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The Big And The Bad

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Topps released all sorts of button sets over the years, starting with 1956's Baseball Buttons. They then began issuing humorous pin sets, most of them metallic, on a semi-regular basis in 1960 with Funny Buttons although there were points they became sporadic.  1975 saw a test set called Big Bad Buttons and it's safe to say they are difficult to find today. 

The year prior had seen a full retail release of Batty Buttons, which for my ten cents is the best of the non-sports bunch. So the fact the Big Bad Buttons test was a clear failure in '75 must have been a surprise to Topps.  This is how they arrived at the test stores (thanks to Friend o'the Archive Rob Lifson for these two images):

Topps handily provided a checklist on the back of the test envelope:


I was lucky enough to snag a BBB recently and have to say while it's a sharp looking set, it seems to lack the snappy verbiage offered by Batty Buttons

Big Bad Buttons measure 2 7/32" in diameter and are a little larger than the 1974 Batty Buttons, so I guess this was truth in advertising. Here is my type example:


The artwork is well-executed and the reverse features a fairly thick protective layer of cardboard within which the pin resides:


I don't think there's anything under there but I didn't want to remove the cardboard (which is quite smoothly finished) as it seems like it would crease if I did so.

Here' a scan of another button, courtesy of Marc Simon:



Again, not at all that pithy of a comment. These really are hard to find and I had seen only a handful of images prior to my recent acquisition. Some Topps test issues are scarcer than others and the Seventies offer a good share of difficult ones.

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