In celebration of its 75th anniversary of making Topps baseball cards, Topps unveiled what it felt was the top 75 baseball cards in its history. After seeing the list, I brought in Simeon Lipman, an awesome collector who some of you know from "Antique Roadshow" to discuss.
And like any list, we thought there were some good calls and some bad ones.
The 1952 Topps Mantle is definitely No. 1, but both of us felt the 1952 Willie Mays was high at No. 2.
The Paul Skenes Debut patch and the 2018 Topps Update Shohei Ohtani Rookie Debut are important cards, but we also both felt that they should be outside the Top 10.
The most egregious one in the top 10 to us seemed to be the 1986 Topps Traded Barry Bonds. It's just the wrong Bonds card. While it wasn't the rookie and certainly less valuable, the Bonds card that defined Topps baseball was the wood borders of the 1987 set and the skinny full-bodied Bonds was more important. The list also put Jose Canseco's 1986 Topps Traded Card. Again, it was rarer, but there's virtually no argument that it was a bigger card to collectors than the gold cup All-Rookie Team card.
Simeon's biggest card missing was the 1979 Ozzie Smith rookie. How in the heck did they miss that? That was followed by the 1985 Dwight Gooden card. We are both New York boys but nationwide, that beats the Clemens, which made the list. Putting the 1985 Kirby Puckett card on the list was even stranger.
Speaking of Mets, to put Gregg Jefferies 1989 Future Star card on this list is completely disengenuous. No one cared about that card because Topps got beat by Fleer to feature Jefferies a year before.
What was missing from the list in my opinion? The fun.
They included the 1969 Aurelio Rodriguez card, which turned out to be a picture of batboy Leonard Garcia. But that card was never really chased as an error. Cards were in a different place in 1969. The error card you must have is the 1989 Al Leiter Future Stars rookie, in which Topps mistook the "SG" written on Steve George's glove as the 56 of Leiter. Topps corrected it, which made the chase even more exciting.
And how do they not include the 1976 Topps Traded Oscar Gamble with the afro? Isn't the greatest hair in card history worth a nod in the top 75? What makes this card so special is Topps took Gamble in his Indians uniform and did its best, in the non-photoshop era, to make Gamble a Yankee. Of course when Gamble arrived at Spring Training, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner made him cut his hair immediately and even paid for the Afro Sheen endorsement he lost.
Finally, for me, the 1955 Roberto Clemente is a must, but the 1973 just because it was his last? Outside of the rookie, there's not a doubt in my mind that another Clemente belongs on this list and its the magnificent and rare 1968 3-D Bob Clemente.
So many people who read this list could have predicted almost all these cards. We both think the list could have more unpredictability in honoring cards that people didn't pay attention to.
Just as the wood border got passed over too much so too did the backs of the wood borders. The mini facts written are above and beyond what any other set had and should have been honored. We're partial to the Howard Johnson one:
"Howard was co-winner of a rib-eating contest among professional athletes after 1985 season.”
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectibles market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.