Friday, March 1, 2013

2013 Topps the Originals - 1964 Topps Giants

Today we look at a Set that Topps released in 1964, but wasn't issued with the base set.  The 1964 Topps Giants set was a near postcard sized issue of 60 cards.


1964 Topps Giant #7 Whitey Ford

I really like this design simple uncluttered.  I would like to see Topps bring this format back for the smaller traditional sized cards, just to see what it would like. Either Archives or Lineage including these cards as box toppers a few years ago, but I haven't picked any up yet. I would hope that 2013 Heritage would do the same thing this year, but I have not seen any indication that there are plans for including the larger format cards.


1964 Topps Giant #7 Whitey Ford (b-side)


I really like the flip side of these cards.  I have always been a fan of the newsprint format on cards. Having the 2nd photo on the cards is also a nice bonus.  The late Chris Stufflestreet wrote a fine column on this set in 2011 which you can find here.

Whitey Ford

For all of the card blogs I have read, I have not see many folks talk about Whitey Ford, which is a bit odd.  He is a Yankee and a Hall of Famer who was on Six World Championship teams. .

Ford won 236 games in the majors, leading the league 3 times. One of those seasons was 1961 when He went 25-4 and won the Cy Young Award.  He had an additional 10 World Series victories - over 146 World Series innings he compiled a tidy ERA of 2.71

Whitey Ford was also a 10 time all-star. Great all-around numbers and the guy lost 2 years to military service as well.  He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1974 on his second ballot.

Today Whitey Ford is still alive at age 84.  He worked the Philly Show within the last couple of years.

For the Collector

The 1964 Topps cards are not uncommon at shows and are usually reasonably priced. I picked the Ford card above up as part of a lot of about a dozen cards with many Hall of Famers. Whitey Ford made up about $2 of the lot price.  Recent Lo-Bay close $3.75 with six auctions ending at $5 or under. The High for a PSA 9 (Mint) auction was $48.50

Prior 1964 Topps the Originals Postings 

1964 Topps Design (Ray Culp, Lou Brock, Gus Triandos)  
1964 Topps b-Sides (Ray Culp)
1964 Topps League Leader Cards (Hank Aaron, Ken Boyer, Bill White) 
1964 Topps Team Cards (Phillies, Reds)  

More info on 1964 Topps

The full series is in the process of being covered at the 1964 Topps Blog 
Chris Stufflestreet - Vintage Sportscards 1964 Topps Giants
The Phillies Room has a posting on the 1964 Topps Phillies as part of the ongoing Topps Phillies Series.


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