In 1974, the overall theme at Topps seemed to be: take one element of each sport, and build a card around that.
I have cards from the baseball, football and hockey sets.
The football set works very well with the goalpost as a framing device. In hockey, they used a hockey stick as the left border. (Kind of like the '82 baseball set with the "hockey stick" in the same place. The bottom of the card foreshadows the '76 baseball set.) Baseball is a bit of a stretch with this theme, as pennant flags are less a part of the game then a bat or a ball.
Basketball fit the theme very well though:
Other than several series of Wacky Packages, it was a light year on the nonsports front, with just one set, for Evel Knievel. The US flag motif works pretty well as the "one design element".
Sports cards had a white background; nonsports had blue. The only other set Topps attempted to put out was a test set for the Six Million Dollar Man. Perhaps it tested poorly because it had no core design element?
The basketball design is really cool. Never made the connection between the '74-75 hockey set and the '76 baseball set. Good eye, Bo!
ReplyDeleteSo that's a BUYBACK of the Six Million Dollar Man card? Wonder what product it comes from. Weird.
ReplyDelete1974 was pretty prime collecting days for me. Had plenty of all four sports, although I don't remember buying any Evel Kinevil cards (and I certainly had some interest in his stunts, I remember reading a book about him).
I don't know what else they could have done.
ReplyDeleteMusic was in a transitional period.
Godfather II came out in '74, so maybe a set combining the first two?
I'm not a fan of any of that years sports designs.
ReplyDelete