It is frequently said that the 1971 Topps baseball set is extremely condition-sensitive, and difficult to assemble in high grade.  This beautiful complete set is an illustration of exactly how difficult, and what a time-consuming process it is to build a truly high-grade set.  For it is not just the "susceptible to chipping" black borders that cause difficulty, it is also the Topps quality control, leading to centering issues, miscuts, odd cuts that result in cards not meeting the minimum size requirements, and more.

Presented here is a gorgeous, original-owner complete set that was assembled by the same collector who put together many of the complete and near-complete sets we have offered in this auction.  We have told the story again and again: the collector diligently assembled his sets from packs, purchasing the cards directly in their year of issue.  Since he would only purchase the cards when they were available for sale in packs, in general, when baseball season ended, he would begin buying football cards, and so on.  He built sharp sets, focusing on corners and edges, and when the set was complete, he put it away.

Despite this, a technical breakdown of this set is approximately 3% NM, 13% EX/MT; 35% EX; 39% VG/EX, 9% VG, with a few lesser.  The primary condition flaw with these cards is centering, with well-centered examples difficult.  Of course, chipping at the edges and corners from even the slightest handling exacerbates the issue.  We selected one card - card #160 of Tom Seaver - and submitted it to SGC for grading prior to our last auction - the result was a grade of NM+ 7.5.  More recently, when it became possible to submit more cards to PSA, we submitted seven more.  The results were as follows: #250 Bench (HOF): PSA EX 5; #325 Marichal (HOF) - PSA EX-MT 6; #400 Aaron (HOF) - PSA EX-MT 6; #530 Yastrzemski (HOF) - PSA NM 7; #600 Mays (HOF) - PSA VG-EX 4; #630 Clemente (HOF) - PSA EX-MT 6, and #640 Robinson (HOF) - PSA VG-EX 4.  A condition breakdown of the remaining keys is as follows: #5 Munson VG, 20 Jackson VG (miscut), 45 Hunter EX, 50 McCovey VG/EX, 55 Carlton EX, 100 Rose G (miscut), 117 Simmons EX, 180 Kaline VG/EX, 210 Carew EX, 230 Stargell EX, 264 Morgan G, 280 Jenkins EX, 300 B. Robinson EX, 341 Garvey VG, 350 Williams NM but returned by PSA for minimum size, 379 T. Williams VG, 450 Gibson VG, 513 Ryan G, 525 Banks VG/EX, 550 Killebrew EX, 570 Palmer EX but returned by PSA for minimum size, 580 Perez VG/EX.

A tremendous set, for sure, assembled by its original owner in its year of issue, with sharp, clean surfaces and mild signs of handling.  752 cards total.