In The Gutter

Up until last month, the largest portions I had ever seen of a 1952 Topps baseball uncut sheet were 5 x 5 card quadrants.  There have been a few pictures and scans published over the years showing purportedly larger partial sheets but upon inspection they have always been stitched together from 5 x 5's or even smaller  chunks. There have also been written accounts of 100 card sheets over the years that have been credible but until Friend O'the Archive John Moran sent this second series beauty along, 25 card panels were as good as it got:

There is a lot going on here.  We have the full 50 card series shown, although not fully realized on each hemisphere, plus what looks to be a misplaced horizontal gutter below the fifth row.  You can see how the left and right sides are cut close and there would have been two more cards on the left side, leftmost  plus a final column hard right.  This was either a proof sheet or something that came off the Lord Baltimore Printing press incorrectly and was pulled (and saved, obviously).  You can see how the left and right sides, if in their full array, would each make up a half sheet of a full, 200 card behemoth.  I originally thought maybe Topps was working in quads but the consensus is that this sheet is just an oddity and shows the break between sections.

The full sheet would then have four iterations of each card and as anyone who collects this set knows, the second series is abundant.  Following the series by sheets (or vice-versa) the first was 80 cards, the second 50, the third 60 and the fourth 60 as well, depositing us at #250.  The fifth series, known as the semi-highs, would run another 60 cards and would be printed in lesser quantities than the previous series.  This, of course, left room for the highs, beginning at #311 (Mantle) and then ending at #407 (Mathews), with three double prints (the Mick, the Staten Island Scot and Jackie) filling the three holes.  I believe that the highs were printed in roughly the same quantities as the semi-high's, as the rationale for issuing the 6th series (which had not been originally contemplated) was that the 5th was selling well.  Topps ultimately compromised the final run by destroying their remaining stock of high's in later years.

I am not certain if Topps would start mixing one series with another as they rolled each out in '52 but they were clearly experimenting with the length of each series as they puzzled out this classic issue.  We thus get  overprints for all but the second series (40 in series one, 20 each in series 3-5) and perhaps some of the counts were influenced by contractual concerns for players who were in Bowman's stable as well. I really like the fact it's still not possible to exactly piece together the story of the 1952 set!

Bigger, Longer, Uncut

I have received a couple requests to show some more uncut sheets here and with time scarce at the Archive (indeed, as it is every spring) I am more than happy to oblige. Today will bring a look at the "big boys", the 1952-56 baseball sets.

I previously showed a 1948 Magic Photos sheet here and have not ever seen uncut Blue Back or Red Back sheets from 1951, although the uber-scarce Major League All Stars exist in partially uncut form and there is evidence the Connie Mack All Stars and Team Cards were printed together and shown in older posts here so will start off with a 1952 quadrant (not mine, probably from an auction as the only uncut sheet I own is from 1982):



Note there is a double printed row (1 and 3 are the same). There are 80 cards in the first series in '52, where this sheet came from, so another DP row would be in there somewhere. But, as we know from last time it is far more likely two different sheets were composed. No full '52 sheets are known.

Here is a smaller '52 panel:



Strips of 1953's are famously known and some reconstructed sheets are presented here for your consideration:





You can see the two sheets are arrayed differently. There is a lot more on the printing of the 1952 and 1953 sheets here (just click on THE LIBRARY and you will see George Vrechek's Closer Look at these).

Full 100 card 1954 half sheets are known, although I do not have a color scan but sometimes black and white just seems right:


( from Sport Americana Baseball Card Price Guide, 3rd ed.)

Here are a couple of partials, shown previously: and which match the bottom five rows of the bigger sheet:



The 100 card sheet has a gap in the numbering of the cards printed upon it. #126-150 and #176-250 are displayed and I have to think #51-125 and the #151-175 are on the other half sheet as #1-50 were almost certainly the entirety of the first series that year. This means Topps either intentionally left a gap or printed (and sold) both runs together. I don't think there is any way around it but after the shenanigans they pulled a year prior, I would love to see the other sheet. Given the lackluster Bowman cards in '54, Topps looks to have altered what would likely have been a four or five series set to stimulate sales.

After 1954 we move from 100 card half sheets to 110 cards as Topps increased their printing capabilities. Full 1955 sheets are known but I do not have a good scan at the moment, although I thought I did. Here is a '55 partial:



Very colorful cards!

We conclude our golden age journey with a 1956 sheet:



It looks like two columns (rightmost) are double prints but they are really rows if you reorient the sheet.

I'll pick up with a look at the the "tween era" sheets next time out.