The fine folks at Baseball Prospectus recently polled their staff to determine the best Topps design of the 1980s. Which annoyed me because … what a great idea! I have been meaning to do some polls over here, but hadn’t gotten around to it yet. So, better late than never …
Rather than copy BP completely, I thought we’d run our first poll using the 1970s. See? This is different!
I would like to ask all interested observers to rank the 10 Topps set designs, best to worst.
Rules:
- I would like you to consider the design of the set, both front and back. If you don’t care about backs at all, ignore it. If you are someone who grew up memorizing card backs, like I did, please consider the back heavily in your ranking.
- Ignore issues of set content (too many rookie cards, no league leaders, etc).
- Please consider the set’s “peak value”. Do not judge it by the ugly airbrushed cards that all these sets have to some extent. Ask the question: How nice are the best cards? With this in mind, I have included an example of an attractive card from each set. Feel free to consider these (or your own favorites) when scoring.
The purpose of these rules is not to steer you in one direction or the other. The purpose is simply to ensure that all of us are judging the same thing.
OK. Use the below as an initial guide, and send me your votes.
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
SABR's Baseball Cards Research Committee 
75 front and back the best 72,70,71,74,73,79,76,77,78
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71
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1974 best. I would have said 1971 but the backs not having year by year stats keeps me from voting for it. 1979 is the worst due both design and hard-to-read card #’s.
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71,72,75,73,74,70,77,78,76,79. Don’t care about the backs
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Just completed the survey with 1977 at the top. Thanks for initiating this discussion. At 53, I’m just now taking my first steps into collecting what I’ve discovered are called “vintage” cards. (That terminology stings a little.) Anyway, the ’68-’75 years are the ones that survived my childhood collecting, which saw plenty of flipping but not many bicycle spokes. Most of those years wound up near the top of my list, although ’75 was never a favorite. Having a blast with this.
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I’d have to go with the ’71 card. I like the front and the back, especially because there’s another picture of the player on the back, not a cartoon. It’s simple and sleek.
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I’d say 71, 72, 77, 74, 75, 78, 76, 73, 79, 70.
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