Topps made a couple of bets when they put together their Hank Aaron tribute at the front of the 1974 set.
For starters, they bet that Aaron would, indeed break Babe Ruth’s record for career home runs early in the season with the very first 1974 Topps card:
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Aaron, you might remember, was entering the 1974 season with 713 long balls in his storied career.
That left him one shy of Ruth’s 714, and two shy of owning the record for himself … and making Topps’ leadoff piece a truthteller.
Now, this was a solid bet, for sure — two homers in the context of 700+ is small potatoes.
But Hammer was 40 years old entering the new campaign, and you never know what sorts of ailments or injuries can pop up as players age, and as Spring Training unfolds.
You get the feeling that Hank would have swung the bat with his teeth if it come down to that in order to finish off the record, though, so this was a low-low-risk gamble for Topps.
Still, the possibility remained that card #1 could end up looking silly if Aaron hadn’t knocked off the Babe by, say, the All-Star break.
In the end, of course, it took Aaron all of one at-bat to tie Ruth, and he broke the record in the Braves’ fourth game of the season.
Leadoff card, redeemed.
Another bet Topps made with the Aaron tribute was that it would be well-received by collectors.
After all, the card maker was dedicating the first six cards of their set to one man, following up that #1 special with five pasteboard that each depicted four miniature versions of other Topps Aaron cards, from 1954 through 1973.
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It was a tactic Topps would use again in 1986 with Pete Rose, though that latter set was a relative behemoth, checking in at 792 cards, as compared to 660 in the 1974 set.
If you were in the hobby in those days, say between 1974 and 1990, you probably remember that both the Aaron and Rose anthology cards were seen as sort of gimmicky by most collectors, and they could be yours for chump change.
Today, those 1974 Aarons at #s 2-6 sell for about $75 a pop in PSA 8 condition, bouncing up to $150+ and near $800 for PSA 9 and 10 specimens, respectively.
So … they were a good bet in the long term, for collectors and investors, even if they were a lukewarm bath in the beginning.
The final bet Topps made with their 1974 Aaron spread was that collectors would realize that horizontal first card was actually THE Aaron card for the set.
That is, there was no Aaron card that fit the standard format of the set, with half-banners on top and bottom of of a full photo.
Did collectors get it? Or were they left searching for a base Aaron that didn’t actually exist?
If you think about it that way, Topps won either way — either collectors did get it, or they bought more cards chasing an Aaron dream.
These days, that #1 card, the one that made a not-so-bold prediction, is plenty popular and brings close to $500 in PSA 8. Move up to a 9, and you’re looking at a couple grand, while a perfect “10” will set you back to $10,000.
As was always the case when it came to baseball, Hank Aaron proved to be a safe bet all around.