After going through the entire 1971 Topps set card-by-card, we were emboldened and decided to dig into another extremely condition-sensitive issue: 1962 Topps.
The “woodgrain” borders of the ’62 set are prone to chipping, much like the black-bordered 1971 Topps cards. Atrocious centering exacerbates the condition issues with this set, as do 1960s Topps print flaws like snow, fisheyes and roller lines.
In the case of this set, however, the collector appeared to take great care to find the best possible examples for his set (though centering is still an issue throughout). Much more so than with other sets, he appears to have taken great care not to handle the cards much at all prior to mounting them in the album. Further, the cards do not exhibit the indentations from the corner mounts that some of the others have. The result is a truly exceptional group of cards. Sadly, many of the Hall of Famers suffered from poor centering, and the Mantle was the only card in the group that appeared to have been handled; its edges are clearly worn. That said, we pulled a significant number of high-grade, well-centered examples from the set that we’ll be sending off for grading.
Here are some examples, presented to you in slideshow format.
We can’t imagine that any of the other vintage sets in this collection will be more fantastic than this one, condition-wise. As we only pulled the best-centered examples (except the Brock in the above slide show) for grading, and rejected more than half what we pulled due to minor flaws, there’s no question that this is as gorgeous a “fresh” 1962 set as we will ever see.
Next up: 1968 Topps.