1969 Topps Baseball: Nolan Ryan (#533)

Look how young Nolan Ryan is on this card! This is back when he had 139 career strikeouts.

Set description I posted in Zistle

With the addition of 4 expansion teams in 1969, the Topps set ballooned to 664 cards. Horizontal backs returned, after a 2-year absence, making room for more stats on the back (such as league, and games played). Topps continued with the color-coding of teams used in the 1966 and 1968 sets, while adding pink and brown to the mix for the expansion teams. Most of the players for the Expos, Royals, Padres, and Pilots are seen in airbrushed or capless photos, but we start to see the new uniforms in the later series.

Among the cards are 25 manager cards (2 for the Senators), 12 league leader cards, 8 World Series cards, 20 all-star cards, 4 multi-player cards, and a whopping 52 rookie stars cards. For the first time in a decade, there were no team cards. (Topps would reinstate all team cards in the 1970 set.)

The 1969 set includes the final cards for at least 50 players, including long-time veterans Mickey Mantle, Don Drysdale, Johnny Podres, Roy Face, Ken Boyer, Ron Kline, Turk Farrell, Bill White, Woodie Held, Russ Nixon, Leon Wagner, Gary Bell, Wayne Causey, Bill Monbouquette, Jim Pagliaroni, Ruben Amaro Sr, Gene Oliver, Phil Ortega, Charlie Smith, Ken Johnson, and Dave Wickersham.

Others whose final card is in the 1969 set include Dan Osinski, Fred Whitfield, Chuck Cottier, Don Nottebart, Bob Rodgers, Ed Charles, Jesse Gonder, Jack Hamilton, Lou Johnson, Don Lock, Cap Peterson, Dick Radatz, Dick Tracewski, John Boozer, Galen Cisco, Sammy Ellis, Bob Hendley, Gary Kolb, Frank Kostro, Bubba Morton, Dave Nicholson, Dave Adlesh, Bob Chance, Mel Nelson, Dennis Ribant, Bill Short, Ron Davis, Vic Roznovsky, and Roland Sheldon.

Notable rookie cards in the set are Reggie Jackson, Bobby Bonds, Del Unser, Joe Rudi, Sparky Lyle, Bob Watson, Aurelio Rodriguez, Dock Ellis, Bill Melton, Freddie Patek, Elrod Hendricks, and Bobby Cox (all with “solo” cards). Those on Rookie Stars cards include Rollie Fingers, Ray Fosse, Graig Nettles, Don Money, Ken Brett, as well as Al Oliver and Richie Hebner on the same card.

1969 rookies with significant playing time who were omitted from the set include Wayne Garrett, Rod Gaspar, Gail Hopkins, Ken Tatum, and Al Raffo.

Topps began issuing their annual "traded" sets in 1981. Prior to that, there was a handful of "traded" cards in the 1972 and 1974 sets. Even earlier, 2 unofficial "traded" cards appeared in the 1969 set. The Clay Dalrymple card was issued with 2 different photos – one as a Phillie, and another capless photo as an Oriole. The Donn Clendenon card also had 2 variations. Although the same airbrushed photo was used on both cards, one shows him as a Montreal Expo, while the other shows him as a “Houston”.

Significant errors in the 1969 set:
- The Aurelio Rodriguez card has a photo of the Angels’ batboy.

Other quirks in the 1969 set:
- As in the 1968 set, all Astros players are shown with a team name of “Houston”.
- Jim Hicks appears on the Cardinals Rookie Stars card, after having his own card in the 1967 set as a member of the White Sox.
- Hawk Taylor, who had cards in the 1966 and 1968 sets, appears in the 1969 set as Bob Taylor.
- Orlando Martinez, who had cards in the 1967 and 1968 sets, appears as Marty Martinez from 1969-72.

1969 Topps Baseball

Friday, December 13, 2013

Nolan Ryan (#533)

2 comments:

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Set description I posted in Zistle

1969 Topps Baseball

Friday, December 13, 2013

Nolan Ryan (#533)

2 comments:

About Me

*** SET NOTES ***

MY OTHER BLOGS

POPULAR 1969 POSTS

1963, 1965-1970 BLOG INDEX

On-deck for 1969

Top 20 players not yet blogged

Oldest living players (from 1966-70) not yet blogged

Search My Blogs

Visitors since opening day (3/13/2009)

Followers

For 1969 cards and more, visit:

My Vintage Card Census

RECURRING SERIES

BLOG ARCHIVE

VINTAGE YEAR BLOGS (1951-80)

CUSTOM CARD BLOGS

OTHER BASEBALL BLOGS

LABELS

Set description I posted in Zistle

* SET NOTES *

Visitors since opening day
(3/13/2009)