Mastro offered this 1979 Topps “Baseball Iron-Ons” Test Issue Keith Hernandez promotional piece in their Classic Collector Auctions Catalog in October 2007. After a lot of searching, I can’t find ANYTHING about it online or in The Hobby Library!
Unfortunately, the catalog was intended to augment an online auction, so there weren’t any item descriptions. On the net54Baseball forums, one collector wrote, “Topps would mock these up for internal use, creating Presentation Boards for one kind of pitch or another. Each piece was handmade by the New Product and /or Art Departments. I’ve not run across this one before but it’s pretty awesome.”
If you have any insight into this item or set, please get in touch with me.
In the introduction to my article The Finer Points of Baseball For Everyone Instructional Booklets I mentioned that I only discovered them from my hunt for their basketball-related cousins. Between that and a $10,500 sale for a complete set of 12 booklets in the fall of 2023, it seemed appropriate to dive deep into these incredible basketball collectibles.
How To Play Better Basketball 101
A few auction catalogs and VintageBasketball.com show that a complete set of How To Play Better Basketball booklets has twelve items. Here’s the checklist:
Ball Handling
Basic Rules and Court Layout
Conditioning
How To Dribble
How to Pass
How to Pivot and Fake
How to Shoot
Drills for Defense
Drills for Offense
Man-To-Man Defense
Plays for Offense
Zone Defense
Like the baseball booklets, they’re full-color printings in a newspaper-like material saddle-stitched like a magazine. However, I keep reading that the basketball ones are 4-7/8’’ x 3-1/4’’ while the baseball ones are ~ 4-5/8″ x 3-3/8’’. However, I suspect they were printed and manufactured by the same people and are likely the same size, with a bit of variation from cutting back in the day. While the baseball booklets each have 16 pages, the basketball books have been described as having eight pages, but I haven’t found a complete set of scans from any of them, nor have I been able to speak with anyone who owns one; please reach out if you have one!
Now, not only are the basketball variations way rarer than the baseball ones but there are also two variations!
Hood Diary How To Play Better Basketball Booklets
While the baseball booklets have dozens of advertising backs through the years, the basketball ones only appear to have one produced around 1963 for Hood Dairy when the Bob Cousy Hood Dairy basketball card was produced.
VintageBasketball says they have a Copyright for Lane and Young Incorporated inside with an address of 128 Mallory Ave. New Jersey City, NJ.
Robert Edwards Auctions sold a collection of six of these booklets with a Hood Diary advertisement, a Bob Cousy quote, and his facsimile autograph on the back that they dated to 1963 in the description. They did mention that they vary a bit from natural diamond cuts when it comes to sizing. They sold for just $360 in the summer of 2021.
REA’s 1963 Hood Dairy How To Play Better Basketball Booklets – Image 1
REA’s 1963 Hood Dairy How To Play Better Basketball Booklets – Image 2
REA’s 1963 Hood Dairy How To Play Better Basketball Booklets – Image 3
REA’s 1963 Hood Dairy How To Play Better Basketball Booklets – Image 4
Interestingly, underneath the right side logo that says “Another Hood Food For Fitness,” there is an indistinguishable copyright emblem. That same logo appears on the baseball booklets; it’s just another point showing how they’re related.
1962 Finer Points Of Baseball DX Dealer Booklet
Indistinguishable Copyright Emblem
1968 Topps Test How To Play Better Basketball Booklet Pack Inserts
The How To Play Better Basketball Booklets’ second variation was blank-backed and used as an insert in 1968 Topps basketball test packs. The Topps Archive’s blog wrote a post called Better And Better that shared some history behind the test packs and booklets. In the summer of 2017, he got to see the pack, cards, and How To Shoot baseball booklet and noted that it was folded in half to fit in the pack, that the interior was set up like a small comic book, and that the back of it (the booklet) was blank. Here’s the photo he shared.
The Topps Archives Photo of MHCC’s 1968 Topps Test Pack
In September 2017, Mile High Card Co. sold an opened 1968 Topps Test basketball pack, booklet, and cards for $4521.60. They described the booklet as having eight pages of colorized diagrams but having no mention of Topps; here’s their auction photo.
MHCC 1968 Topps Test Pack, Booklet, And Cards
In the summer of 2021, REA sold a collection of seven different blank-backed folded How To Play Better Basketball booklets for $6600. Again, Topps folded down the middle because the booklets were too large for the pack otherwise.
REA’s Topps Test How To Play Better Basketball Booklets – Image 1
REA’s Topps Test How To Play Better Basketball Booklets – Image 2
REA’s Topps Test How To Play Better Basketball Booklets – Image 3
REA’s Topps Test How To Play Better Basketball Booklets – Image 4
Finally REA sold the following complete set of 12 booklets plus an original 1968 Topps Test envelope for $10,500 in the fall of 2023.
REA’s Topps Test How To Play Better Basketball Booklets Set of 12 – Image 1
REA’s Topps Test How To Play Better Basketball Booklets Set of 12 – Image 2
During bidding, I reached out to REA for a bit more information. They confirmed that each booklet was blank-backed, but the only one that displayed any condition issues was the How To Shoot Booklet; none of the others were folded, so perhaps they were extras that didn’t make it into packs. Also, I asked for some information about the internal copyright; they sent me back this photo showing a stamped 1966 copyright and the same Lane & Young, Inc. data that VintageBasketball said was in the Hood Dairy versions of the basketball booklets.
REA’s Topps Test How To Play Better Basketball Booklet Copyright Example
The baseball booklets all have a specific year copyright and either a Vital Publications, Inc. or WM. C. Popper & Co. copyright.
Final Thoughts
Like the Finer Points of Baseball For Everyone booklets, the How To Play Better Basketball items are another great example of a significant historical collectible; the basketball ones are more card-adjacent. However, despite a clear relationship between the sets of booklets (appearance, type, design, that little copyright symbol on the backs of both), I haven’t figured out a relationship between Vital Publications/WM. C. Popper & Co. and Lane & Young Inc., whose copyrights were printed inside the booklets. So, if you have more information about these companies or booklets, please leave a comment or email me.
The 1967 Topps Stand-Ups are one of the scarcest Topps test issues, though Topps likely intended them as a 1968 release. Anyway, I ran across a December 2004 auction that featured both the Mickey Mantle proof and die-cut versions!
First, here’s what The Standard Catalog has to say about the set:
Never actually issued, no more than a handful of each of these rare test issues have made their way into the hobby market. Designed so that the color photo of the player’s head could be popped out of the black background and placed into a punch-out base to create a stand-up display, examples of these 3-1/8” x 5-1/4” cards can be found either on thick stock, die-cut around the portrait and with a die-cut stand, or as thin-stock proofs without the die-cutting. Blank-backed, there are 24 cards in the set, numbered on the front at bottom left.
In 2010, they priced the thick stock, die-cut set at $75k, and the thin stock, proof set at $60k. As for the dating, SABR has a great article explaining the likely intended release of 1968. Mantle is the set’s key player, followed by Clemente, Mays, and Aaron.
I’ve only found one other sale of a Mantle Stand-Up card when, in April 2005, Memory Lane Inc. sold the following GAI-8.5 graded die-cut example for just under $10k.
For SA, PSA has a single example of each Mantle variation in their Pop Report.
And since I run The Unopened Archive, here’s the lone wrapper example: Lelands sold it for $3k in November 2008.
TCDB includes this photo of what’s likely the only display box; the same one, I believe is shared in the article Standing Tall on The Topps Archives who shared a few more unopened items from the set in a piece called Yaz Sir!
How many complete 1973 Topps Test Comics complete sets do you think exist in the hobby? My guess is under a dozen.
These nine were part of a complete set of 24 that Mastro Sports Auctions offered for sale in December 2004.
Sports Collectors Digest wrote an excellent and detailed overview of the set in an article titled 1973 Topps Comics “Test” Set an Unreleased Rarity. But PSA, who have only graded 191 total comics across the set, has this shorter profile on their site:
Unique among baseball collectibles, the 1973 Topps Comics set was designed as a “test issue” and is never known to havebeen distributed to the public. The item was originally designed to wrap around bubblegum pieces. These thin, wax paper pieces measure 3-7/16” x 4-5/8” and carry gum-wrapper graphics (with a Johnny Bench “teaser” design) on one side, and the featured-player “Comic” on the reverse, along with a facsimile signature. The 24-piece full set consists of Hank Aaron, Dick Allen, Johnny Bench, Steve Carlton, Nate Colbert, Willie Davis, Mike Epstein, Reggie Jackson, Harmon Killebrew, Mickey Lolich, Mike Marshall, Lee May, Willie McCovey, Bobby Murcer, Gaylord Perry, Lou Piniella, Brooks Robinson, Nolan Ryan, George Scott, Tom Seaver, Willie Stargell, Joe Torre, Billy Williams, and Carl Yastrzemski. The 1973 Topps Comics set is among the toughest of all Topps Test issues to achieve in complete set form and are rarely offered on the secondary market.
Here are a few historical set/near-set sales:
Heritage Auctions sold a complete PSA-graded set for $20,315 in May 2008.
REA sold a complete raw set for $17,625 in the Spring of 2010.
REA sold a PSA Set Registry collection of 23/24 comics twice: first for $7,800 in the Summer of 2019 and again for $13,200 in the Fall of 2023.
REA sold a raw set of 23/24 comics for $9,600 in the Summer of 2022, which is perhaps the set this collector on the net54 boards had graded.
As for unopened gum packs, a dealer named SportsInvestments has this one for sale (August 2024) with an asking price of $7,500.
