The 1971 Topps Football is a colorful set with sharp portrait photography that was issued in two series, with NFC player cards featuring red borders and AFC players with blue.  Similar to the 1971 Topps baseball issue, the dark-colored borders create a multitude of condition woes for collectors, as the colorful cards are prone to chipping and corner wear that results in white edges and corners on even the lightest of corner touches.

Presented here is an outstanding high-grade near-set, numbering 250 of the issue's 263 cards.  Consigned by the original owner, these cards were removed from their packs in the year of issue and carefully stored away, placed in plastic nine-pocket pages as soon as such things were available to collectors.  The result is an extraordinary grouping of cards, truly pack-fresh.  Certainly NM to MINT by 1971 standards, many of the cards do exhibit the centering issues common to Topps cards of the era, and some also exhibit print flaws such as snow and fisheyes.  These flaws reduce the technical grades of the cards but certainly not their eye appeal; flipping through such a sharp collection of cards is quite a site to behold.

The cards as a whole carry approximate technical grades of 3% NM-MT, 6% NM, 29% EX/MT, 42% EX, 18% VG/EX, 1% VG and a few lesser, with virtually all the condition downgrades related to centering or very light corner or edge touches.  Key cards, including four that we submitted to SGC, grade as follows:  #1 Unitas (EX), 10 Alworth (EX/MT), 13 Buchanan (EX/MT), 16 Brown (EX), 19 Maynard (NM), 20 Wilson (EX/MT), 25 Butkus (EX/MT), 35 Bell (EX/MT), 36 Hickerson (NM), 39 Blanda (EX/MT), 41 Karras (EX/MT), 45 Csonka (EX/MT), 50 Jurgensen (EX), 55 Wood (EX/MT), 61 Stenerud (EX/MT), 71 Page (EX), 88 Robinson (EX), 91 Morris (EX/MT), 97 Hanburger (EX), 113 Houston (VG/EX), 114 Lanier (EX), 118 Renfro (EX/MT), 120 Tarkenton (EX/MT), 125 Olsen (NM), 133 Nitschke (VG), 144 Lilly (EX), 147 Buoniconti (VG), 150 Sayers (EX), 151 Otto (EX), 154 LeBeau (EX), 157 Kelly (EX), 158 Krause (VG/EX), 160 Griese (VG/EX), 175 Mackey (EX), 178 Biletnikoff (EX), 180 Dawson (VG/EX), 188 Werlhi (VG/EX), 189 Wilcox (VG/EX), 190 Hayes (EX), 200 Starr (VG/EX), 204 Tingelhoff (EX), 207 Brown (EX/MT), 210 Sanders (EX), 218 Humphrey (EX), 240 Levias (SGC EX/MT 6), 244 Smith (VG/EX), 245 Greene (SGC EX/MT 6), 261 Warfield (EX), 250 Namath (SGC NM 7), and 260 Simpson (SGC NM 7).

For completion, the set is missing the following: #6, 54, 57, 78, 112, 129, 156 Bradshaw (HOF - featured elsewhere in this auction), 165, 205, 209 Jones (HOF), 212, 214, 228.  A gorgeous, high-grade set, the primary condition flaws of which are related to print-related issues.  250 cards total.