Some of My Favorite Oddball Sets

Expanding on the topic that I posted about yesterday, I am going to go over some of my favorite oddball baseball card sets ever made. This includes sets, mainly from the 60's and 70's that are much smaller than the big base sets that Topps was putting out at the time. The oddball sets have always peaked my interest because of how different they are from the typical sets. They typically include more interesting designs, a fantastic player selection, and feature some of the most impressive cards I've ever seen. 

The first oddball set I'll be showing was actually made by Topps, which is something I recently learned and was quite impressed to find out that they were the ones who created the 1970 Topps Booklets set. Each booklet is basically a comic book that includes around 8 pages of information about the player's life before and while playing baseball. I thought it was really interesting to see that Topps had basically created comic books in the form of cards and that they did such an excellent job creating them. The 24-card checklist includes legends like Reggie Jackson and Ernie Banks, but also lesser-known players from the 70's like Bill Freehan, Vada Pinson, and Rusty Staub.

The next set is one that I have seen quite a few fellow bloggers speak highly of, and with these colorful and simply fun designs on every card, it's easy to see why. Fleer Laughlin created cartoons that paid tribute to past World Series' by creating these World Series cards that were produced in 1970 and 1971 respectively. This 1917 World Series card from the 1971 set isn't the most exciting design out there, but most of these cards include a very colorful and cool design that truly symbolizes past Fall Classics (the Black Sox World Series card has to be my favorite).

For many years I simply thought of these black and white mini cards as stamp cards, but upon looking at them on COMC, I discovered that they were called 1969 Deckle Edge, another oddball set created by Topps. The deckle edge cards are definitely the most simple out of all of the oddball sets shown thus far. They include a simple black and white picture with a blue ink fake signature on it and, of course, the deckle edge itself. I know that a deckle has something to do with printmaking, therefore it makes sense why Topps would name this set deckle edge. However, no matter what the name is, this is still one of my favorites, if not my all-time favorite oddball insert set ever made.

I still consider the Kellogg's 3D superstar cards oddballs despite the set being produced for over 10 years and being collected by more collectors than almost any other oddball set. The 3D cards were widely collected by people all over the country during the 70's and 80's when they could be found randomly inserted into cereal boxes. Many of these colorful and elaborate sets have stood out to me, but the 1976 set that includes the Manny Sanguillen card shown above takes the prize as my all-time favorite set. Many of the other sets included a blue border which ended up being a bit repetitive, but the 1976 set featured a very 70's looking blue and red design around the image, which makes this set my favorite 3D card set ever made, hands down. 

But even though Kellogg's were quite distinctive, and Deckle Edges were unique, nothing could truly top the Hostess cards that delivered some of the greatest cards of the golden age of baseball card collecting that is the 1970's.  These cards came in panels on the Hostess product boxes that included 3 cards, just like the ones shown here. Each year delivered a new design that was similar to past designs yet unique at the same time. The players included were some of the greatest and most unique players of the 70's, and the brand was able to merge 2 great things to create something so different and so successful, that it reigns, even today, as the greatest oddball set ever made.