Old School Phillies Variations - 1963 Topps

There have been a lot of blog talk regarding the 2010 Topps variations with the Yankees Parallel versions, and the Lincoln Cards.

As you know Topps has had variations for ages, but back in the 60s these were more often honest mistakes corrected during subsequent print runs.

This all brings us to the Phungo Vintage Phillies Collection. Every once in a while happy accidents occur. I am in the process of collecting the entire Topps Run of Phillies cards through 1980. Most of my focus has been on the 1952-1974 cards so far. Until recently one of the card that I did not have was the 1963 #29 Rookie Stars card.

Then in roughly the same week, due to a bookkeeping snafu, I ended up with a duplicate of this card. One from a trade with Rhubarb_Runner and one via auction. For a second I was a little dismayed about the mix-up, but then I quickly realized that I had both ends of a variation!

1963 Topps #29 1962 Rookie Stars Ellis/Culp/Gonder/Boozer
1963 Topps #29 1963 Rookie Stars Ellis/Culp/Gonder/Boozer

Near as I can tell the cards match except for the year. The 1962 card is the "error" as the rest of the Rookie Quads in the 1963 set all specify 1963 rather than 1962.



1963 Topps #29 1962 Rookie Stars Ellis/Culp/Gonder/Boozer (b-side)
1963 Topps #29 1963 Rookie Stars Ellis/Culp/Gonder/Boozer (b-side)

The erroneous "1962" carries over to the flip-side of the card. Other than the title line the cards are identical.

I believe this is the first year that Topps featured the multi-player rookie cards. And this is the first of the card type in the set making this Topps first ever muli-player rookie card. Card #54 in the set is also a rookie card and also has the 1962/1963 variation.

For whatever reason the higher numbered multi-RCs are titled "1963 Rookie Stars" on the back rather than "1963 Rookie Parade". One of these cards is the #537 Pete Rose Rookie, which is on the heavy hitters of forged cards.