A while ago, I promised to start comparing the 2020 Topps Heritage set and the 1971 Topps, my all-time favorite set. I've still got a few cards (and a lot of short prints) to get before I can cross of the 2020 set off the list but one area I can start with is the great O-Pee-Chee variation backs.
I've opened a lot of 2020 Heritage but only pulled one O-Pee-Chee back variation and after checking out baseballcardpedia.com and seeing that the O-Pee-Chee variation is a 1:243 packs hit, it has now become one of my best pulls in 2020, statistically speaking.
1971 Topps is my all-time favorite set and the O-Pee-Chee backs are my all-time favorite back.
Those backs have everything.
Floating heads, french language backs, and a design that makes the back literally explode out at you.
Here's my Lourdes Gurriel Jr. back, fittingly from the Canadian Toronto Blue Jays, who will play home games in Buffalo this season. The card is a great recreation but there are some subtle differences.
As you can see from my Del Unser original O-Pee-Chee below, the biggest difference is the three-line copyright line on the 2020 version that was just one line in 1971. The yellow/gold color is different but I attribute that do fifty years of aging paper more so than a design difference.
Here is some more minor nit-picky stuff:
- The card number in the original is yellow but white in the new.
- Team name is in italics in the new and not italicized in the original.
- Del is in the "OUTFIELD" in the original and but Lourdes is an "OUTFIELDER" in the new version.
- There are extra spaces between the dashes and text between "First year in pro ball" and "First game in majors."
- The text used for the bio (especially the numbers) seems a point size or two too large.
One thing I enjoy about the French cards is that the text isn't a word-for-word translation of the English text and instead goes with its own style in presenting the same information.
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