Question- when did Topps football cards typically come out?

RedHeart54

Does anyone remember what time of year Topps football cards typically came out in the 1970s/1980s? Was it early August (i.e. pre-season time) or closer to September?

Alfonz24

I think it was usually around labor day.

I know with baseball, it was always around the start of the season until Fleer and Donruss jumped in 1981. Then the 3 companies kept trying to release before the others.

CON40

I recall them coming out in mid-late August because I always had a stack before school started.

Yankeeefan

Football usually came out with about 7-10 days left in August. I think in the early 70s they came out a much closer to Labor Day weekend (or just after) because the last series of baseball had only come out a few weeks earlier.

Griffins

on the west coast it was always around labor day. Like the ads on TV for the new fall season it always signalled the end of summer

baseballfanatic

I guess a lot depended on where you lived. I remember being in school for a couple of weeks before being able to buy them, if at all.
Sometimes (I lived in a REALLY small town of a couple 100 people) you could buy them if the store owner only had a couple of packs left in his last box of baseball. These were the days when the local Mom and Pop store would only put out one box at a time (other than that famous Woolworth's picture with the boxes of 52 Topps), and the only way they would even buy football was if all of their baseball boxes were sold out by the end of August or early September.

Some years we wouldnt even have football cards. Definately NEVER hockey or basketball. My father would pick us up boxes for Christmas of hockey and basketball because the larger stores in our area never sold any, so you could pick up the boxes at about 1/2 price during the holidays to make a nice, cheap Christmas present for a kid..

RedHeart54

The reason I ask is because I just bought an autographed 1978 Topps Darryl Stingley card. He was injured August 12th, 1978 so I'm just curious if it was conceivable that he signed it prior to that date. (Despite the paralysis he had enough movement of his right arm to sign as there are signed copies available of his 1983 book.)

rise2it

'78 was the year the NFL went to 16 games, with a 4 game preseason.

Prior to that, it was a 14 game schedule with 6 preseason games.

It seems it would be possible that someone at camp got the autograph - gotta remember things were MUCH looser in those days - not the media hoopla that surrounds everything today, and NE wasn't that hot of a team at the time.