I came around

 

Completing the 1970 Topps set is not just the end of a set-building journey for me, but the end of a road to realization that took much longer than the approximately seven years I spent completing the set.

I will never say 1970 Topps is my favorite set. Even among Topps sets of the 1970s I can probably put it above only 1979. But I'm a long way from what I thought of the set as a youngster or even in the first year or so of writing this blog. For years I thought it was the dullest, most lifeless set I had ever seen. It looked a lot like 1969 Topps to me, except '69 Topps at least had those little colored circles on every card.

 

Granted, I had grown up on '70s sets, what was I supposed to think? But it took actually attempting to complete it for me to come around. Sure, it's still filled with way too many crew-cut heads but I now know that I would have missed a whole lot had I not collected it.

 

With the binder now complete (yes, I rechecked), I thought I'd go through 10 elements that make the 1970 set worth collecting. I'm not going to discuss design or even the backs (though the cartoons are great). I'll focus mostly on pictures and subject matter, maybe a couple other things.

 

 

1. Starting the set with a team card

Not just any team card, but the team card of the "World Champions". They're not even going to mention the team name -- you should know it.

This was the first of three straight years that Topps began its set with a team card of the previous year's World Series winner. The '70 set marked a new commitment to the team card that would last the whole decade.

 

2. A full team of Pilots for the last time

The 1970 set is the only Topps set where you can find a full collection of players in Seattle Pilots uniforms. The '69 Topps set showcased only a scant few in actual Pilots uniforms and by the 1971 set everyone was a Milwaukee Brewer.

 

3. A healthy obsession, maybe unhealthy obsession, with bats

I've written about the number of bat rack photos in 1970 Topps previously. So many good ones -- Tony Taylor, Harmon Killebrew, Andy Etchebarren, Bob Oliver and others. Then there are the bat grocery carts (Del Unser) and the careful bat selection (Jose Laboy). Displaying multiple bats really seemed to be a thing from the 1950s into the '70s and somehow we lost it and really need to get back to it.

4. Actual background and players in the background

Topps doesn't like backgrounds anymore. But once upon a time its card sets had character. Maybe the backgrounds weren't as artfully presented as Dick Hall's card here, but you could guarantee that they would be interesting.

5. Individual League Championship Series cards

Granted, 1969 marked the first League Championship Series and 1970 was the first time Topps could chronicle them. So it went all-out with a card for each game of each series. Just wonderful and I miss such individual dedication.

 

OK, so Topps didn't know how to spell "squeaker" in the early '70s.

6. Displaying "The Bo pose"

Bo Jackson was 8 years old in 1970, yet somehow ballplayers knew how to cradle a bat behind their shoulders.

7. The return of the Sporting News All-Stars

 

I admit the similarity of the 1970 Sporting News All-Stars to the 1961 ones of the same name gets confusing. This is one case where gray borders come in handy as an identifying tool. But I'm a sucker for the newsprint look on cards.

 

 

8. BUNTS

So, so, so many bunt poses in this set. Every one is charming.

9. Cards that I recall from childhood

I didn't start owning trading cards until 1974 so anything before that trickled into my collection from here or there. Each of these cards were ones I spotted as a youngster, either in my collection or my brother's. They are among the first 1970 Topps cards I ever saw -- probably the moment when I thought, wow, these things are dry.

 

10. A few all-time classics

The 1970 set may not be able to stand up to my favorite sets in terms of the entire set but it can produce individual cards that would appear on any all-time greats list. And you can't say that about any flagship card produced in probably the last 15 years. Or more.

As I mentioned on last week's post when I finished the set, this is the second-oldest major set that I have completed, with '56 Topps in 2021 being the oldest. It feels good and it feels like an accomplishment. The high numbers for this set may not be as tough as the ones I encountered in completing the 1971 and 1972 sets, but it was still a challenge.

I wanted to complete this set mostly to have all of the 1970s Topps sets finished and that is now done. I also have the Topps run from 1970-1991 complete.

So what's next? I definitely want to get that 1992 set, probably will just grab the whole thing. The next long-range project is completing 1969 Topps. I have a good chunk of it but Ryan and Reggie still loom.

And there's the matter of 1967 Topps, which just doesn't seem possible as a completion project. But you just never know.