Heritage 2015 and Topps 1966 Side By Side

I've done this every year since I started the blog back in 2009.  You can see all the other comparisons here.

The 1966 Topps design is about as basic as you can get; arguably its pretty boring.  You've got a diagonal stripe in the upper left hand corner with the team name.  The players name and position is on a stripe at the bottom of the card.  Put a black line around the picture and you are finished.

It should be pretty easy for Topps to duplicate on the Heritage cards.

It should be.

It wasn't.  Take a look:

 

The orange color on the Heritage cards seems to have more yellow in it.  And speaking of yellow, why in the name of Sy Berger is the player's name on the Heritage cards yellow instead of white??  And why isn't the position in black??

Can it really be that hard to match up the colors?

In 1966 the Cubs and Sox shared the same orange color, white names, and black position.

And Topps got it right on the Sox Heritage cards.

So what's the deal with the Cubs??

At least once a year I offer my services to Topps as the official Cubs product proof reader. I again make the same offer, at no charge. I just want to see things done properly!

End rant.... back to the side by side comparison.

 

 

 

 

Here's the infielders.  The 1966 set is the first time the 1969 Cubs infielder each had their own card.  They'd be together for the next five years.  The Heritage Cubs won't ever be together since Valbuena was traded.

 

 

 

We've got pretty slim pickings with both sets in the outfield.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can see that the 1966 Cubs were pretty thin in the pitching department.  Hopefully the 2015 team's staff does better.

 

...Just as thin behind the plate.  The best catcher for the '66 Cubs was on a rookie card.

The 1966 rookie card has two players that were big names for the next several years.  I hope the same is true of the Heritage card.  Also notice how the colors for the player's name and position is correct on the rookie card.  Don't you just love the consistency at Topps??

Topps 1965 and Heritage 2014 Side by Side

Each year I like to take a look at the Heritage set side by side with the original cards.

Let's start with the design.

 

The two match up fairly well but I have spotted a few differences.  One I've discussed in previous posts--not using the same logo.  The red-bordered area on the Heritage  cards is just a bit shorter than the originals.  It's hard to tell on the two cards above, but check out the Banks and Rizzo cards below and you'll see the difference.  A third difference is a minor one....the 2ND on the original cards is in all capital letters, while on the Heritage version the ND uses lower case letters.

I don't know if it would be a design issue, but the biggest gripe I have with Heritage are the backgrounds on the pictures.  Look at Barney's.  Topps goes with the posed shot, which would match up with '65 cards.  But the background...plain ugly blue.  That looks terrible when compared to the look at Shea Stadium we get on Amalfitano's card.  I don't want fuzzy backgrounds, I want to see ballparks!

 

Boy would it have been awesome if Topps could have gotten Rizzo to pose sideways like the Banks card. In fact, that should be the SP variation theme that Heritage uses.  Have a regular card, but then have the SP mimic a pose from the original.

 

There's an SP that I would chase!

Here come the rest of the 2014 Heritage cards along side a comparable player from the '65 set.