1960 Topps - Stan Musial

Stan Musial did not have as many Topps cards as one would hope. During the 50s, most of his cards were exclusive to Bowman. In the first decade of his career (the '40s), there weren't too many card issues at all (and Topps didn't start making baseball cards until 1950). He had no gum cards in the mid-50s of any kind. For some reason he wouldn't sign the contracts to be on them. Stan's first Topps card was technically a team card from 1950. But it wasn't until 1958 that he'd finally agree to be featured on a regular Topps card. At this point, he only had six years left in his career.

Displayed above is his 1960 card. I consider the 1960 set to be one of the more significant set designs that Topps made. They carry on some of the Topps design elements from the previous decade - horizontal and containing two images like the '55 and '56 cards, and utilizing stylized color blocks like the '58 and '59s. One of the images is black and white, and the logos have an old school element to them. But the organization and the alternating letter colors give it a modern feel. This card has a very 60s vibe to it. An argument can be made that the 1960 design is the most reflective of their era of any of the regular issue Topps cards in the 20th century. The next year Topps began an extended run of designs that more or less fit the (often boring) mold of what one thinks of when considering Topps card designs. This was likely due to continued development of photographic and print technologies allowing for better photos and requiring less design and art work.

I got this card off of eBay several years ago. The front looks great, but the back has a substantial wrinkle. It was graded and slabbed by a third party grading company and they graded it a meager 4 out of 10. I went for it because the front was so much better than the grade suggested. And I usually don't care for my cards to be in slabs, and I cracked it out.