The 528-card 1977 Topps Mexican Football card set mirrors the American version, except the cards are printed in Spanish. And while we don’t have a lot of details about the printing process and distribution (just that they were manufactured in a plant in Naucalpan), we do know the production was tiny compared to the regular issue. So anyone trying to complete the regional set has an adventure in front of them. But, it turns out, there are 12 1977 Topps Mexican cards known to be even tougher to track down, and collectors call those cards the dirty dozen.
In PSA’s article detailing Jim Ragsdale’s 1977 Topps Mexican Football card set, Jim noted that Topps printed 11 of the 12 dirty dozen cards on the same American football card sheet, which you can see here:
It’s pretty safe to assume the American and Mexican cards were printed in the same sheet configurations since a lot of Topps Mexican Panels exist; Robert Edward Auctions sold 252 of them in their 2020 Fall Auction for $6300.
Ragsdale thought that the sheet with 11 of the 12 dirty dozen cards may have been short-printed or cards from that sheet weren’t inserted into the packs that made their way to the U.S. market. You see, a bunch of cases or cards showed up in the U.S. in the early 90s since, as PSA wrote, American football wasn’t popular in Mexico, so a lot of material sat in the factory until 1980 when a dealer named Steve Freedman bought the stock. He sat on it for a few years before selling it off. By the way, you can see all the unopened material from the set, including a few cases, on the Unopened Archive.
I think because Topps cut the cards with a perforated system and because some people believe that the cards were torn apart manually before being inserted into packs, there is a slight chance these 12 cards got damaged more often (either off the press or by hand) and were discarded before packaging. But, the more likely situation is what Jim Ragsdale suggested, collation and packaging of the cards that came to the United States via Steve Freedman didn’t include these cards (he’s opened 172 boxes) – quality assurance at the Mexican plant may have been abysmal.
Now let’s move on to the current market for the dirty dozen 1977 Topps Mexican football cards. PSA has graded almost 12k 1977 Topps Mexican cards (that count includes panels), so about 20-22 for each card. And you can see in the pop report picture below that the typical grade for these cards is in the 7/8 range, followed by Ex-Mt 6 (ZERO Gem Mint 10s!).
PSA graded most panels as Authentic, which slightly biases the pop report. Also, a general hobby truth is that pricier cards tend to get graded more often, skewing pop report data. So if a person has one of the dirty dozen, they’re incentivized to get it graded, but that may not be true of every card.
Before we dive into each of the dirty dozen cards, I think looking at relative prices for these cards is helpful. My Tuff Stuff 2006 Standard Catalog of Football Cards lists a common card from the 1977 Topps set at 20 cents, and a common from the 1977 Topps Mexican set for $8, a 40x increase! PSA’s graded price guide isn’t quite as extreme; they list 1977 Topps Football PSA 8 commons for $5 and PSA 9 commons for $10, while the 1977 Topps Mexican Football PSA 8 commons are $100+ and the 9s are $200+.
1977 Topps Mexican #3 Rushing Leaders
This card has a total PSA population of 33. There are five PSA 6s and five PSA 7s, a lower median condition than the rest of the set. Back in September 2021, a PSA 9 sold for $4050.
1977 Topps Mexican #8 Rick Volk
This card has a total PSA population of 29, including ten 5s and five 6s, again, lower than the set’s norm. There’s currently a PSA 5 listed on eBay for $599.
1977 Topps Mexican #21 Lawrence Gaines
There are only 20 PSA-graded Gaines cards; the most common grade for them is just a 4, with a population of 8. There is a Vg-Ex PSA 4 listed on eBay for $399.
1977 Topps Mexican #89 John McDaniel
PSA has graded 23 McDaniel cards, with the most common grade being an 8Q, the next most common is a 4, and one of those 4s is listed on eBay now for $319.
1977 Topps Mexican #269 Archie Griffin
Of the 22 Griffin cards PSA has graded, five have graded out as 8s, and the next most common grade after that is 5. I haven’t been able to find any Griffin cards for sale – get used to that if you decide to collect this set!
1977 Topps Mexican #276 Wilbur Jackson
PSA has graded 23 Jackson cards, and the results are all over the map; four 4s, four 6s, and four 8s. A PSA 7 sold on eBay in December 2021 for $499.
1977 Topps Mexican #404 Ray Jarvis
10 of the 25 PSA-graded Jarvis cards have returned as 4s; one is listed on eBay for $349.
1977 Topps Mexican #434 Eric Torkelson
PSA has only graded 20 Torkelson cards; most are in lower conditions, five 5s, and three 3s. There is a raw copy on eBay right now, and the seller is asking $1500.
1977 Topps Mexican #444 Mike Pruitt
PSA has graded a whopping 28 Pruitt cards, with 13 being 6s and six coming back as 7s. One of those 7s, with a stain, is listed on eBay for $499, and a nice PSA 6 is for sale for $1299.
1977 Topps Mexican #474 Steve Mike-Mayer
This card has a total population of 27, with six 7s and six 6s. There’s a 4.5 on eBay for $399.
1977 Topps Mexican #488 Rich Sowells
PSA has graded 26 Sowells cards, with the most common grade being 5, with a population of ten. Raw copies are a couple of hundred bucks.
1977 Topps Mexican #528 Super Bowl XI
The last card in the set, Super Bowl XI, is the last of the dirty dozen. PSA has graded 18 of them, most commonly as 6s and 7s. A PSA 5 is on eBay at $999, and a PSA 6 is listed for $1999.
We can see that the dirty dozen return from PSA at lower than average conditions, with populations a little higher than usual. When you couple this with much higher-than-typical sales prices, it tells me that the likely overall population (including raw cards) is probably a lot lower than the other cards in the set, supporting Ragsdale’s claim that these cards just weren’t inserted into the boxes that made their way to the United States. The notion that the entire sheet was short-printed seems less likely; otherwise, we would see the other cards from the sheet with similar scarcity.
It bears significance to the dirty dozen’s future prices that unopened cases of 1977 Topps Mexican cards had 54 boxes, each containing 36 two-card packs (some four-card packs exist too). That means each case had 1944 packs and 3888 cards. So, despite the boxes being relatively easy to track down, I don’t think we will see a big jump in the populations of the dirty dozen cards even if someone decides to open them all.
Wrapping up, similar to the Topps baseball cards from Venezuela, the market for the 1977 Topps Mexican football cards is limited compared to American cards. However, due to their rarity, the prices for these cards are extremely high. So, if you choose to collect this specific regional football release, be prepared to spend a significant amount of money and have patience while searching for these twelve cards in particular. Happy collecting!
Also, don’t forget to check out The Post War Cards Newsletter.
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