The Match Prints are from the 1954 and 1956 sets. Here is Larry Doby's, featuring both the main photo (with classic Yankee Stadium centerfield background) and the inset:
You can clearly see the "Ben Sol" OK on the reverse of each. Pretty neat!
Here is the finished product:
Topps clearly was concerned with quality control and appears to be avoiding the use of wire photos to create their cards. Someone did a real nice job colorizing the main photo as well; art was a true art form in the 50's!
On a related note, I have not yet been able to figure out when Ben Solomon went to work for Topps as an employee. While his Solomon & Gelman partner Woody worked on the 1952 Topps baseball set and is said to have joined the firm around that time (late 1951), I am not so sure. Solomon & Gelman lived on until at least 1957 --and possibly even as late as 1962-- from what I have been able to find and they may have been taken in house by Topps before finally hiring on at some point.
I do note Jacobellis had an address fairly close to Solomon & Gelman's (230 W 41 St at one time before they moved three or four blocks north). There were probably dozens of commercial photographers in Manhattan at that time. I wonder if this guy was one of them?
Here is a Net54 thread on Jacobellis and some other vintage era photographers that is well worth a look.
2 comments:
I worked in the "bullpen" under Ben Solomon in around '68, taking the subway to Bush Terminal on a bus and 3 subway trains to do so. I was Sara Mickelson or maybe I had just married and was Sara Greenfield. He hired me as a trainee because I knew his daughter from college. He was a great guy and oversaw a strong department with maybe 10 or 12 artists? We did huge mechanicals with rubylith overlays for the Bazooka Joe comics and I worked on the baseball cards too. A lost set of skills but very wonderful to use, in the days before computers made them completely antiquated.
Sara-very interesting. So are you on the Topps Teamates/Grow Power card showing Ben and the Art Department from 1970-71?
Post a Comment