While walking around The National on Thursday I came upon a couple of 1971 Topps card boxes [they were empty boxes for display only otherwise I may have broken the glass and made a break for it].
Looking at the images there you have Johnny Bench, Boog Powell, Bob Gibson and Carl Yastrzemski. As a '71 Topps collector with only four cards on my needs list currently and someone who searched through many, many booth's stacks of 1971 cards to find a good deal on the short prints, it stuck me as odd that the photos used for the Johnny Bench and Bob Gibson aren't the ones used on the actual cards in the '71 set.
For the Bob Gibson they used an action shot and it is one of my favorite cards in the set.
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| 1971 Topps #450 Bob Gibson |
The Johnny Bench card on the other hand went the opposite direction. Instead of the staged catching photo shown on the box they went with a photo with a bat just resting on his shoulder. It's impossible for any fan of the 1971 set to not think of Thurman Munson's great horizontal card when discussing catcher cards and I think this Johnny Bench was just a wasted opportunity.
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| 1971 Topps #250 Johnny Bench |
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