I was browsing a collection of photos from the 2021 National and came across this one of a pricey high-grade 1966 Topps Football #132 Checklist 62-132, so I thought I’d take a closer look at it.
The checklist is the most challenging card to find in high-grade condition in the 132-card 1966 Topps football set. It’s notoriously off-center top-bottom, like the following example.
Plus, folks used to actually use checklists, so surviving copies are generally more worn or marked, too.
The PSA population report shows that of the 185 (up from 146 in August 2021) graded examples, 95 have qualifiers. Overall, there are zero PSA 10s, zero 9s, one 8.5, and three 8s. And the first eight didn’t pop until around 2016!
With such low pop counts, there haven’t been too many public sales. Card Ladder only has 20 in its database, and that doesn’t include this PSA 8 that sold for just under $5,000 on eBay in August 2021.
But Card Ladder does include another PSA 8 in its sales history, also from eBay, when in April 2023 this one sold for $4,500 as a Fixed Price item (yup, the one from the 2021 National!)
Recent sales for mid-grade, or higher, cards include:
- a PSA 5 that sold on eBay for $287.48 in January 2025
- a PSA 6 that sold on eBay for $650 in December 2024
- a PSA 7 that sold on eBay for $600 in November 2024
- a PSA 6 that sold on eBay for $158.50 in September 2024
- and a PSA 7 that sold on eBay for $999.85 in June 2023
While the high-grade examples command high dollars, raw (off-center) cards usually sell for around $15, so this is just a case of “scarcity in high-grade driving a premium” sort of card (it’s not a short print).
Now, back to my question in the title: why is this card so off-center? I was wondering if the card’s position on the sheet and its neighbors’ conditions might give us some insight into what’s going on. Luckily, Heritage sold a 1966 Topps Football uncut sheet in February 2024 for $14,400, so we can see the card’s position on the sheet is in the fifth column, as pictured below (Checklist 1–61 is in the bottom-left corner). Unfortunately, the Pop Report for the cards that share a column or row with Checklist 62–132 doesn’t show an increase in qualifiers, but that could be because low-grade examples haven’t historically been worth grading. However, raw examples on eBay don’t either, so I’m still unsure what’s going on. When you look at examples of card #132 for sale on eBay, they’re almost all off-center!
If you have any insight into why this checklist is so notoriously off-center, please reach out.
Is it as simple as a cutting issue caused by the checklist frame being larger than the player photos?
Anyway, I think checklists are such an interesting vintage hobby niche. While the cards aren’t always rare, high-grade examples tend to be very uncommon, and that’s definitely true for this wood-grained football example.
Happy collecting
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