I was pulling basketball cards for The Collector's Basketball Swap Meet and decided to throw in the two 1980's I had, so I snapped this photo first so I could cover 1980 for this series.
I also have 1980 Baseball and Football. Not the most inspiring year for card design, is it?
Very simple designs. The baseball set has a couple of pennants/ribbons, very similar to the 1974 set. Football's design is a little more original, though the name in the football kind of looks like a hot dog in a hamburger bun. The basketball set is completely ridiculous - tear-off mini cards that must have gotten lost so easily, with a design nearly identical to 1978 baseball.
Maybe even more ridiculous is what Topps did for Hockey that year. The cards were full sized, but the player's name only appeared on the front, not the back, and you had to scratch off a coating to find out the player's name. I had first heard of this quite recently from the Nine Pockets blog. Stealing this image from that blog as well:
And for soccer, Topps did something pretty similar to basketball. Looks like the '74 American Football set, with the goal posts turned into a full rectangle.
By far the best design to come out of Topps in 1980 was their Empire Strikes Back set. (I collected the entire Return of the Jedi set when I was six years old in 1983; I don't own any older Star Wars cards, unfortunately.) The silvery, metallic-looking background really stands out.
The other movie set put out that year, Superman II, seemed pretty tame by comparison, though colorful. I imagine every child who pulled this card out of a pack decided that Clark Kent was smelling something that rhymed with scoop.
Other than the usual Wacky Packages, the only other set put out this year was Weird Wheels, with all kinds of bizarre cars. The focus here is on the artwork, with the image's name a part of the painting.
I have no idea what was going on at Topps in the early '80s. The baseball sets were fine back then, but the basketball and hockey concepts were strange. The Bird/Magic RC from that set would have been a lot better if Topps had created a 4-in-1 card like the rookie stars of baseball. Can't imagine how many were detached due to those perforated strips.
ReplyDeleteAnd the hockey card concept would have worked better in Canada, where "guessing" the players' names might have made more sense. (shrug)
1980 being of the end for Basketball and Hockey (for 2 years), Baseball and Football very below average designs - the soccer cards look ok
ReplyDeleteThose soccer card panels are cool. Hadn't seen those before. Loved ESB trading cards. I meant to purchase the entire 3 series set... but missed the boat before prices started going up.
ReplyDeleteThe basketball and hockey cards were an attempt to draw kids/collectors to the cards. Basketball was practically ignored at the time (the reason Topps stopped producing cards), and hockey didn't sell well either.
ReplyDeleteLove the Empire Strikes Back set. Outside of the 1980 baseball cards, those are the packs I bought the most that year.
Sports wise, 1980 was not a good year for Topps.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't seen those soccer cards before. So we've successfully introduced each other to a set from 1980!
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