Sunday, August 3, 2008

1965 Topps Embossed

These cards were inserted into packs in 1965. Topps foil lust goes back farther than any of us ever imagined.

The set consists of 72 cards. Many stars of the day are included in the set. Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Ed Mathews, Moose Skowron, Zolio Versailles and many others grace this set.

Considered an oddball insert set, these cards can be a cheap and effective way to collect vintage cards of Hall of Fame players and 1960s stars. These cards literally litter eBay with their presence. They won't stand out on their own, but if you do a quick search, they will pop up.

The cards themselves measured 2 1/8 by 3 1/2 inches. American League players were framed in blue and National League players had red. The gold foil was standard, but there have been reports of silver foil cards lurking about.

And you thought that foil cards started in the nineties!

3 comments:

Spike Glidden said...

Thanks for the profile on these. Topps used a lot of effort on these cards, with the gold foil and die-pressed profiles, for what turns out to be kind of a disappointing set.

I agree that it's a good way to find affordable stars, but the 1964 Topps Giants are even better, at least for the quality of photos. You can even get a nice shot of the Mick in EX for less than $20.

Fleerfan said...

The main problem with this set is that the embossed picture really looks very little like the player, especially since most pictures are taken from the side and don't show any logo on the cap.

If you took a few of the embossed images and hid the name, I bet you'd have a hard time identifying most of the players.

I think this is why most collectors don't pay too much attention to this set.

--David said...

I have the Tribe team set of these, and have always thought they were very cool inserts!