Welcome To 1964 Topps Baseball Cards
With big transitions happening in major league baseball in 1964 the league was changing and the old champion teams were being replaced by upstart rising clubs. Topps had some changes in store that year as well. They were now on top of their game in the trading card business and even saw rival competitor Fleer fold its operations.
They needed to make some decisions about the appearance and style of the 1964 set. They had borrowed elements of sets from the 50's for 1963; they had used wild color schemes for sets a couple years before that, they had experimented with wood grain and other border themes earlier in the decades. What would be the design direction for 1964 They ended up going with a similar layout to the ones they had used in '58 and '61.
The base element was a full color action photo with a simple black name panel at the bottom which contained only the player's name and abbreviations for their and field position. At the top of the card, was a white panel containing the player's team name printed in big colored block lettering. This all made for a sleek and traditional looking front design. The card backs were even more basic. There was a biographical blurb and a stat chart in orange lettering against a white background and below that was a mystery cartoon panel. This panel was only visible after the collector had rubbed off a scratch-off type covering. Scratching this off of course instantly lowered the future value of the card, but no would have known that at the time.
There are 587 cards in the set and building a full set is not too difficult other than a few scarce high numbered cards. The set included individual player cards, team cards, League Leader cards, rookie star cards, and more. There was also a World Series subset from #136-140 depicting the Dodger's 1963 drubbing of the former-champion Yankees. The set included 7 checklist cards as well. The seventh checklist, card #517, has two variations. In one of them the card numbers in the checklist are sequenced out of order, and the other variation has them sequenced correctly.
The crowning card of this set is #50 Mickey Mantle. The photo on this Mantle card is very dramatic and captures his drive and determination to make a return to his former glory. It is quite a different look for Mantle who on his earlier cards appeared much more happy go lucky and cheerful. The Pete Rose card #125 is the polar opposite. On this, Pete Rose's second baseball card appearance, he looks young, happy and content.
The #440 Roberto Clemente card is notable for the typo 'Pittsburth' printed on its back. The Willie Mays, Koufax, Maris, and Aaron cards are some of the other standouts of the set. There were some key combination cards in this set too. These included the AL Bombers card #331 that features Maris, Mantle, Norm Cash, and Al Kaline who had been fierce competitors in the hitting race a few years earlier. The Best in National League card with Hank Aaron and Willie Mays is another stunner of a combo card as well.
Among the many rookie cards of the set, only a few have real lasting value. Tony LaRussa, Lou Piniella, Richie Allen, Tony Conigliaro, Tommy John, and Phil Niekro are probably the most noteworthy of the featured rookies.