This will be the last card front that you will see on this blog post, even though I scanned more than 60 images for it.
Why is that?
Because we're turning them over to the back!
Yup, it's another one of THOSE posts.
But if you're my age, you're going to understand. You acquire a certain number of years under your belt and some things become a little more important to you. One of those is the type on card backs, specifically the type of the card number.
As in: IS IT BIG ENOUGH?????
This is a common complaint for set builders, who look at card numbers all the time. Sorting becomes even more tedious when it involves a set with a difficult-to-read card number. It gets so frustrating. Why can't the card number be easy to read every year? Is this so difficult to do?
This year's 2020 Topps set actually provides a fairly readable card number. The number isn't the boldest that Topps has ever created, but it is separated off in the corner, away from any other numbers or letters, which helps readability. It's also the seventh straight time, and 14th time in 15 years that Topps has positioned the card number in the right corner.
I prefer the card number in the left corner. That's partly because that's where it was when I was first collecting cards. The left corner is also more convenient to us double-baggers when we want to look at a card number quickly. But it's not a big deal, left or right. I can adjust.
The crucial part, like I said, is the readability of the card number.
I thought I'd go through an evolution of Topps flagship set card numbers to see how they were treated and whether card numbers were -- as I suspect -- more readable back in the day. Come along with me. I'll try to make it as interesting as I can.
1952. The first card of the "first" set (poor 1951). The card number sits in the left corner and is housed within a baseball drawing. This is the de facto design for Topps baseball cards for basically the next two decades. Card numbers were destined to be positioned on a baseball. And there was no puzzling about where that card number could be.
Holy mother of card numbers.
1953 is the card number preferred by four out of five optometrists. I'm almost positive this card number could cure blindness. But this is what we want: no questions about whether Don Hoak is (*screaming*) CARD NUMBER 176!
1954, 1955, 1956, 1957. Why change what you know? Is it readable? Well, that's all anyone cares about, right? It's a card number: the most utilitarian component of a baseball card. It serves one purpose: to get across this card's position in a set.
So, although the seams of the baseball may change from green to red to blue and the number itself from red to black to red again, it's still a number displayed in a baseball in the top left corner of the card. Looks good to me.
1958 is the first instance (but not the last) of the card back designer getting cute. The card number baseball is now a baseball head (think Charlie Brown when he grew a rash in the shape of baseball stitches on his head) with a mouth and ears and a baseball cap.
It remains readable though and still in that left-hand position.
1959. The first time Topps did not draw a baseball around the card number.
Instead the number is displayed inside a box, which is either green or black. The number itself is huge and the dark background allows it to stand out. This is a perfect card number when shuffling through cards.
For 1960, 1961 and 1962, the baseball card number returns, but with a little extra style.
The baseball is black in 1960 and 1962. The stitches travel only across the bottom in 1961 and 1962. But none of this infringes on the readability of the number. Kids know right where to go to find that number.
For 1963, Topps returns to the rectangle format, as in 1959, but much smaller. This is the smallest card number to date, but Topps sections it off nicely and it's not a problem.
You could argue that the 1964 card number is the first of the difficult-to-read card numbers, but that would mean that you were having trouble reading the entire 1964 card back because the whole thing is in orange!
What a strange idea for a card back. I love creamsicles and I love the 1977 Tampa Bay Buccaneer uniforms but I'm not sure why we're looking at that color here.
Everyone was still viewing baseballs on the left side for their card numbers in 1965, 1966, 1967 and 1968, although the size of that baseball was shrinking slowly. (The 1966 pink number practically glows under light, which is a neat effect).
Then 1969 showed up and the baseball was no more. Just a plain and tiny circle, getting eaten by a giant Topps logo.
Still readable. But I bet a few oldies squinted for the first time in '69.
1970. The circle grew bigger (and turned yellow). Thank goodness.
What's this? Only one year of stats? A floating head? And that card number! I'm squinting. Yep, I'm definitely squinting.
It doesn't look too bad here, but that's only because the card has been blown up and it's back-lit. But, trust me, black on dark green is not friendly on the eyes. The font for 1971 Topps' card numbers is quite similar to what was used for 2020 Topps' card numbers. But 2020 Topps had the good sense to pick a very light gray background.
Also, 1971 is the first Topps set in which the card number isn't housed within something. This is a more modern treatment of the card number that is used to this day.
1972. Similar number font to '71, but it is sectioned off with a white background for easy comprehension.
1973! Oh, baby! The baseball is back!!
Look at that! The most readable card number since 1970 and probably before. That card number just dominates.
The card backs from 1973 to 1979 are the ones I grew up collecting. Topps stayed with baseballs or rectangles, for the most part, when displaying the card numbers. Always on the left-hand side, most quite readable. I consider the 1976 card number among the most distinctive ever and made for easy reading.
The 1979 Topps card number is a bit small, looking back on it with 50-year-old eyes. Also, it's even more difficult to see, but this is the first time the card number baseball shows the stitches traveling to the left and right of the card number rather than above and below.
Lost in the excitement of the first blue back since 1965 is 1980's card number displayed for the first time on a shape that resembles home plate.
1981. Back to the baseball! And north and south stitches!
From 1982 to 1985, Topps did not enclose its card number (although you could argue the case with 1984). There's a bit much going on with the top half of 1982 but the number is still pretty readable. The 1984 and 1985 cards mark the first time red is used with the card number since 1966 and that 1985 card back will never be pleasant to read.
1986. For the first time we have a diamond presentation. Get it? Diamond? Baseball diamond? Oh, that clever 1986.
1987. The card number is in a sign pointing left for whatever reason.
1988. A bit busy with the traveling baseballs in the background. Not too bad.
Here we are. The last time that Topps has used a baseball drawing to showcase the card number. It figures it came in 1989, basically the year that represents the end of all things good in a range of entertainment categories for me
Boxes and circles for 1990 and 1991.
I'd like to point out that we're still putting card numbers in the left top corner here. We're in the FORTH DECADE OF PUTTING CARD NUMBERS IN THE TOP LEFT CORNER. I hope you now understand why it's a little difficult to adjust to a card number on the right side.
1992. Glorious. Say what you want about the disappearance of gray cardboard but the '92 card back is one of the most readable of all-time and at the top of the list in readableness (yes, that's a word) is the card number. Sort to your heart's content without screwing up even once! Good for you, '92.
1993 and 1994 marked Topps' transition to high gloss. The card numbers weren't affected too much. '93 is more readable than '94. Yellow on red isn't all that wonderful but it's OK. A lot better than ...
... 1995. Here we are. At the mid-1990s when card companies started getting cute.
Where's the card number? Heh, we put it in the bottom right! The complete opposite of the top left! We're so edgy!!!
Nothing was ever the same.
1996 marked the first time the card number would appear in the top right, what is now the standard position for card numbers. I guess considering how long card numbers were placed in the top left, I need to wait, oh, two more decades for it to return to the top left regularly.
1998. More cute stuff. Possibly the worst card number placement of all-time. Sideways. In gold. Which, trust me, is definitely not as readable as it appears here.
I've looked ahead. 1999 is the smallest card number on a Topps flagship set of all-time. At least it's positioned a long way off from all the other figures on the card.
Say what you want about Topps' sets from 2000-02 and I have, but its treatment of card number readability is no joke. Especially 2002. If you can't find that card number, you should be collecting something much, much larger.
2003. Back to the bottom right corner for the first time since 1995. *sigh* The century had started so well. Maybe it's just me, but that is not a place I look for a card number. (I suppose it could be worse, Topps has never placed the card number in the bottom left).
I've stopped talking about the designing of the space around the card number since it hasn't been definable for a number of years. We're a long way off from showcasing the number in a baseball. We're not allowed to be quirky anymore.
I probably didn't pick the best team for this since the Dodgers got gray, but 2006 marks the first and only time that the card number changes color depending on the team featured. Fun! And readable!
2007 Topps is an all-timer in terms of card number readability. Bright. Sectioned off. 2008 is OK.
Here we are at a low point. I remember there being loud complaints about the card number in 2009 Topps. I don't blame them. Dark, small numbers on a dark background. Just painful. The card number practically disappears if there isn't adequate light.
Topps listened because the next few years of card numbers were much better.
2010 and 2011, big numbers in a round circle! All you need are some stitches drawn in there. But you can't beat 2012 for readability. It's almost as if nothing on the card wants to get near it. And the surfboard is POINTING to it.
The last of its kind? The 2013 set marks the most recent time the card number was featured at the top left. And it's taking a ride on the back of the sea turtle.
2014 through 2016 alternates between not readable (2014 is so scrunched), readable (2015) and not readable (2016 -- gray, really?). 2015 also marks the debut of noting what series the card is in, which I don't think is necessary.
2017. The card number is playing on a slide.
2018, 2019 and 2020 are very similar. The card numbers could be difficult to read -- 2019 in particular -- but they're so far apart from the rest of the figures on the card that they don't get lost.
And that's your card number readability review through the years.
Who wins the prize for the most readable card numbers and the undying devotion of aging folks like me?
Well, 1953 for sure.
But just to humor myself, here's my top five:
1. 1953 Topps
2. 1992 Topps
3. 1959 Topps
4. 1976 Topps
5. 1973 Topps
Honorable mentions: 2002 Topps, 2007 Topps, 2012 Topps.
Comments
Also as a customs designer I understand why it ends up on the bottom. It's not "header" information when you're thinking about what to put on a back and most books have page numbers on the bottom corners. I definitely prefer top left as a collector though since it ends up being at the top of the cards both when they're vertical and horizontal in a box. Much much easier to flip through a box if the numbers are on the top edge.
I think you glossed over the 1975 set a bit there though. instead of being upper left corner, the number is almost halfway down the card, which makes them a bit of a pain to sort since you have to expose more of the card from beneath the one it is underneath in order to see the number.
As I don't look at cards beyond 1973, all the recent nonsense is of no consequence to me.
On a related note, I'm now in the market for one of those lighted magnifying glasses to help me read those extremely tiny CMP codes.
The series designation is unnecessary in the base cards, since the numbers will tell you that. What they need to do it put it above the inserts, especially when they continue a set over all three series and they're "initial numbered" or start over each time.
Numbers are better along the top edge vs. the bottom, and at the left side vs. the right because when you hold a stack front side up and flip it over, you don't have to rotate them to scan through the numbers on the back.
When I put a set in a box, I try to orient them so the numbers are facing up as was mentioned above. This means sometimes the cards are facing different directions in the box.