Presenting part two of an ongoing series examining the use of short prints and double prints by Topps in their vintage era; part one can be found HERE. Today Mark Pekrul is looking at the 1958 to 1960 press sheets for the annual Topps Baseball sets. Mark, who posts as “deweyinthehall” on Net54 Baseball has dug into these along with a couple of other stalwarts over there and worked to reconstruct most of the print arrays for all Topps Baseball series from roughly 1955 to 1970. This work has essentially been compiled independently of anything I’ve posted previously. Mark maintains a website that covers Topps Baseball sets from 1965 to 1994 in some commendable depth as well, CLICK HERE to be transported.
As a reminder, from 1957 through 1995, all Topps standard-sized (i.e. 2.5 x 3.5 inches) sets (baseball, football, hockey, basketball and non-sports) were printed on sheets containing two large blocks of cards, 11x12 cards each. Creating groups of 132 cards each, in many cases this gave us complete set counts which are very recognizable today – 132, 264, 396, 528, 660 and 792. Some early hockey and football sets, as well as many non-sports sets, had only 66 cards – exactly half of 132.
When we hear the term “uncut sheet” today, we typically think of a roughly 2' x 4' sheet of 132 cards. However, a full standard-sized uncut sheet was twice as large, and included 2 groupings of 132 cards (as above). The margins were white (even for sets with colored borders, such as 1971 or 1962) and contained various notations including positioning and cutting guides and other errata. They eventually even featured commodity codes, just like Topps used for cases, boxes and packs.
Down the middle ran a thick white space called the “gutter” – full sheets were sliced down the gutter before each half-sheet, or ‘slit’, was then fed into a cutter.
Each slit contained 12 rows of 11 cards. For ease of reference, we can label the rows A-L and columns 1-11. Any card position can then be designated as A-1 (far upper left), L-11 (bottom right), and so forth, as shown below.
And away we go…
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1958 Topps Baseball – 494 Total Cards in Set
Series 1: 1-110, 110 different cards
1958 was the first of many times a set’s first series would
contain 110 cards. To accommodate 10
different rows of 11 cards on a 24 row full sheet, it was necessary for each
row to appear twice and for either one of those rows to appear four additional
times, two to appear two additional times, or four to appear one additional
time.
In later years, for which we have images of 110-card sheets,
we know it was the rule that four rows would appear one additional time
each. While we have no images of 1958’s
series one sheets and reconstructions have yet to be made, we do have several partial sheet
images. This permits us to identify with a high
degree of certainty that two of the four over-printed rows, in which each card
will appear in quantities 50% greater than the other series 1 cards, are
arranged thusly, as per the head card in each:
Don Drysdale (25)
Jim Landis (108)
Don Mossi (35)
Del Ennis (60)
Billy Hoeft (13)
Bobby Richardson (101)
Hank Aaron (30)
Tim Thompson (57)
Duke Snider (88)
Early Wynn (100)
Willie Mays (5)
and
Jim Rivera (11)
Von McDaniel (65)
Giants Team Card (19)
Bob Lemon (2)
Billy Hunter (98)
Al Kaline (70)
Cal Neeman (33)
Billy Pierce (50)
Don Zimmer (77)
Gil McDougald (20)
Morrie Martin (53)
Series 2: 111-198, 87 different cards. What should have been the 88th
card, #145, Ed Bouchee, was never issued due to, um…legal problems he
encountered in January, 1958. Card #115,
Jim Bunning took #145’s place on the series 2 press sheet, in addition to its
own, and was printed in double the quantities of the other series 2 cards.
Series 3: 199-286, 88 different cards
Series 4: 287-374, 88 different cards
Series 5: 375-440, 66 different cards
Series 5 was arranged in the 66-card pattern, and each slit
was identical. Here is an image of slit
B, which also shows column 11 from slit A, with the gutter in between:
Series 6: 441-495, 55 different cards
As it is a 55-card series, one of the five rows had to have
been printed only three times, to the other four rows’ four times each. While we have images of each series 6 row,
they are all disembodied from sheets or slits, and we do not have enough
information to know which row of 11 cards was short-printed.
The series 5 press sheets do contain a curiosity, however.
Here are two rows – anything seem unusual?
Notice how the All Star cards of Stan Musial (476) and Mickey Mantle (487)
appear three times each on the same row.
Musial was a key last minute signing by Topps and we can only surmise that they wanted
to provide kids with a greater chance of obtaining cards of two of the most
popular stars of the day by making each of
these cards available in greater quantities than the other series 6 cards.
While no images exist, we know that for some of its total print run series 6 included only the usual one of each per row, and that the four other spaces were taken up in one row by Carroll Hardy (446) and Preston Ward (450) and in the other by Billy Harrell (443) and Gary Geiger (462). So, these four are seemingly available in lesser quantities than other series 6 cards and possibly in far lesser quantities than the Mantle and Musial All Stars.
1959 Topps Baseball – 572 Total Cards in Set
Series 1: 1-110, 110 different cards
As with all other 110-card series, we know that 44 of these
cards were over-printed by 1/2, but we have no images or reconstructions to
allow us to know which specific cards these were.
Series 2: 111-198, 88 different cards
Series 3: 199-286, 88 different cards
Series 4: 287-374, 88 different cards
Series 5: 375-440, 66 different cards
Series 6: 441-506, 66 different cards
Series 7: 507-572, 66 different cards
Series 2-4 were arranged in the 88-card pattern, and those
in series 5-7 in the 66-card pattern.
1959 was Topps’ largest set yet. They increased from 1958 by nearly 100 cards,
and added a 7th series. Topps
sets would include seven series from here through 1970.
1960 Topps Baseball – 572 Total Cards in Set
Series 1: 1-110, 110 different cards
Series 2: 111-198, 88 different cards
Series 3: 199-286, 88 different cards
Series 4: 287-374, 88 different cards
Series 5: 375-440, 88 different cards
Series 6: 441-506, 66 different cards
Series 7: 507-572, 66 different cards
The 1960 set was constructed in exactly the same manner as
the 1959 set. Again, because we lack
imagery from series 1, we cannot tell with certainty which 44 cards were
over-printed and exist in quantities 50% greater than the other 66.
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Stay tuned, it get really interesting as we approach the expansion era.
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