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:

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!