1971 Topps Baseball Forum

8 cards for 10 cents was the pricetag for a wax pack of Topps baseball cards back in 1971.  Although the pack price remained the same from the previous year, the number of cards included actually decreased by 2.  I wonder how kids felt back then about getting shorted by two cards in every pack.

At 752 cards, the 1971 Topps set was the largest produced by Topps to date--and only their second ever set to include over 700 cards.  The black-bordered design was the first of it's kind for Topps, complementing the previous year's grey-bordered design very well in my opinion.

The card backs contained only partial career statistics of each player for the first time since 1962.  It was also the last time that Topps included only partial career statistics of each player on the card back.  Insert sets found in 1971 Topps wax packs included Topps Scratch-offs and Topps Coins.

What thoughts or memories do you have on the 1971 Topps set?

The first set i actively collected when i was about 10.  I was a huge Brooks Robinson fan at the time and remember trading away a bunch of cards to get one.  There was some guy named Reggie Jackson who i had about 20 cards of so he was the favorite guy to put in the spokes of my bike wheels.  My mom didnt throw them out when i went off to college and i got back into cards in the late 80s during the junk wax era.  i slowly bought cards to complete and upgrade the set and finished it in about 1991 and everything went back into storage.  I ended up selling it and most of my other cards in about 2011 to make room and just held onto my partial sets of 1957 and 1961 in binders.  I got back into active collecting last year and found TCDB.  i have expanded my wants since then, but i just cant do another '71 set because i was so picky about the black borders (which some of the more unscrupulous dealers would doctor with black magic markers).  it will always hold a special place for me and i can say i built a complete set by hand.