Strung Along

Well that didn't take long. Friend o'the Archive Lonnie Cummins sent along quite a pertinent update concerning the subject of last week's post, 1973's Jeepers Creepers. So sit back, grab a drink to "ghoul" off and marvel at the contents of the retail box, which looks pretty striking all filled up:

You can see the strings here , which I suspect broke off pretty soon after these were played with for the first time. It also looks like each batch of  toys was dumped into the retail subject-by-creepy-subject:

It's a little hard to discern, but there were only five different critters offered: Pterodactyl, Frog (really?), Mouse, Bat and (what looks like a dwarf) Alligator. 

One thing I'm not at all sure about is when these were actually marketed as the line up doesn't necessarily translate to a given season.  The last of the traditional Topps Hallowe'en sets came out in 1972 and this may have been an attempt to try a new format but am not really sure. I am happy to know, however, that my type example is legit!

Creeped Out

I've had in my possession for some time now an example of what I believe to be a 1973 Topps Jeepers Creepers toy.  I'll get into the "believe" momentarily but first, here she is:

My example is fairly substantial, and thicker when compared to what I consider the set's ancestral (1967) Teacher's Pets/Rubber Uglies subjects. It's well-formed and clearly marked as being made in Hong Kong on the bat-back:.

These came in a blue box:

Yikes!  The reason I "believe" my example was sold in this box is the artwork, where a suspiciously similar looking bat is flying under the pterodactyl. I can't quite suss out where the string would have been attached though.

The set dating is from the box bottom indicia, found on this proof flat:

Here's the aforementioned indicia:

As always, if you have examples from this obscure issue, please send your images along!

Owen-ing Up

Over the years here, I've shown various bits of ephemera concerning the prizes baseball players signed by Topps could consult, picking out merchandise instead of taking their yearly check from Topps for use of their likeness.  By my calculations 1957 saw the first dedicated merch catalog but there was apparently some form of earlier non-cash compensation that made available a limited amount of items, at least based upon this postcard, sent in by Friend o'the Archive Ben North:

A camera, phonograph or golf clubs in lieu of cash didn't tempt him, but the two different spellings of Mickey Owen's last name briefly raised my antennae.  It didn't take long to make sure he didn't have the "s" tacked when he born and to me it sure looks like someone at Topps filled in the "From" and "Name" fields for Owen and then the catcher filled in the rest of the mailer.  The verbiage clearly indicates the merchandise was offered in the Topps cover letter of March 15, 1956 (seemingly a default date) sending out his 1956 contract with them.

Putting aside his pivotal error in game four of the 1941 World Series, Owen was known as a defensive catcher, wielding a pretty light stick.  His best years came in St. Louis with the Cardinals and he played throughout most of the World War 2 before joining the Navy in 1945. After that he was wrapped up in the Mexican League brouhaha, reinstated and then waived by Brooklyn in 1949. He was a half-time backstop for three seasons with the Cubs, then spent 1952 and 1953 in the minors.  He resurfaced with the Red Sox for 1954 but was released before Spring Training commenced in 1955. He then became a coach with the Red Sox for the 1955 and 1956 seasons, which explains why Topps sent him a contract for '56.

He never made it to a Topps card though.  Topps bought out Bowman in early 1956 and didn't need to keep padding out sets with managers and coaches, so there was no card for poor ol' Arnold. Some pre-war issues and 1950 and '51 Bowman were the extent of his nationally distributed cardboard appearances.

There can't be many of these postcards floating around but they strike me as an excellent and unique way to acquire a player's vintage autograph, if you can find the one you want!

Flip Your Lids

I've mentioned an uptick in uncut Topps material hitting the auction circuit of late, much of it of the test variety. Today's treat features the 1970 Topps Baseball Stars Candy set, which marks their initial attempt to market a tub full of small confections with a lid featuring a collectible novelty on the underside. Memory Lane recently offered this piece, which may have been first hammered in 1992 at Christie's, then locked up in a collection since:

I've covered the set in some detail previously (you can click on the label at right to see) and it's nice to see this sheet surface. The idea of filling the little tubs with candy soon morphed into cramming them full of bubble gum, which suggests to me the candy may not have tested all too well. These next-phase products featured various fruit-flavored Rocks o' Gum and Gum Berries which began rolling out the following year, with humorous illustrations adorning the lid bottoms:

Rocks o' Gum may have been based upon an even earlier version of the product but that's something uncovered by Friend o'the Archive Lonnie Cummins and he's still on the trail.

From rocks to berries (well, grapes):

And purple (1971) to red (1972):

I believe all these related sets used the same illustrations, so Topps was playing around with the gum format a bit. Here's another: 

This of course, all culminated in the 1973 Baseball Stars Bubble Gum issue, which was apparently redesigned from a proof-only set started a year earlier.  Here's how "1972" (as its often referred to) displayed to the world.  This version seems to be part of a design phase where Topps tweaked some of the colors:

(UPDATE 6/22/25:To clarify, these are generally referred to in the hobby 1972's but they are early phase 1973's). A handful of these have been found in "rounded" form but they mostly come squared off:

This transitioned to the final 1973 release, where some green stars turned red::

It was a long road but they finally got there:

So many twists and turns for sets that never really sold all that well!

Mystery Dating

Every once in a while, as I'm looking through my supply of older hobby publications and various saved scans, I find something that makes me scratch my head, either in wonder and/or dismay that I'd never stumbled across a specific piece before. The two I'm focusing on today all pertain to 1952 Topps Baseball, with each falling into the "wonder" category.

Kicking off, we have this partial from an uncut sheet offered by Robert Edward Auctions in the Fall of 2017, which does not seem to have been addressed in any kind of detail anywhere since it popped up eight years ago. Everybody collecting or following this set knows that the first 80 cards that year can be found with wither red or black backs, then series two, which ran from numbers 81-130, made the switch to red permanent. The thought has always been that those first 80 cards were a discrete printing, which I'd imagine is due to the black/red flip-flop. What then to make of this bad boy:

If you have not fully memorized the checklist, the fuzzed out reverse will reveal why I'm showing this particular piece:

The top row (bottom row on the flipped front) has cards running from 81-85 above a second row with numbers 76-80; those sneaky so-and-so's at Topps were subbing in rows from series two at some point! Hopefully additional partials are out there that might show how far they took this.

Next, an old 1998 auction from Ron Oser was posted by the user "postwarcards" over on Net54 a little while back:

Those are the graphics from the 1951 Baseball Candy set:

Then, if you click through to the link to Net54 above then click on another link in that thread, you come to this:

Several of the listed players were not in the 1951 sets but all of them were in the landmark 1952 release.  Couple that with the fact the 1951 cellos held 16 cards...

 ...these examples sure seem like 1952 Trading Card Guild Baseball cello boxes with 15 cards offered for a dime, sans bubble gum, which is how the Guild rolled.

It's pretty cool that, despite the mountains of information in the hobby concerning the 1952 Baseball set, there's still some surprises to be found.

Superhombre

A few months ago Friend o'the Archive Jason Rhodes sent along some intriguing scans from a Mexican licensed set of comics that feature images taken from the 1966 Superman In The Jungle release. SITJ is one of the more legendary U.S. test issues unleashed by Topps, fueled by both the superhero connection and extreme scarcity. The PSA registry count is quite low, with 120 total subjects graded, of which 110 are proofs, and where I assume the latter are all blank-backed.  It's not quite as bad as those figures indicate as a number of off-register and/or hand crudely hand cut "finished" examples have survived that don't really merit being slabbed, but the rarity of these is up there. 

Here is the U.S. version, in the aforementioned hand cut shape.

The reverse features a well done design IMO:

The set saw a full UK retail release, seemingly in 1968, licensed by A&BC, which is easily found and well-known to collectors. However, as it turns out a Mexican set, shrunk down to comic size - and presumably minus some subjects - was also issued by Topps of Mexico. The wrapper is fantastic:

These were Bazooka penny tab-sized but they are quite a departure from Bazooka Joe, no?

Here's an A&BC card (no. 17) titled "Escape By X-Ray":

You can see the A&BC indicia has replaced that of T.C.G. but other than that and some color variance, the backs are the same as the US test version (the back illustrations change around card-by-card in both sets):

And here is the corresponding comic strip from Mexico:

It lacks the vivid colors of the card set but for a wax comic it looks pretty sweet.  The translation of the bottom text, according to Google, reads "The man of steel had an idea, he used a burst of x-rays and the beast escaped scared." Did you know that "panther" in Spanish is "pantera"? Well, it was news to the folks as Para Topps Mexico!

Here's a couple more for your viewing pleasure, nos. 20 and 32, respectively:

Jason unearthed fourteen subjects: 2,5,7,8,15,16,17,20,30,31,32,33,39,40. 

The Bazooka one cent comic set counts from 1966-68 were 42 (14x3) in all years. I'm not sure that it's safe to assume a similar number of subjects here but the known SITJ comics count suggests the possibility. 

Distress Call

We have a bit of a mystery today folks, and an unprecedented one at that. Over the years, all sorts of strange and wonderful things have come into my mailboxes thanks to this blog. Some turn out to be nothing, while others offer something new and unknown.  Today it's time to look at a weird offshoot of the 1968 Baseball Game, one I'm really scratching my head over and presumed (presently at least) to originate at Topps around then.

Blank-backed copies of eighteen subjects have turned up, with fronts that lack any color other than black. Here is Gene Alley, in his black-and-white glory:

I've been able to examine this card in person and the beveled corners match up one hundred percent to the issued cards. Another (very) interesting thing is that what looks like a series of creases across Alley's face and in a couple of other spots are, in, fact, images of creases; it was designed to look distressed without actually being distressed.  There is some legitimate wear around the perimeter, not unexpected on an object with some age to it.

Here's the back:

The surface is pebbled, like old spiral flip-up notebook covers used to be. As such, it's difficult to determine how much of the reverse was also made to look distressed or if it's just picked up dirt over the years.

I mentioned eighteen subjects. They are:

Aaron

Alley

M. Alou

Cepeda

Fregosi

Howard

Killebrew

Lonborg

Mays

McCarver

Peters

B. Robinson

F. Robinson

Rose

Santo

Scott

Staub

Wynn

That's seven Hall-of-Famers plus one more player that could get in some day (Rose) and another from the roster of honored broadcasting nominees (McCarver). Presently, it's not clear if the remaining fifteen subjects were contemplated, or even exist.

EDIT 6/10/25: It now seems all examples have only retained the head portion, and not the shoulders, for each subject: 

So, any thoughts out there? I'm really not sure what to make of all this, it's just so strange. I am sure these would appeal to just about any variety of player, team, oddball, or Hall-of-Fame collector and understand many or possibly all of these will be offered for sale soon (not by me). Maybe some of the new owners will be able to discern additional clues.