Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Someone At Topps Forgot the Giants Moved to San Francisco

Topps was founded and based in New York City.  It still is.

It would be safe to assume that most of the workers are fans of the New York baseball teams.  Back in the '50s I suppose there were Giants and Dodgers fans working for Topps.  When the teams moved west, did they continue to root for their transplanted teams?

Were they bitter and swore off their former team?  Or did they wish their teams would come back home?

It looks like there was one employee at Topps that wished the Giants would return, or was in denial that the team even left.


This is the Billy Williams leader card from 1965 that I showed last week. Everything on the front is fine.  Now look at the back.  Check the first name on the list.


Right at the top, Willie Mays is shown as Mays, N.Y.

It should be Mays, S.F.

Was someone wishing the Giants were back in New York?  Someone forget the Giants moved out west?  Someone have a crystal ball and knew that Willie was going to the Mets in 1972?

Its odd that the error wasn't caught by anyone.  You'd think that someone would have noticed.

After I saw the error, I wanted to find a little more about the mistake.  I did some googling and found no mention of the error anywhere.  I then looked up the '65 set in the Standard Catalog and again, nothing.  I haven't seen any checklists that designate the card UER, uncorrected error.

This article from PSA mentions ten or so uncorrected errors but makes no mention of the Mays mislabeling.

The checklist here puts the UER designation on several cards but not this one.

Here's another checklist with some UERs but not on #4.

Doesn't anyone care that the Giants were no longer in New York?

4 comments:

  1. Wow that is a nice catch. Yes I to do care. I am also glad it is an UER (and one that wasn't noticed) so that I don't have to chase the two variants of this card to complete my '65 set. I only have 1/3 of the set and still need this card.

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  2. They misspelled your favorite player, too.

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