I
previously mentioned my purchase of a few vintage Cardinals at 25 cents a pop last weekend. This is the first time I've ever owned any '70s Topps Traded cards. The early traded sets were, as I recally, basically test ideas to see if they'd fly. It wasn't until 1981 that they began to do the sets annually with a national distribution. Pete Falcone was fairly unremarkable in his major league career, winning 70 games and losing 90. His hand-drawn hat is pretty goofy, though, so at least he has that going for him.
Mike Anderson was a light-hitting outfielder whose mustache was far more impressive than his statistics. Now, compare Anderson's hat with Falcone's. It's clear that there wasn't just one "airbrush guy" on the Topps staff. For some reason every airbrushed logo looks completely different.
Moving on to 1977, here's a guy named Dave Rader. 1977 was his only season as a Cardinal, so I guess it's somewhat permissable that he ended up being airbrushed. He was coming off of a season where he only appeared in about half of his team's games.
I guess I'm on the fence about this Don Kessinger. The logo and the uniform look a little off to me. He had been on the Cards for a full year when the card came out, but that's never stopped Topps before. This could be the real deal, though, but I'm not completely convinced.
I previously mentioned my purchase of a few vintage Cardinals at 25 cents a pop last weekend. This is the first time I've ever owned any '70s Topps Traded cards. The early traded sets were, as I recally, basically test ideas to see if they'd fly. It wasn't until 1981 that they began to do the sets annually with a national distribution. Pete Falcone was fairly unremarkable in his major league career, winning 70 games and losing 90. His hand-drawn hat is pretty goofy, though, so at least he has that going for him.
Mike Anderson was a light-hitting outfielder whose mustache was far more impressive than his statistics. Now, compare Anderson's hat with Falcone's. It's clear that there wasn't just one "airbrush guy" on the Topps staff. For some reason every airbrushed logo looks completely different.
Moving on to 1977, here's a guy named Dave Rader. 1977 was his only season as a Cardinal, so I guess it's somewhat permissable that he ended up being airbrushed. He was coming off of a season where he only appeared in about half of his team's games.
I guess I'm on the fence about this Don Kessinger. The logo and the uniform look a little off to me. He had been on the Cards for a full year when the card came out, but that's never stopped Topps before. This could be the real deal, though, but I'm not completely convinced.
I always thought the Kessinger was the real uniform. But I still look at that card with kid's eyes. I'll have to re-analyze with my grown-up eyes.
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