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Different Year, Same Number
PaulMaul
Posts: 4,707 ✭✭✭✭✭
Can anyone give another example of a player that had the same card number in two different years? 🤔
The cards should be the player’s primary card, so for example, Hank Aaron’s 1974 card #1 and 1975 Highlights card #1 don’t count.
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I figured there must be some examples with stars. With commons, it’s really quite a fluke!
Johnny Unitas has #1 6 or 7 times.
generally Topps leads off older sets with a prominent figure or an exclusive award. Ex last years MVP
leads off set with #1 Roger Maris 1961 MVP. 1962 Topps #1.
1948-76 Topps FB Sets
FB & BB HOF Player sets
1948-1993 NY Yankee Team Sets
Yaz was #280 in 1974 and 75 Topps.
Yaz Master Set
#1 Gino Cappelletti master set
#1 John Hannah master set
Also collecting Andre Tippett, Patriots Greats' RCs, 1964 Venezuelan Topps, 1974 Topps Red Sox
I wonder if any of these are not a coincidence? Particularly the Yaz being back to back years. 🤔
Reggie Jackson #200 in '78 and '85
#500 in '76 and '83
#700 in '79 and '86
#300 in '75, '82 and '87
Pretty sure Jordan has everybody beat on this one, must be close to 100 cards #'d 23
I thought the Amos Otis was much more interesting than any of these other examples. Seems completely random.
Nolan Ryan had card #1 in 1990, 1991, and 1992.
They had to pledge their allegiance to Satan for 5 years, but the eventual result at the end of that 5 years was a World Series title.
actually kinda common with topps chrome basketball cards I believe. I know Yao Ming had a few years where his cards were #11 for a few years in a row.
myslabs.to/smzcards
@countdougIas Can that be a coincidence?!
The reason is the card companies were lazy. They kept the same order sometimes. In the 60's there are several instances of them using the same photo multiple years. Many photos were even taken in the same spot (Yankee Stadium) year after year.
I seem to vaguely recall in the article that I read that first alerted me to the Tigers 666 association that a Topps employee at the time confessed that they had a great dislike for the Tigers, and it was their personal inside joke. It just kind of worked out that they won the World Series after their "deal with the devil", which ended when that employee was no longer in position to arrange the uncut sheet layout. There may be no factual basis to that story, and purely coincidence, I guess.
Who was 666 in 1979 and 1985? Admittedly, I'm too lazy to look.
I seem to recall that this supposed Topps employee was an Indians fan from Ohio with a distaste for all things Michigan related. Again, maybe I just have an active imagination and have made the whole backstory up in my mind. It's an interesting numbering quirk, anyway.
Mike LaCoss in 85, Rich Dauer in 79.
I remember that Topps would assign prominent numbers to big name stars. For instance, card #;s 100, 200, 300, etc. would always be the biggest stars in the game that year, while numbers ending in 10, 20, 30, etc. were lesser stars, but stars nonetheless. This was especially true in the 1980's Topps sets, and apparently in the 70's also.
This would explain why big name stars such as Aaron, Ryan & Ripken often had the same number in multiple year's sets.
Exactly. That’s why I thought the Amos Otis example was unusual.
@PaulMaul Amos Otis was a 5X All-Star and 3X gold glove winner in the early 70s, and was a key player on those winning Royals teams of the late 70s, so he would have fit the criteria of having a card number ending in X0. Not a 00 or 50, but deserving of "star player" recognition by Topps. Coincidence that it was 510 two different times, but 1975 was 520, 1972 was 10, 1977 was 590, 1978 was 490, 1979 was 360, 1980 was 130.
That is an interesting story and run of cards. That seems to be the only reasonable explanation of only a Tiger card getting that number for so many years in a row. No way that was accidental.