I just learned something about 1971 OPC baseball

BaltimoreYankee

I've known for quite some time that the fronts are the same as 1971 Topps and the backs are an easier to read yellow (with a nicer photo in the middle) with text in English and French. I just bought a small group and was surprised to see the high number backs are the same format as Topps (and no French text). I wonder why they changed like that.

brad31

I didn’t know that either. Thanks for posting.

craig44

I have a few 71's. Guess they are all low numbers. I didn't know that either.

waxman2745

Congrats on your pickup, Daniel! The Killebrew and a few other cards from this lot looked good so I placed a bid. OPC started printing French text on the cards in 1970, but the last 2 series of 1971 are English. I'm not sure how OPC was able to "get away" with this because I thought there was a law mandating the bilingual cards starting in 1970.
1971 is the only 70s OPC issue with English cards. In 1972, OPC went back to bilingual, but they did not print the last 2 series.

krisd3279

I have been working on '71 Topps. I didn't know about this difference in the last 2 series of '71 OPC. That's kind of interesting. That's the sort of thing that might make me want to collect them.

BaltimoreYankee

Adam - I had heard something about the bi-lingual law in the past. Maybe they didn't have the resources to re-do the backs of the last 2 series of '71s. Interesting too that they didn't do the last 2 series of 1972 baseball.