I knew that Topps reused his '67 picture for the '69 card. They did a lot of that with the '69 set.
But I never realized that Topps did it again in 1971 and 1972. I think the wild border and colors of the '72 set kept me from really looking close at the pictures on the cards. But not too long ago as I was paging through my 1970s binder, I saw the repeat. Topps did crop the '72 a little differently, so the repeat isn't as noticeable as the '67-'69 repeat. Plus, Topps did have an excuse: Hundley was injured for most of 1971. After missing most of April with a sprained knee, he came back in May, but ended up needing season-ending surgery. He played in only nine games, none in New York, so the Topps photographers missed him. Of course, you would think Topps would have had a few other photos of Randy laying around from other shoots that they could have used. But no, they took the easy way out and just reused the '71 picture.
After find the second repeat, I went through all of my Hundley cards to see if he was repeated any other times. Topps was off the hook...
...but the Pacific Legends set isn't. They used the same picture that Kelloggs used in 1970. The Kelloggs card is cropped much tighter, but if you look closely, you'll see that they are the same pictures.
Poor Randy....Poor Randy....Poor Randy!!
Technically, the shot on the 1972 card looks like a different exposure from the same photo session. Notice the grandstands peeking through the space between his helmet and bat in the 1972 card, where there is none showing in 1971 when his helmet overlaps his bat slightly, sealing off the gap in the first shot, which appears to have been shot at a slightly lower angle.
ReplyDeleteGood eye, Spyboy. I would have to say the two were taken within seconds of each other because the clouds are in the same spot.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how many players got repeated cards from Topps? Between 1965 and 1969, Willie Mays has 2 pairs of repeated photos, Woodie Fryman in 1968 & 1969, some others I forgot now.
ReplyDeleteTopps blunders are so frequent that I have a post label (That's just Topps being Topps) devoted to just that on my blogs.