Question on baseball card production runs 1975-1980 (mostly)
Hello all. I am new to the forums and back into collecting after a LONG hiatus. I started picking up cards around 1976 until about 1982 from the local stores. From 83-85 I just picked up a few, and by 87, I was completely done. So I missed the "junk wax" era.
Here's what I understand and correct me if I'm wrong. (I know exact numbers are not available).
From what I understand, around 1981with the emergence of 3 companies, they started to really print and over print cards. By 1987 or so I read they produced 5 BILLION cards.
Up until about 1974, I understand around 330k per card. So, 660 cards per set, 217 million cards.
1980 is about 500k per card
What about 1975 to 1979? Are we still looking at 330k? Or was production ramping up through the years?
Again, I know lots of these numbers are guesses, but looking for some insight.
Comments
Hiya silvor
Welcome!
I have no idea.
What's your plan?
Have you decided on a "focus?"
Looking forward to your posts.
I wish Sy Berger would have done an interview in depth about the company before he passed away. I'm thinking a lot of the knowledge surrounding print runs, errors, corrections, etc went with him?
I've always assumed that the licensing agreement with MLB should spell out how many cards they are allowed to produce in a given year.
I actively collect Kirby Puckett. I have collections of Michael Jordan, Emmitt Smith, Roberto Clemente, Dwight Gooden, Tom Seaver, Errict Rhett and Evan Longoria.
Hi, hello, how are ya? - welcome
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Ralph
There are people with much more extensive knowledge than me on this topic. I'm not even sure that what I'm about to repeat is true, or just an urban legend, but I have always understood that the increased competition from Donruss and Fleer in 1981, coupled with the player's strike that same summer, crashed demand for 1981 Topps cards relative to the years preceding 1981. Now, whether that just caused more unopened supply of 81 Topps to be carried over to later years, or actually caused any significance decrease in production, I've never been clear one way or the other on that. Being that the question was regarding print runs of 75-80, if I had to guess, I'd rank the 660 card sets as having a higher print run per card, then the 726 card sets being a bit lower as far as the numbers of each card produced, with all of those in that range of 75-80 having a higher print run than the 81s. But again, that is just my guess.
I don't think mid to late 70s baseball sets were underprinted compared to early 80s sets. I think the value difference reflects the difference in quality control, quality of stock/print, and rate of retention between the time periods. Couple that with the popularity of protecting your cards in the 80s... older cards were tossed more frequently and are just harder to find in mint condition. If you don't care about condition, none of these sets are expensive to collect.
There doesn't seem to be any definitive answer to this, and it's a question that's been asked many, many times by all of us. What I always wonder is why there is no answer. I mean surely a company the size of Topps kept records of such things somewhere? In order to start a printing run and manage the massive production process, wouldn't they need to know how much they were making? If so, is there a reason that Topps wouldn't release this information?
TheClockworkAngelCollection