Topps: Encyclopedia II - Topps - Card design

Topps - Card design

Although Topps did not invent the concept of baseball cards, its dominance in the field basically allowed the company to define people's expectations of what a baseball card would look like. In addition to establishing a standard size, Topps developed various design elements that are considered typical of baseball cards. Some of these were the company's own innovations, while some were ideas borrowed from others that Topps helped popularize.

Topps - Use of statistics

One of the features that contributed significantly to Topps's success beginning with the 1952 set was providing player statistics. At the time, complete and reliable baseball statistics for all players were not widely available, so Topps actually compiled the information itself from published box scores. While baseball cards themselves had been around for years, including statistics was a relative novelty that fascinated many collectors. Those who played with baseball cards could study the numbers and use them as the basis for comparing players, trading cards with friends, or playing imaginary baseball games. It also had some pedagogical benefit by encouraging youngsters to take an interest in the underlying math.

The cards originally had one line for statistics from the most recent year (i.e. the 1951 season for cards in the 1952 set) and another with the player's lifetime totals. Bowman promptly imitated this by putting statistics on its own cards where it had previously only had biographical information. For the first time in 1957, Topps put full year-by-year statistics for the player's entire career on the back of the card. Over the next few years, Topps alternated between this format and merely showing the past season plus career totals. The practice of showing complete career statistics became permanent in 1963, except for one year, 1971, when Topps sacrificed the full statistics in order to put a player photo on the back of the card as well.

Topps - Artwork and photography

Although the 1971 set was an aborted experiment in terms of putting photos on card backs, that year was also a landmark in terms of baseball card photography, as Topps for the first time included cards showing color photographs from actual games. The cards themselves had been in color from the beginning, though for the first few years this was done by using artist's portraits of players rather than actual photographs.

After starting out with simple portraits, in 1954 Topps put two pictures on the front of the card--a hand-tinted 'color' close-up photo of the player's head, and the other a black-and-white full-length pose. The same basic format was used in 1955, this time with the full-length photo also hand-tinted. For 1956, the close-up tinted photo was placed against a tinted full-background 'game-action' photo of the player. The close-up head shots of some individual players were reused each year.

From 1957 on, virtually all cards were posed photographs, either as a head shot or together with a typical piece of equipment like a bat or glove. If using such a prop, the player might pose in a position as if he were in the act of batting, pitching, or fielding. Photographs did not appear in sharp focus and natural color until 1962.

Topps used various ways to cope with players changing teams before the company could issue a card of them in their new uniform. One way was to show the player without any team cap. Another was to paint out, by airbrush, the former team logo on both cap and uniform, or to paint on their new team cap logo. (Cards for 'rookies' were also prepared by airbrushing over their minor-league uniforms in photos.)

In the absence of real action photography, Topps still occasionally used artwork to depict action on a handful of cards. Starting in 1960 a few cards showed true game action, primarily highlights from the World Series, but the photographs were either in black-and-white or hand-tinted color until 1971. Since that time, Topps has mixed game photography with posed shots in its sets.

When used for the cards of individual players, some of the early action photography had awkward results. The photos were sometimes out of focus or included several players, making it difficult to pick out the player who was supposed to be featured on the card. In a few cases, a misidentification meant that the player didn't even appear in the picture. These problems diminished as Topps's selection of photographs gradually improved.

Before statistics, biographical information, and commentary became the dominant element on the backs of cards, Topps also featured artwork there. This primarily involved using various types of cartoons drawn by its stable of artists. These appeared on card backs as late as 1982, but gradually declined in the prominence of their placement and the proportion of cards on which they appeared. In 1993, Topps finally managed again to incorporate a player photo on the back as well as the front of the card, after some competitors had been doing so for a number of years.

Topps - Errors variations and special cards

Topps and other card publishers were not immune to production 'glitches,' and such mistakes gave collectors unusual items to seek for their collections. Some errors are corrected and re-printed within the print runs of the same set, resulting in an "Error Card;" others are not corrected, and are referred to among collectors as "Uncorrected Errors."

One example of "variations" happened in the 1959 and 1960 Topps baseball sets. Certain cards were printed on two different types of cardstock; one produced a white back, and the other a darker gray. The photographs and information on the cards themselves were not in error. The result was that said cards occur in two variations, based on the back color.

The Topps 1962 baseball set saw the 'grandaddy' of all error situations. The set's entire second series (the 87 cards numbered 110 through 196) was first printed and distributed without the proper amount of ink for the photographs; the result has been known ever since as the "Green Tint" series, for the sky and dirt in the backgrounds of some cards are decidedly green, rather than blue or brown. All the photos were somewhat out of focus, and card number 159 (Yankees Pitcher Hal Reniff) was incorrectly numbered as 139.

The entire series was re-printed and re-distributed, with the photo inks in proper proportion and with 8 photos replaced with different poses (Reniff's among them). All remaining photos were re-cropped for the re-printing (e.g., some photos were moved a bit to one side, and others moved up or down), thus giving every card in the series an error card. The Reniff card's number was still incorrect in this second printing, so a third, corrected one of his was produced, resulting in 1 'true' Reniff card and 2 errors (each error card with a different photograph).

Another type of error is the "wrongback." You can find these in just about any year. This occurs when the sheet is mated with a back which is up side down or reversed. Most wrongbacks have the backs off center. It is possible to find a centered back and off center front.

Another type of card that is considered an error is the blankback (or blankfront) Most likely however, these are first run proofs from the company not intended for distribution. In addition, misspelled words/names, print blotches, missing border sections, and different colored backgrounds (like the 1973 manager cards) are all considered errors although relatively few of these are corrected.

The 1974 "Washington Nat'l League" cards are considered errors too, but were corrected during the run. This came about when there was a strong possibility that the San Diego Padres might move to Washington after the 1973 season. Anticipating that possibility, Topps substituted the term "Washington Nat'l League" onto early-series Padres' cards, since the nickname of the potentially re-located team was not known.

Another error type is when the back stats are overprinted on the front of the card. These are generally considered "ghost cards".

An interesting type of error is the print separation. This gives the card a "3-D" look.

Yet another class of card is the "unintentional error," in which something in the photo makes it look as if an actual error has occurred. The prime example of this was the Topps 1964 card for Cardinals' pitcher Ray Sadecki (#147). The full-figure pitching-pose of Sadecki is normal; the problem was with the advertising signs on the outfield fence that he posed in front of. The photo's cropping captured only the last 3 letters of one sign, so that the word "ASS" appears in vivid letters behind Sadecki.

The most celebrated error in baseball-card history was not printed by Topps, but by competitor Fleer in 1989. It involved the clearly-readable obscenity on the bottom of the bat of Orioles infielder Billy Ripken.

On rare occasions, Topps issued special cards for players who had either died or had been injured. The 1959 set had card 550 as "Symbol Of Courage - Roy Campanella", with a color photo of the paralyzed former Dodger in his wheelchair and a black-and-white photo of him in uniform inserted to the upper left. The 1964 set issued cards for 2 then-recently-dead players--Ken Hubbs of the Cubs with a different "In Memoriam" front design compared the the standard cards, and Colts pitcher Jim Umbricht's regular card with a special note on its back about his April 1964 death (from cancer).

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Card design", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki