Absolutely amazing set that I am still building but completely enjoy the design with the large picture and the format of the card backs. Easy to read and catagorize due to the larger numbers on the back unlike some of the latter topps issues. The team checklist cards with the facsimile autographs are top notch also. Probably one of the cleanest sets of the 1970's in my opinion coming only second to the 1971 Topps Black beauties! Again my opinion.

This is by far my favorite set by Topps.

Understanding the 1974 Topps baseball card set.

In 1974 Topps released its baseball card set in Its entirety instead of by series throughout the summer so it would not be competing with its Football set in the fall. Something it took the company 20 years to figure out. All 660 cards released at once. No high numbers any more*. The cards were printed on sheets that contained 132 cards. Five different sheets were printed totaling 660 cards (which is the number of cards in the set). No double printed or short printed cards like in the past.
The set was advertised as
“All 660 cards in one series”
It had an additional 24 checklist cards 1 for each team (These check list cards could be found in two variations; with one*or two**on the back of the cards)
And by the end of the summer traded cards were released randomly in the baseball card packs (43 player cards which numbers were the same as the players regular issued card but had “T” before the number plus an unnumbered checklist card).

Errors & variations
Card # 654 Jesus Alou was originally released without his position on the front of the card(later corrected).

Card # 608 (Rookie Pitchers) misspelled Bob Apodaca as Apodaco (later corrected).
Card # 161 Ray Burris’s card had the card number printed sideways on the back (not corrected).

*”High Number Cards”
Topps had a policy of taking returns on unsold cards so by the end of the summer when most kids interest waned from baseball and and went onto football cards the last series of baseball were not being bought as much as the first few series. Topps would take back the unsold cards. Thus players in the last series would not be as plentiful as others (scarcer “high numbers”).

So this brings us to the San Diego Padre’s debacle.
Before the season started the San Diego team was going to move to Washington so jumping the gun Topps released cards of some (not all?) of the San Diego players on cards that said “ Washington“on the top but not knowing what the team would be called the Knick name was listed as “NAT’L LEA.” ( National League) on the bottom. The move fell through and the team stayed in San Diego.
But hold on here’s the strange part. Only 15 of the 25 Padre cards were printed with the “ Washington” name on them (this included the team card as well as a multi 4 player rookie card).
With this said and the fact that all cards were released at once ( you could get card # 1 & card # 660 in the same pack) why isn’t there a Washington variation for each San Diego Padre player?
Here is a question I could not get anybody to definitely answer for me.
Example: card #173 Randy Jones could be found with both variations. Card #456 Dave Winfield only was issued at San Diego.
Here is my elusive question if card number 173 and 456 could randomly be found in the same package did tops knowingly put out San Diego cards and Washington cards at the same time? Or were they miss leading us in thinking that you could get cards of any number ( 1-660)in each pack? My guess is that although all cards were released at once only cards from each sheet were mixed together in each pack.