The 1970 Topps set is my Eden.
Now, I realize it’s just a gray, blighted garden to some. But hear me out.
First of all, let’s start with the gray itself. This is the first Topps baseball set with a gray border. They’d done wood-grain and burlap sack and white, sure. But never gray.
And gray was a perfect fit. It is both lunar and anti-psychedelic—the ideal 1970 color.
Next, we have the script player names on the card fronts, another first for a Topps baseball set.
Up until 1970 there had been nothing but a succession of blocky, mostly sans serif fonts used for player names. This script font makes it feel like baseball cards are growing up, which is both momentous and tremendously sad.
(A small quirk that I love about the 1970 set is that sometimes players from New York’s American League team are referred to on the fronts as Yankees and sometimes as Yanks. Because I appreciate a healthy disrespect for authority…)
The card backs are among the most readable that Topps ever produced, with blocks of blue and gold ink subdividing a creamy white field.
Oh, and finally there's this: Card #1. World Champions. New York Mets.
Paradise.
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