Topps Decade In Review: 1961-1970

It's been about a year since the last part of this series! I left you with the 1970s decade in review, and before that were the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s.

We still have two decades to go, and now I'm finally bringing it back! Here are the 1960s in order of worst to best designs as determined by my preferences alone. So there.

 The 1960s were the first of two decades of stagnation for Topps. At some points, I think they were just being lazy. Most of the designs this decade use plain rectangles full of text, or circles with text or pictures. The 1968 set uses a circle with text, which isn't bad in its own right. The real problem I have with this set is that it reminds me of 1960s wallpaper. The texture look is just extremely dated, in a non-reminiscent way. As a side note, when I went on a tour of a 1960s style "futuristic" house a couple years ago, it had wallpaper just like this set's border.

 If there wasn't wallpaper on the borders of the 1968 set, this 1970 issue would have been at the bottom of the list and the top of this post. A gray border with plain text on the front over a boring portrait photo and no logos to be found anywhere at the front of this card makes it about as boring as possible. At least Panini's recent offerings try to use some dynamic design.

 The 1961 design has some color to it, even if it's not team-specific, which gives this card a little boost. And at least Milt here gets to wear a cap. Really, there isn't much to say about this design other than it's got more color than the prior two.

 The 1966 design uses rectangles with text, but at least there's a diagonal rectangle in the upper corner with the team name! And colors again!

 The 1969 set is similar to the 1967 issue below, just with rounded corners and the use of a circle for the player's name and team. It's a little less appealing than the 1967 set because of the use of a text circle, though without a facsimile signature this design is probably better for autograph seekers.

 The only set of the decade with a facsimile autograph is the 1967 issue. Something else special about this design not found in any other 1960s release is the placement of all the text over the top of the photo. All other sets in this post use boxes, circles, or borders to place text (such as the 1969 issue above).

 Again, it's a tough decision to figure out how to rank all these cards in the 1960s. This 1964 card has lots of color, but what I really like is the lower-case printing for the position. They also did that in 1966.

 Some people are going to be mad at me for ranking the 1962 set so low, though I enjoy the wood design. But like the 1968 set, the wood borders with the peeling photo feels too much like fake wood paneling found on 1960s furniture, housing design, and even cars. The 1987 wood border set has grown on me, though, and this set might as well if I ever get around to collecting it.

 Now, the two cards that stand out and actually interest me. This set has a great colorful design and two photos on the front, the last time two photos would be used until 1983 - 20 years later. The 1963 set is one of my favorites, but the design is still quite simple.

Two years after the great 1963 set came this colorful, fun design. It was the only time in the 1960s - and the last time until 1985 - a team logo was used on the front of the card. The text and border use multiple colors and a pennant-shaped overlay holds the logo and team name. It's quite unique for the decade and a lot of fun. 

So what do you think? Any sets I ranked low that you absolutely love? Or any sets near the top that you despise? Let me know!

Topps Decade in Review: 1971-1980

Another day, another decade! This time, I continue my review with the '70s. While the 1980s were fairly mediocre, the 1970s have a collection of sets that are purely forgettable. The 1990s could be considered a decade of improvement - better card stock, better quality printing, and better design; the 2000s were a decade in modern design. The 1970s were evidence of complacency from manufacturing in a monopoly environment.

As always, here is a full decade of Topps, in order from worst-to-first designs (my opinion only).

 I started my journey in 1978, and this post begins with the same year. Could I have been born in a more boring year, as far as card design goes? There is no life in this card. I could have made this design in third grade. "I'll just show off my cursive handwriting here, and we gotta put the guy's name somewhere, so we'll put it in this empty space a the bottom... and what about the position? Oh, let's just put it off-center in a baseball out of the way." Bonus points to Jamie for trying to hit the cameraman with his bat.

 The 1977 was one of four years where flags or banners were used in card design. It's also the least attractive version. While there is some minimal effort in design, it feels like they said "hey, put everything up here, and we'll put the photo under it. Oh, and we need to put the facsimile autograph on, because we haven't done that enough this decade." If you ask me, and you didn't, the best design as far as facsimile signatures go is 1952.

 What makes the use of flags or banners on the 1970s cards less appealing is the fact that all four of them came between 1974 and 1980. This would be the first use, which isn't bad, really - it flows into the card. There is nothing interesting about the text, though.

It's the ultimate laziness to take the same design from 6 years ago, stylize it just a little, and call it a new issue. Who needs team locations in 1980? We can just put the position where the city was, and stick the player name in that big empty space at the top. Done!

This is the first "vintage" set I'm collecting (over 50% and counting!), but it's one of the least interesting. What makes this one better than those above? The iPod guy dancing in the bottom corner of the card. Each position had a unique shadow, adding a little bit extra to the 1973 set over most of the second half of the decade.

 Three years later, the iPod man becomes a full line art drawing, and the set receives an injection of color. The follow-up to the super-crayola 1975s had to have color, and this set does a pretty good job of including it. But I wonder if young collectors were disappointed with the return to plain white borders after the really fun 1975s.

If it wasn't for that little baseball in the lower left with the smiling topps logo, this set would be ranked much lower. 1979 is the last year in this list with a banner, and one of the least interesting. I'm giving this set too much credit just for including the logo, but it's the only set in the decade with the Topps logo on the front. In fact, I think it might be the first time Topps put its logo on the front of a card. (Vintage experts, correct me if I'm wrong.) That must count for something, right?

 I really like the 1971 set. The black borders are a departure from the norm and give the card a look of class. The font is unique, especially with the use of lowercase letters for the player and position. While I'm not focusing on photography, there are several interesting action shots in the set (and the only one I am showing this decade - purely based on random card picking).

These cards remind me of a movie marquee. I'm sure that's the idea, with the 3-D letters at the top and triple-bordering with their own borders (black, red, black, yellow, black, red, black, photo!). The player's name is shown like a headliner at a nightclub. Maybe Horace Clarke is doing stand-up comedy after the game! It's colorful and flashy, and fits right in the decade.

Is there any other set that could be called the best of the 1970s? The colors are bright and the borders aren't white - they're multi-colored! There's a shadowy, detailed baseball with the position, and the player's name is in another color! The team name is also shadowed and in yet another color. This set just oozes color. If you wring out a 1975 Topps, drops of different colors fall to your feet. It's not just a great design - it feels like Topps put all its effort for the decade into this one set - or at least all its effort for a few years. And then, it took the next decade off.

Check out the Number 5 Type Collection look at the decade.

Let me know what you think of my comments above! I want to close out this Topps series by the end of the year, so expect the '60s and '50s to follow within the next few weeks.

Topps Decade in Review: 1981-1990

I realize I've sort of misnamed these posts, but once I started the run, there really wasn't any turning back. This is the third in the series - I've covered 1991-2000 and 2001-2010 already. Have a look, if you're one of my new subscribers, to get an idea of what's going on here. (And welcome, to those of you who have recently subscribed!)

 1988 Topps is one of the least interesting card designs released as a major set of all time. They took the design elements of 1966 Topps and switched them - the team name runs across the top of the card instead of in a corner banner, and the player's name is in a banner instead of across the bottom. However, if Topps were to use this design today in a Stadium Club-style set, without the borders, I'd love it. There's just not enough quality to the printing or photography to focus so much on the photo, and leave so little to the design.

 If 1988 was boring, what is this? The only saving grace here is that I sort-of like the team name font with the black background at the top. It's like Topps was saying, "Hey, you liked the 1971 black bordered set so much, we'll give you just a taste of black border again in 1986!" Other than copying the team name font, this has to be the easiest card image to duplicate for spoofs or custom cards.

 This set is a little 1970s for use in a 1982 set. It reminds me of those technicolor logos and designs that were made to look like they were three dimensional. If this design was tweaked a little and used in 1973, it would have been great - just like the Bowman TV set!

 This 1984 set is only ranked so highly because of the second photo, but who wants a second photo of Craig McMurtry? Unless, of course, you're putting together a mustache set. Or a nerdy 1980s glasses set.

 Coming at 6th best of the decade is the 1989 issue. If you didn't start collecting in 1989 like I did, you would probably rank this much lower, and I had to let my feelings not become too involved when setting this list up. The 1980s Topps sets were full of straight edges and sharp corners in the design, and the softer cursive team names and sweeping banner for the player's name makes this design just a little more friendly than most. This is also the only set in the decade to use lowercase letters (other than the "topps" logo itself).

 A second picture is included with the 1983 set, just like the 1984 release. But this earlier issue ranks higher because there's a big circle instead of a box.

 I may anger some people by placing the beloved wood grain laminate 1987 set fourth in the list, but for a long time I would have placed this toward the bottom of the rankings. Only recently has the wood border design grown on me - and no, the 1962 set and this year's Heritage didn't help things.

 I may anger even more people putting the 1990 set so high on the list. 1990 holds a special place in my heart, with its bright, fun, colorful borders fading into each other. It's almost reminiscent of 1988 Donruss, which is kind of scary - or worse, a mesh of 1989 and 1990 Donruss. But it's the only set in the decade to use multi-colored borders, which kind of reminds me of a modern reworked version of the 1975 design.

 1985 works for me so well because everything is condensed at the bottom, easy to find, and colorful. The use of team logos (the first time since 1965 - correct me if I'm wrong) makes this card even more special.

The 1981 Topps set is a tough choice for first, mainly because the whole decade feels about the same. You would think that competition with Donruss and Fleer would have Topps trying some new things with design, but they stuck with their guns through most of the decade, turning out set after set of cards that for the most part have the same basic feel (and I don't just mean the cardboard). The sets of the early 1980s are generally a blur. I didn't collect until 1989, so cards from 1985 and earlier weren't exactly accessible to me in larger quantities. Add to that some generally boring designs full of closed boxes and circles, and the sets just didn't catch my interest. But the 1981 set is one I like, because of one little thing - the ball cap in the bottom left corner. There's just something special about it. Though I wish they would have stuck the position somewhere else and used a team logo on the cap.

If I had been collecting in the 1980s, I would have probably been a Fleer or Donruss guy, because so many of these designs just run together - white borders, even more colored borders inside those, blocky designs, and no team logos on gray card stock in a time when the other companies were turning out bolder designs and fanciful borders that were unique from year to year.

What are your thoughts on my rankings? What are your favorite designs from the 1980s Topps issues? What designs do you despise?

Topps Decade In Review: 1991-2000

Continuing my Topps rewind (see the first post here), here are the Topps sets of the '90s, in order from least to most favorite design. This is quite the scientific post, by the way, as I sampled hundreds of brain cells in my body to determine these results. I would have sampled thousands or millions, but I'm not sure I have that many left.

 1999 Topps. This set was issued early in a period when Topps was fascinated with gold bordered cards. It also has the least design effort to any set in the '90s. Had Topps used this basic design with full-bleed photos, I probably would have ranked it much higher, but the simple curved-corner line put with a strong border makes the design feel unfinished. The gold team name blends in with the brown dirt, while the foil player name disappears in the dugout. Not every card in the set will have these issues, but the tones just don't work well.

 1993 Topps. For most flagship issues from any manufacturer, I may not love a design, but I never start out hating it. This set is an exception. The harsh, jagged fonts paired with a technology-inspired straight-line banner makes me feel like I'm looking at a 1980s computer screen, or worse - a 1980s American-made automobile.

 1994 Topps. Compared to the 1993 release, this set is beautiful. It still has straight lines, but the fading team colors breaks it up and makes it feel more friendly. It's difficult to read the white team name and position when one of the fade colors is white. The use of cursive player names is unique to the decade, but I can see where children could have a hard time reading it. I'm just wondering - other than signing names, is cursive really used? I spent forever learning how to make that chicken scratch readable, always being warned that I'll need it in high school and college, but all my hand-written papers were in print.

 2000 Topps.With more gray than gold, the 2000 issue's border doesn't feel as intrusive as the 1999 card. Add to that a little bit more design aspects, and the set isn't ugly. The use of team colors in the bottom border is a nice touch, though it can be hard to read the gold foil (a problem with most foiled lettering). Bonus points for using the team logo.

 1998 Topps. Excessive borders make the photo feel smaller on this card, but the design is attractive. I like the picture frame style overlay, but I could do without the gold border. Again, dumping the border for a full-bleed photo would have made this a great design. I like the team logo tiled in team colors behind the player and team names. Again, gold foil can make that difficult to read.

 1997 Topps. This is one of the easiest-to-read foil lettered sets I've seen. The use of a team color shading helps the bold foil letters stand out, and the fade to white borders makes the card feel more like a full-bleed issue. The double border detracts a bit from the image size, but the design makes up for that.

 1991 Topps. This was the last flagship set issued by Topps on gray card stock. I'm not sure why I find this design as attractive as I do. The player's name and position are tiny and kind of tough to read. I think it has to do with the logo-style team names. Usually, if Topps includes team logos, they're the circular ones (see 1997 card above). The team color design doesn't intrude into the image space, and the 40 Years of Topps logo isn't huge but reminds you of the manufacturer's heritage.

 1992 Topps. Like the 1989 Topps issue, this set ranks high in my heart because it means something special to me. It was a step forward for Topps, as it's the first year they used white card stock, and the images felt crisper that year as a result. The design is similar to the prior year's set - team color lines around the photo, but this time the players occasionally jump out of frame (see the upper-left corner). The player's names are easy to read, even with the narrow font, and the team names are cursive-like without being cursive. Is there a name for that?

 1996 Topps. This set looks great, as does the year before (see below), because the design is minimal and is photo-oriented. The player's name appears in a simple fading banner across the bottom, with the added touch of a monochromatic "close-up" attached. The design elements that do exist are sharp and stylish, and the player's name is simple enough to read.

1995 Topps. There's a little more to this design than the 1996 set, and it's the touches they add that make it attractive in my mind. Oddly enough, the 1995 set is one of two I don't have. I like this set because of the painting-style border, with the team-color "shadow" effect. The font used for the player's name is unique and attractive, while not being too difficult to read. The feel of the set is that of an art studio, with the rough unfinished edges and handwritten names.

Some of you may not agree on my assessments. What do you think? Plenty of space below!

Topps Decade In Review: 2001-2010

Finally, peace and quiet. The house population is back down to two. For at least the next few weeks, I'll be able to do things on my schedule; there are no barbecues, dinner outings, or day-long hikes planned. I enjoy the company, but you know how busy things get when you've got company.

I found some time this weekend to sort some of my cards. The cards I have here for the Zoo are now sorted by year, and the smaller sets that were just piled randomly in a box are sorted by set. I even made nice labeled dividers with index cards! I feel like the Martha Stewart of baseball card collecting. Not really.

Now that I have more free time, I can get back to the On Location cards, and devote more time to the other blog. I can also get around to some of the other content-based post ideas I've thought about but not had the time  or inspiration to write, including this new series.

There are more than enough sites out there giving year-by-year in depth analyses of Topps products. I'm going to count down the ten sets of each decade from least-favorite to most-favorite design. Nothing but fun!

 #10: 2008. No love for this set out there. Last place for the decade was a toss-up between this and 2007. While this card has less wasted space, the team name presentation is irritating. Plus, I don't like the facsimile autographs on the card fronts. The indentation into prime upper-central space of the Topps logo is just the icing on the mold-covered cake.

 #9: 2007. Black borders chip very easily. The four-square design and massive empty black space on the card hides the fact that image quality isn't that great. The Topps logo ensures a massive amount of empty black space at the top, which could be better served by the team name being listed without the city in a larger font. The design is extremely plain. If the photography and image quality were higher and the black borders removed to make the card full-bleed, the design might work, but these are just big eyesores.

 #8: 2005. This year has an attractive design at first look, but there is way too much repeated information. The player's name and team name both appear twice on the card. The giant foil last name at the top of the card is only a tad bit less annoying than the team name in circles from the 2008 version. The use of team colors on the border is nice, and the use of a team logo is appreciated.

#7: 2006. Not too much improvement over the 2005 set, but there is a lack of repetition, and gone is the massive foil name over white space from 2004 and 2005. Speaking of 2004...

 #6: 2004. Similar to the 2005 version, the team name unnecessarily appears in giant foil letters at the top of the card. The rest of the design is attractive, as the card features team color borders, an unobtrusive team logo, and an attractive use of foil stamping at the bottom of the card, including the player's position and jersey number. A standout unique foil addition is the small player art in the bottom left, which is an outline of the image on the card.

 #5: 2002. I originally had this ranked much lower on the decade list, but had a change of heart. The yellow fool's gold borders are a big turn off, but the team color banners are unique for the decade. The player's name appears in one of the banners, and the team logo in another, in an attractive manner.

 #4: 2001. The use of a non-white border really helped move this set up the list. The player name and team logo appear non-intrusively at the bottom, making for an attractive simple design.

 #3: 2010. The first set as the newly-"exclusive" MLB manufacturer, the design is almost perfect. These days, card designs don't need a white border, and I believe this one would have been much better had the curving blue cover was shifted to the edges, allowing more photo space. Also, is it too much to ask Topps to use team logos instead of scripted team names?

 #2: 2003: This is the last in the series of colored borders, other than the black 2007 issue. This is a very attractive design, with small accents giving the card some added personality. This is the only flagship issue in the decade with a second image on the front, a portrait inside a baseball field outline. The excessive black space at the bottom of the card is minimal on vertical cards.

#1: 2009. While it's not my favorite Topps design overall, it is my favorite of the decade. The angled design accents don't intrude on the photo, and the team logo is presented nicely in a home plate graphic. My only real complaint: as with most Topps issues, the use of foil is overrated. As you can see from the scan, foil-on-black can be difficult to read.

Decade statistics:
I didn't collect sets for half the decade, so I still need complete sets for 2001 and 2003, and traded sets for 2001-2004 and 2009.