1964 Topps

The NBA Hall of Famer Who Pitched for the Chicago White Sox

by

Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson are two of the most famous, “modern,” two-sport professional athletes. But did you know there is an NBA Hall of Famer who also pitched for the Chicago White Sox? Among the 13 athletes to play in the NBA and MLB, Dave DeBusschere was undoubtedly the most successful at basketball. Still, many of today’s collectors may not know a lot about him, so in this piece, I’ll share his professional accolades and history along with every baseball and basketball card Topps printed for him.

Dave DeBusschere attended the University of Detroit between 1959 and 1962. He averaged 24 points per game, making the NIT twice and the NCAA tournament once. He also pitched for the baseball team, leading them to 3 NCAA tournament appearances.

He was signed as a free agent by the White Sox in 1962. The same year, he was a territorial draft selection in the 1962 NBA draft by the Detroit Pistons. He played for the White Sox in the majors from 1962-1963, in the NBA for the Pistons between 1962 and 1968, and for the New York Knicks between 1968 and 1974. After two more years of minor league pitching, he eventually gave up baseball to concentrate on playing and coaching basketball.

He had a career 3-4 win/loss record as a pitcher with a 2.90 earned run average as a baseball player.

His first baseball card was in the 1963 Topps set, with two variations.

1963 Topps #54 – 1963 Rookie Stars
1963 Topps #54 – 1962 Rookie Stars

He also had cards in the 1964 and 1965 Topps baseball sets.

1964 Topps #247 Dave DeBusschere
1965 Topps #297 Dave DeBusschere

DeBusschere had an impressive NBA career. He was known as an elite defensive player, which resulted in his election to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1983. Over his career, he averaged 16.1 points per game, 11 rebounds per game, and 2.9 assists per game. He was a two-time NBA champion with the Knicks, made 8 All-Star games, and was a six-time All-Defensive First Team member.

His first basketball card was in the notoriously rare 1968 Topps Test release, so his 1969 Topps Tall Boy is more classically considered his first Topps basketball card. 

1968 Topps Test #11 Dave DeBusschere
1969 Topps #85 Dave DeBusschere

Topps also printed cards for him in 1970, 71, 72, and 73, and he was on the Knicks Team Leaders card in 1974.

1970 Topps #135 Dave DeBusschere
1971 Topps #107 Dave DeBusschere
1972 Topps #105 Dave DeBusschere
1973 Topps #30 Dave DeBusschere
1974 Topps #93 New York Knicks Team Leaders

Today, most athletes commit to a single sport long before going professional, though some successful two-sport athletes play multiple sports in college. Like Tim Tebow or Michael Jordan, others have tried to transition between sports, but few have had Dave DeBusschere’s success. 

PS: The 13 men who have played in the NBA and MLB are: Danny Ainge, Frank Baumholtz, Hank Biasatti, Gene Conley, Chuck Connors, Dave DeBusschere, Dick Groat, Steve Hamilton, Mark Hendrickson, Cotton Nash, Ron Reed, Dick Ricketts, and Howie Schultz.

Happy collecting!

The Three Original Topps Tall Boy Sets

by

Variety is the spice of life, and Topps definitely mixed things up with the introduction of tall boy sized cards with their 1964 Hockey set. The cards must have been pretty popular because the following year, in 1965, they released tall boy football cards to stand out against their competition. Then, when they decided to re-enter the basketball card market, their 1969 release was, once again, of the tall boy variety. In this article, I’ll run down these three incredibly popular sets.

1964 Topps Hockey

1964 Topps Hockey #20 Bobby Hull

The first year that Topps didn’t have to compete with Parkhurst in the hockey card market, they released their set in a tall boy format (2-1/2″ x 4-11/16″) for the first time in any sport. From a historical perspective, some collectors think going with larger cards (Topps printed “GIANT SIZE” on the wrappers) was a “triumphalist call,” but no one knows for sure.

1964 Topps Hockey Wrapper

The set has 110 cards of players from all 6 NHL teams and was the first set in 10 years that included all the teams. The set is nearly double the size of previous Topps hockey sets and was released over two series.  Hockey collectors consider 1964 Topps to be one of the greatest hockey sets of all time, and it’s the toughest of these three tall boy sets to complete in high grade.

1964 Topps Hockey #55 Second Checklist

1965 Topps Football

The football market in 1965 was a little different than the hockey market. Philadelphia Gum had the rights to the NFL’s licensing for cards, so Topps, to expand its AFL release (less interesting content) and compete for sales, released their set in the tall boy format to stand out. Remember, the larger size format worked with 1952 Topps baseball in competition with Bowman too.

The 176 card set would end up being the only football card tall boy set Topps made. Maybe tall boys were too expensive to print/machine? It does, however, feature one of the most recognizable football cards in the hobby, Joe Namath’s card #122.

1965 Topps Football #122 Joe Namath

Topps knew they didn’t have the best content because the packs didn’t advertise the AFL specifically, just “Pro Football.”

1965 Topps Football Wrapper

1969 Topps Basketball

Topps returned to the basketball card market in 1969 with their 99-card set. Again, Topps must have been trying to make a splash and have the cards stand out on shelves with their larger size as “10 GIANT CARDS” was printed on the wax boxes.

1969 Topps Basketball Wax Box

1969 Topps basketball is loaded with stars enhancing its popularity. But you may not know that Topps couldn’t use team logos on the cards due to licensing issues, so some players posed for photos wearing their jerseys backward. Still, it’s an incredibly eye-appealing set due to the tall boy format and choice of colors.

1969 Topps Basketball #20 John Havlicek

Topps did follow up the 1969 Topps basketball set with another tall boy set in 1970, but they never did publish a baseball tall boy set (1964 Topps Giant-Size All-Stars being the closest we have). The drawback of the tall boy format is that the cards’ size makes them more condition sensitive since they were tougher to store and more prone to miscuts in the factory.

Regardless of your desire to collect high-end cards or not, a trio of all three original tall boy sets would be a great addition to anyone’s vintage card collection. Let me know down in the comments which is your favorite, and happy collecting!

The Rarest Rookie Cards: The 1964 Topps Rookie All-Star Banquet Set

by

In its Summer 1990 issue, Topps Magazine published Kenneth M. Liss’s great article about “The Rarest ‘Rookie Cards.'” PSA has only slabbed 252 cards from this 35-card (ok, 36-card) set!

I want to draw your attention to two things from the article. First, instead of a program in booklet form, in 1964, Topps presented a boxed set of 36 over-sized cards with all the same information. Second, Topps only made 600-700 sets, making them exceedingly rare.

Here’s the original sleeve/box that held the cards.

Leland’s included that box and 35 cards, a handful of which were PSA-8 graded, in their 2018 Invitational auction. The lot sold for $1,886.40.

But what’s really interesting is that it seems Topps pivoted at some point and printed a sample program! Huggins and Scott sold a newly discovered, potentially one-of-a-kind example in August 2023 for $1,740.

They also wrote that only about 300 (or so) invitees attended. The auction believed that after this 1964 program was made, someone at Topps realized they were card manufacturers and that a card set should be made instead of a program. Topps didn’t do much work, as there’s a page number on the lower right-hand corner of each card (see the Page 12 notation on the following example)!

Huggins noted a few differences between this program and the cards:

The thicker card stock versus the thinner paper pages of the program, the cards are blank backed versus the back-to-back printed program pages, and the size.  The program is 3/16″ wider than the card set (so, the bigger program was not part of the snugly fitting boxed card set.)  We believe the programs were likely deemed redundant and were probably trashed, assuming they even made more than one or two to begin with.

Unfortunately, Topps went back to banquet programs in 1965 and 1966. REA offered a complete run of seven 1959 to 1966 Topps Rookie Banquet Programs in their 2018 Spring auction. They sold for $2,040 then but would command A LOT more today.

A Great New Gift Idea! The Topps 1964 Baseball Gift Box

by

My favorite thing about the hobby is interacting with other collectors and hobby historians and learning about new items. Well, on the morning of May 1st, 2023, a collector contacted me via e-mail after perusing the site with two photos of an empty box of cards I’d never seen before.

1964 Topps Baseball Gift Box
1964 Topps Baseball Gift Box Lid

He thought maybe they were issued around Christmas time in 1964 to sell leftover cards after the season had ended and asked if I knew anything about it. I searched some of my older books and came up empty-handed. He mentioned the box didn’t have any code on it, so I asked if he’d be ok with my sharing it on Facebook to see if anyone else could help.

On Facebook, a collector mentioned he had seen a reference to the box before and shared the following sell sheet.

1964 Topps Baseball Gift Box Sell Sheet

One collector on Facebook commented that the box on the sell sheet looks a lot like a carton of cigarettes! And another was pretty sure Topps only made this product in 64.

The box wasn’t really meant for Christmas; it’s a gift box for any occasion, “what better way to say ‘happy birthday’ or just ‘hello.’ The boxes came 24 per case for $14.40 or 60 cents a box. Each box had 20 5-cent packs (100 total cards), though given the gift theme, I don’t think they were meant to be sold by the pack. 

A ton of collectors reached out to me asking if the owner was interested in selling the empty box, but he’s not. Given how much interest it garnered in such a short period, I presume bidding would be intense.

I’m unsure how you’d price such an item, though. However, one collector shared that there was one on eBay many years ago, and he thought it was for $500, or maybe $338, but acknowledged it would go for much more these days. Another collector thinks he saw one around 2004.

The owner later shared three more photos of the box with me.

1964 Topps Baseball Gift Box – Angle 1
1964 Topps Baseball Gift Box – Angle 2
1964 Topps Baseball Gift Box – Angle 3

An interesting thing about the box is that that’s not Whitey Ford’s 1964 Topps baseball card printed on it; it looks like a 1964 design, but with his 1963 Topps photo. 

1964 and 1963 Topps Whitey Ford Cards

Some collectors surmised it could have come out as early as December 1963, given the difference in Ford’s card design. And maybe the low item number of 400 (on the sell sheet) indicates an early release, along with the image of the smiling kid being the same as the one on the 1962 Topps Baseball Bucks dealer sell sheet?

1962 Topps Baseball Bucks Sell Sheet

Funny enough, Topps did something similar with the 1964 Topps Giants set; the picture of Whitey Ford on the box isn’t identical to his card.

1964 Topps Giants Box and Whitey Ford Card

If you have more insight into this unique Topps product, please leave a comment or e-mail me.

Check out The Unopened Archive for more!

1964 Topps Salesman’s Sample Featuring Mickey Mantle

by

This 1964 Topps Salesman’s Sample Ad Card featuring Mickey Mantle was auctioned off in August 2006.

It’s encapsulated as “authentic” by PSA and was used to drum up interest and give a sneak preview to dealers and collectors for the 1964 Topps Baseball series. The triptych (a picture or carving in three panels side by side) measures 7-9/16” x 3-1/2” with Mickey Mantle, Jim Davenport, and Boog Powell on the front. While the auction didn’t include a photo of the back, they described it as having information about the prospective series’ special features and insert products and also had a Mantle card back as a design example.

Heritage resold the same item in December 2020 for $7,200; they wrote, “One of the fuels that drove the Topps machine was the salesman sample. They featured three cards but had Topps sales propaganda or a sticker selling the set on the reverse. For their 1964 effort, they wisely picked baseball’s best in HoFer Mickey Mantle to promote the upcoming 587-card series. Mantle is joined by fellow major leaguers Jim Davenport and Boog Powell but it is Mantle’s card used for the reverse example.”

If you own any salesman samples, I’d love to chat with you about them for my research.