First off. Sorry about the "no posts" last night. I worked a VERY long double shift yesterday and fully intended on putting together a month's worth of posts in one night. Small problem. I couldn't get internet outdoors anymore like I did last year. I didn't bring my handy dandy USB LAN adaptor thingy and just couldn't get online, so I wrote a couple of posts in Word, but they need some work before they are ready to go. I am trying to get my Jeep back up and running today, so I am a little busy, BUT I didn't want to go all day without a post, SO...How about the Joy of a Completed Page? I have finished several pages in my 1965 Topps binder - actually I have finished 23 pages. Some pages have Hall of Famers on them, some have sweet rookies, the one I posted a couple of weeks back had little pictures of 11 (should be 12, Ron Santo...) different Hall of Famers including Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Sandy Koufax and Brooks Robinson... I worked hard and spent big to finish that page and I am really proud of it. Today's page doesn't have the big names on it, but is far rarer than PAGE 1. When I started my mission in collecting this set I wanted to start at card one and work my way up 9 cards at a time. I let it be known that I wanted '65 Topps cards badly and a bunch of you traded with me and I snatched up every '65 Topps card that walked into my LCS. I also bought a few lots of cards here and there on the auction sites. What ended up happening was I got higher numbered cards than I had intended. 
Originally I just kept all cards numbered above 300 randomly in pages, not in numerical order. Well, my Mother-In-Law got me a box of Ultra Pro pages as a birthday gift this year so I decided to spread the binder out to include 70 pages. Enough to house cards 1-598 in order with a few extra pages for dupes. Anyway, I realized I had more short prints than I thought. To be honest, I don't know anything about the print totals in this set or what is a short print or how short printed they are.
Originally I just kept all cards numbered above 300 randomly in pages, not in numerical order. Well, my Mother-In-Law got me a box of Ultra Pro pages as a birthday gift this year so I decided to spread the binder out to include 70 pages. Enough to house cards 1-598 in order with a few extra pages for dupes. Anyway, I realized I had more short prints than I thought. To be honest, I don't know anything about the print totals in this set or what is a short print or how short printed they are. I have always understood that cards numbered 523 to 598 are super short-printed. There are some NICE cards in there. Lou Brock (thanks Wicked!) and Tony Perez' rookie card might be the 2 best, they are the 2 best in my binder at least. Anyway, I got off track, but I am hoping that someone can tell me more about short prints in this set. On the auction sites sellers seem to tag any card higher than 300 as an SP in the description. I don't believe that. I have also been told that cards 485 (Nellie Fox) and above are all SPs. If THAT is the case, then this page I am showing today would be a legit group of 9 short prints. Anyway, any full page is pretty awesome in my book (or binder!). If these really are short prints than even better. 
Included on this page are card #489 Gene Mauch, 490 Earl Battey, 491 Tracy Stallard, 492 Gene Freese, 493 Tigers Rookies, 494 Jay Ritchie, 495 Joe Christopher, 496 Joe Cunningham and 497 Giants Rookies.
Included on this page are card #489 Gene Mauch, 490 Earl Battey, 491 Tracy Stallard, 492 Gene Freese, 493 Tigers Rookies, 494 Jay Ritchie, 495 Joe Christopher, 496 Joe Cunningham and 497 Giants Rookies. Hopefully someone can tell me if these are legit SPs. Either way, I am pretty happy to fill a page in the second half of the ole binder. Collecting this set has been amazingly fun for me. I love this hobby, I really do, but if you are getting burned out on it I would highly recommend chasing a Topps set from the 60s, 70s or early 80's. It will definitely get your hobby blood pumping again! Thanks for reading! As always, you are encouraged to check out my want list for this amazing set. I have passed the 50% completion point and I don't want to slow down! I love this game, I love this hobby! Back to work on the Jeep... Wish me luck... Go vintage! troll out.
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Congrats! Vintage looks awesome!
ReplyDeleteLong story short: Sellers don't know what the hell they are talking about and information in price guides is complicated.
ReplyDeleteThe 1965 set was put out in 7 series. Each series had about 88 cards in it. You can see a list of the cards in each series on the checklist cards.
The first two or three series of any vintage set were usually easy to find. The next couple are harder since they came out later in the season when collectors were getting bored with the set. The last two series are usually the hardest since the season was almost over and football was coming up.
this is the case with the '65 set. Series 1, 2, 3 and 4 are pretty easy. Series 5 is harder but not too bad. Series 6 is tough and some cards from series 7 are the hardest to find. The higher series aren't necessarily short printed, there was just less of them printed if that makes sense.
Making things weird for series 7 is that it's the largest series at 92 cards. Since card sheets were 88 cards in size, this meant the cards had to be printed on multiple sheets so some of the hard series cards are actually printed in less quantities than the rest of the cards in the series. These cards are considered short printed.
It's been determined since the earliest price guides that cards 523-598 are the hardest to find. The entire series goes from 507-598 though. Basically all the cards from 507-522 and a few of the cards from 523-598 were probably double printed on the sheets resulting in a handful of actual short prints in the series. Here's a list of SP's from my SCD catalog:
523 524 526 527 529 533 535 536 538 540 543 545 547 549 550 551 554 555 556 559 560 565 566 568 569 570 571 572 573 576 577 578 579 580 581 582 583 586 589 591 592 593 596 598
Is a seller lists any 1965 Topps card other than those as a SP, they're wrong. If they list cards from the 6th and 7th series as high series they're right. If they list a 3rd 4th or 5th series card a a high series they're wrong. Those series might have a little premium on them, but then again, if you're dealing with someone who slaves to book prices on vintage commons, run.
Basically what you have there is a really nice page of 6th series cards. It's one of the two high series, but there aren't any of the real high short prints in there. I'm sure you'll knock those out soon enough!