A Year of Topps Designs: 1961

1961 seems to have been a quiet year at Topps, compared to other years of the era. That quietness is reflected in both the numbers and designs of their sets in '61.

The baseball set is the only set of any kind with a photo background in 1961. Two simple boxes at the bottom with the player's pertinent information form the only design element on the card.

Like the baseball design, but not having a background? Then the football set is for you. A very similar bottom, just with one box instead of two, and a monochrome background.

Hockey always went with the artificial background. There is some more life to this design with the colored boxes. This was also the only set of the year with text at the top of the card.

The only other "serious" set was for sports cars. No movies, TV or music for Topps in '61. This set combines elements of the baseball and hockey designs, with a horizontal alignment.

The only other Topps sets in '61 were two humourous sets, both of which have a more-or-less serious front, with a punch line on the back. One was Funny Valentines. The front starts off innocently enough...

...until the back drops the hammer.

If you didn't like that "humor", you probably won't care much for the humor in the only other Topps set of the year, Crazy Cards. The front provides some seemingly innocuous trivia . . .

. . . with a "crazy" twist on the back. Many of them involve someone getting killed or seriously injured. It's definitely one of Topps's darker sets.