Compared to previous years, the 1973 Topps baseball set was considerably more simple-looking and smaller. In fact, it was made up of 127 less cards than the 1972 Topps set. It marked a year of change for Topps and marked the last set ever to feature an active baseball card appearance of Willie Mays.
The highest valued 1973 Topps Baseball card is the Mike Schmidt rookie #615. Over 7,400 Mike Schmidt rookies have been graded so far and only a miniscule 6 have ever received the coveted PSA 10 grade. The highest price paid for a Mike Schmidt rookie to date is $234,000.
The card condition the 1973 Topps set is notoriously known for is bad centering. This set is infamous for miss-cut cards in all directions, making higher grade variations carry a significant premium over others. Other than that, the 1973 Topps baseball set did not have many other errors that caused significant card value detriment. Perhaps the most common (and still rather insignificant) card variation was the background color tone on Manager Cards.
The 1973 Topps Baseball Wax Packs included 10 cards each. Each pack cost 10 cents, and wax boxes included 24 packs in total.
No, the design variations on the non-high numbered series for 1973 Topps Baseball wax packs did not act as indicators of their contents.
There is a lot to sift through here. First, there were multiple variations of 1973 wrappers. This included 4 different wrapper images consisting of a catcher, pitcher, batter, and umpire/manager. There was also a wrapper variation for the high numbered series with a red triangle on it. On top of all of these, there were various panel offers on the slides including two record albums, a ball/strike indicator and a batting glove. The multitude of different wrappers lead kids and collectors to wonder if there was any significance between the wrapper design and what was inside, but with the exception of the high numbered series, there wasn’t.
24 cello packs were included in every 1973 Topps baseball cello box. Each pack contained 27 cards, and if you decided to buy them individually, each cost 25 cents. Topps changed their design for cello packs in 1973. Each pack was wrapped in a printed cellophane wrapper. This was a significant departure from the previous 3 years (1970, 1971, 1972) in which Topps cello packs were released as a non-descript cellophane wrap inside of a small colored box.
The 1973 Topps baseball rack packs cost just 39 cents. This was the last year at rack packs were sold at this price. Each pack help 54 cards making them not only the best value a kid could get for their money but also allowed kids to see some of the cards they'd be getting.
The entire 1973 Topps baseball set is made up of 660 cards. Topps decided to scale back production in 1973, making this set significantly smaller than its predecessors, and one of the smallest baseball card sets of the decade.
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