packs looking for Red Sox players aah the memories of simpler times.
I was 13 years old in 1973 and had at least three copies of every single card in the set. What happened to them, I will never know. If I had a time machine, I’d go back to that era with $1000 and buy as many tops baseball cards as I could. Come back to the present, and live like a king.
Love the video. Topps was still reusing photos, not so long ago, got to double check my cards, but have 3 different Sid Fernández cards from 3 different sets, different year, but the same "photoshoot" I believe one is a 1991 Bowman and other 2, I will check 'em out, very funny indeed.
incredibly inforamtive! you should seriously consider writing a book about sets because i for one would love reading about them. i have such a love hate with 73. when i was a kid, i felt there was almost an eeriness to these cards. i always liked the color silhouette but the back side is just so drab. i have a very nice complete set of 73's and for a while was in my top 3 favs but i swear, after ripping through three boxes of 2022 Heritage and watching this vid, my love for this set is diminishing by the day. the air brushing, the questionable action shots, especially ones depicting multiple players (was that really the best Garvey shot they could have come up with??) and the overall sullenness of the cards...you love em or hate em. i kind of feel the same about 70 and 71 as well..70, even though it's the year of my birth, is just awful on all fronts to me, by far my least fav 70s set. 71 is all business and quite badass although i HATE the backs (hard to read and i want a complete list of stats!) . the one thing i think those 3 sets share though is they don't seem as geared towards children, when obviously they were. i'm going to go through your other videos now, love em!
Thanks! As I've gone through deep examinations of these vintage sets, my respect for Topps has really diminished. They really did a lot of work half-ass and leveraged their monopoly power to put out inferior products to us kids for decades. They could have done such a better job with a little bit more time, manpower and creativity. Imagine how good some of these cards could have been?
@@vintagecardcurator aw, idk man. as a kid i didn't think of the quality of the cards. miscuts were a bit annoying but i never thought much about the quality of cards, i just knew i hated Fleer and Donruss. Also, don't forget what Topps had to work with. It was probably a small staff with not much to work with as far as technology. I mean, a lot of ball players had second jobs in the offeseason to make ends meet, so i can't imgaine the folks at Topps made a heck of a lot
Great informative video, we can also see the change of materials the uniforms are made of. How did you figure out the day of the game for some of the cards.
Thanks. I was able to find almost every game (there are at least 48) by using Baseball Reference and Baseball Almanac. I read some blogs to see how others did it, as I didn't know the research materials were out there. The '71 Munson was the first card I read about that was date coded. I just used the same methodology. I go through it more in my next video. What helps so much is having the binder set...very easy to see the patterns when you see the players on the same teams in the same stadium together. Then you realize the patterns that the photographers used: mostly worked in Oakland and San Francisco, mostly shot doubleheaders or back to back day games. But not always, and the exceptions to the rules were the toughest to crack. There were many times I thought I had exhausted every clue and then I'd think of something else. There are only three action cards in the set where I can't positively identify the day.
Wow, this video is an unreal tour de force of research, attention to detail, balanced with wider context and history about technique and personnel. I can only imagine how much time this video took to put together, but I know it is significant. The end result? An absolutely fascinating, entertaining video. I never gave much thought to this set. In fact, I don't own one card from it. Thank you so much for this masterful video.
Thank you so much for those kind words Chuck. The response from you and other serious long-time collectors is humbling. Frankly, I didn't expect a set like '73 Topps to be such a wealth of information. I intended to look at one card in the set, but it just snowballed. Having a binder set of the cards really helped me see the forest within those trees.
Thanks John. I was very happy to tell this story. '73 Topps was a couple years before my time, so it always had a little aura and mystery around it. It's weird for me to go through the process of seeing what many think of as a throw away set as one that instead has a lot of value.
@@orbyfan No mention was needed, the mere fact that they choose to issue it when it was obvious he wouldn't be playing in 1973 was their way to pay a tribute to him.
The 1973 set was the first one issued all at once- at least in some parts of the country. That meant that all of the photos had to be ready before the release.
Awesome video Keith! I have a theory that it was the 1969 Nabisco Team Flakes action shot cards that finally prompted Topps to venture into action shots themselves. Don't know that there's any way to prove it though. Can't wait for the next video!
thanks William. I'm not familiar with that set...I guess I should be! I'll have to look into that. I've never read why Topps decided to venture into action shots for 1971. There's not a lot of voices left from that era within Topps.
@@vintagecardcurator It was only 24 very small blank back cards that had to be cut from the back of cereal boxes. But they were almost all high quality action photos, which is why I can't help but wonder if it made Topps take notice.
I collected this set and my favorite player was Willie Stargell ... the Bobby Bonds card could have been a Willie Stargell card ... I took both cards and framed them for my office.
Yes, it's a cool card. I somehow got a copy (I wasn't buying packs back then) when I was about 13 and felt it was special enough to get included in my binder, rather than placed with all the other commons. It might be Stargell's best card, even if it isn't his!
You need fast exposure film and telephoto lenses to shoot action. The film prevents blur, and the lens zooms in. The pour composition is because they didn't bring the most important part- a professional photographer
Great Great narrative n detective work. Like how did you know which game date? Unbelievable. Yeah 73T had some serious issue. Never knew about the George Scott card.
Thanks Mike! To decipher the dates you have to go through all the photos and try to pick out as many clues as you can. Start broad...it was a day game. That narrows down the possible dates a lot. Home or away, opposing player, what base is the photo at? It all helps complete the picture. Then when you go to Baseball Almanac you can really narrow down the dates. The other players in the photos are a super important clue because some of them were not everyday players.
I have a few OPCs from that set, they sure do have a different kind of ink or something, don't they? Much brighter and also darker backs. I think they look cool.
Awesome. One of your best. Folks, if you are looking for the best vintage baseball card vlog on the intranets you have found it. Can't wait for the next one.
This video is spectacular. The 1973 set was the first set I collected when I was 7 years old. Love, love this set. Impeccable research. Great job! A+++++
Wow, I am blown away by your research and effort in putting this together. I love the 1973 set -- perhaps in large part because it is the first packs that I bought and opened as a kid. I'm now 2 cards away from a complete set -- an almost 50 year on/off (mostly off) process finally close to completion. You just opened my eyes up to a lot of warts in the set that I previously never realized and/or noticed, but even so I still love it warts and all. I will still take the somewhat perplexing,/unclear/fuzzy action photos of this set over the proliferation of stale mugshot and awkward poses of earlier sets. You can at least see the sprouts of Topps trying to improve their product with this set even if they didn't always get it right. I guess there just wasn't that much money in the business at the time to invest in the product and as you pointed out baseball itself seemed to be on the decline attendance wise. One question I am hoping you might be able to answer about this set... Why is the last series checklist so damn expensive? It's way more expensive than the checklists for the earlier series, even though the premium for the last series for all other cards is very slight. In fact, there is a bit of a question whether this set was even issued in series -- there is at least some evidence that it was issued all at once in some areas of the country. Of course 1 of the 2 cards I need is this ridiculously priced checklist.
Thanks for the comment and dialogue Brad! I have noticed the super premium on that checklist too (I had to upgrade the one that originally came from my set). I don't have an explanation either and noticed the same things you have about the set. I also question whether it was released in series because it just doesn't have any other scarce cards like the previous sets did. It just doesn't make sense. I should do some research on it. In terms of the appeal of '73 Topps, yes, you can see the start of something there. I think the later Topps releases can trace their lineage back to the mistakes/successes of '73 Topps. You can see they were starting to push the envelope, maybe too far in that moment, but that was the '70's...experimentation everywhere in the culture: cinema, music, art, engineering, etc. In many ways '73 Topps had too much of the old sets' DNA in it, but they did enough different that it really stood out and some of those features later became hallmarks for Topps. Except for the airbrushing...they took that way too far in 1978. ha ha I think Topps was struggling financially in that era too. It was the beginning of inflation after Vietnam. Topps itself experimented with those mini cards in 1975 to try to make the cost of cards cheaper. You could argue that they really didn't get better until they had competition with Fleer and Donruss in 1981.
Really cool and excellent research. I have a bunch of 73 and 71-79. Some of the photos are so random and yet they turned out like the Oscar Gamble. Gonna start helping people complete 70’s sets again.
Yeah, it's funny how some of these cards have become a little larger than life, like the Garvey. Oftentimes they are just ordinary plays, but what I found out in decoding the action cards is that there are some very interesting stories behind many of those random pictures. And these cards are often all we have of some of the "common" players. So often, when I look up pictures of some of these players, the only thing that pops up is their Topps card image.
Keith, this was a great look at the set I opened my first packs of. You must be a very patient man because I would never have the stamina to go through and look at all these details. Thanks for doing what you do.
Thank you Otto. I started this project back in August and it just snowballed. There were so many questions that needed answering that it kept feeding my interest.
Great breakdown and mind-blowing information. How were you able to pin point the exact dates/locations of the photos? Thank you for you work and sharing with us. Cheers
Thanks. It actually not that hard to pinpoint the info...at first I thought it was intimidating, but I was inspired by some bloggers online who have done it for other cards. I have a background as a court investigator, so that helped. One thing I've seen over and over is that just when you think you can't dig anymore, you find more clues. You just have to keep asking questions and use a lot of deductive reasoning. What helps so much is having a binder set of the cards...when you can see them all laid out you see obvious patterns that fill in most of the gaps. It's pretty fascinating work.
Thanks for watching and commenting. The A's cards are going to figure heavy in the next video as Doug McWilliams shot a lot of pictures of other teams at Oakland Coliseum.
Keith is The Ken Burns of documenting vintage baseball cards. Bravo! I hate the 73 Reggie Jackson. He looks like he is 80 years old in the action shot.
ha ha, thanks Daniel. The next video into some depth on the Reggie card. I was always puzzled by it. It's so out of focus, the only way you can tell it's him is by the #9 on his jersey. There must be a good story behind that card. I feel pretty confident it was taken by Doug McWilliams. I'd love to ask him but I couldn't find any contact information for him online.
Yes, the '72 players strike definitely had some impact on the game's popularity and it even impacted '73 Topps. The photographers had less time to get photos due to abbreviated spring training.
Great video, Keith! I never cared much for ‘73, but eventually it grew on me, and now I’m almost done assembling a set. Hope to run into you again at a future card show.
Thanks Marcus. I agree, the set has definitely grown on me over time. It was the last set of the '70's I got and that was because I didn't care much for it. I need to check out the show calendar dates and see when I can get back to Wilmington or White Plains.
