Stamp Act

Among the myriad wonders offered in the Spring 2018 Robert Edward Auctions catalog, I think we can all say there was one that got away. In my case there were many more than that, although I did catch a big fish.  Of particular interest to me were the two 1955 Topps Baseball Stamps, surfacing after many years of being landlocked in a private collection.

In addition to producing the 1954 and 1955 paper inserts for four issues of Sports Illustrated magazine, Topps produced what I believe to be a 40 subject sheet of baseball stamps that were never released to the public. These were direct copies of the 1955 Baseball cards that were perforated on at least one side and had gummed, blank backs.  A sister internal sheet of the same year's Rails & Sails stamps was also produced, which was, you guessed it, 40 subjects long.

The known checklist is 24 subjects, 23 of which have been sighted and/or previously checklisted by Beckett or the Standard Catalog.and are listed below.  All appear in both the regular Topps issue plus the Double-Header set as well and I've included the corresponding numbering for both.

REG. DH "CORKY" VALENTINE REDLEGS 44 46 "RUBE" WALKER DODGERS 108 15 ALEX GRAMMAS CARDINALS 21 107 BILL SKOWRON YANKEES 22 21 BILL TREMEL CUBS 52 102 BOB SKINNER PIRATES 88 56 BOBBY HOFMAN GIANTS 17 96 CHARLIE WHITE BRAVES 103 18 CHUCK DIERING ORIOLES 105 2 DAVE JOLLY BRAVES 35 95 DON MOSSI INDIANS 85 84 HARVEY HADDIX CARDINALS 43 42 HOWIE POLLET CUBS 76 31 JACK SHEPARD PIRATES 73 23 JIM DAVIS CUBS 68 28 JIM PENDELTON BRAVES 15 33 JOE CUNNINGHAM CARDINALS 37 38 KARL SPOONER DODGERS 90 19 RAY BOONE TIGERS 65 113 RAY JABLONSKI REDLEGS 56 51 RUBEN GOMEZ GIANTS 71 89 STAN HACK CUBS 6 24 TED KAZANSKI PHILLIES 46 5

The 24th subject is Hank Aaron, "confirmed" by some prominent hobbyists but not yet in scanned form or on the major checklists. It is thought all of these came from Woody Gelman's personal collection. In addition to the Rails & Sails stamps being 40 in number, another reason I think this set is also comprised of 40 subjects is the way the regular issue cards were laid out. The usual orientation is off because of the horizontal printing but you can see where all subjects were taken from a chunk of the 110 card uncut sheet that runs from columns 2-5 and down rows A-E. (U) means unconfirmed of course and Hammerin' Hank gets an asterisk):

(NOTE 8/18/22, this is not a correct "potential universe" list anymore, see posts of 9/17/22  and 9/22/22 for a bit of an update.  More information still needs to be developed based upon recent findings but the Standard Catalog listing may be holding up pending scans of Grammas and Kazanski being found).

Some observations are in order.  There is another 40 subject section of sheet real estate that has Wally Moon at B5 and Hank Sauer at C5 but since both those slots are occupied by confirmed stamps, I think this is the proper array.  As you can see, each row and column has at least one confirmed stamp as do all "borders" so the 40 stamp universe seems highly likely to me. And that lower right corner, which is an entirely missing quad-save possibly for Aaron-can you imagine what a Ted Williams stamp would be worth?!

Two of the stamps made it into REA, Jack Shepard and Bob Skinner. I was underbidder on the Skinner (a PSA 1) but didn't go after the Shepard (a PSA 3). I'm showing the backs so each can be identified in the future if another comes up (it's not 100% confirmed but there may actually be two of some subjects out there in the wild).

The lot description has that little curl at the bottom of the Skinner reverse as "excess paper." The ink spray and off-registration on the fronts doesn't surprise me as I think these were a materials test as Topps was very much putting a lot of effort into alternate media at the time, something that was killed off forthwith once they purchased Bowman in early 1956.

Ironically, the first mention of these I ever saw was from a Rob Lifson ad in the January 31, 1986 issue of Sports Collectors Digest, where he had four for sale. I am hoping more pop up down the road as I would very much like to have one for my collection. Kudos to whoever won these!

Railing, Sailing

Topps Rails & Sails, a 1955 issue that ranks as one of the crowning achievements of the Giant Size era, may have begun life as two distinct sets that were eventually blended together for retail.  Their schizophrenic fronts have Rails cards with borders and Sails cards with full bleeds while the backs also differ in composition as the Sails cards feature a grayed in back over about 75% of their surface area with a full bottom bleed.  A couple of uncut sheets surfaced this week on Ebay that illustrate this:



The Sails portion of the sheet is upside down in relation to the Rails cards.  The next row of sails would have the same orientation as the Rails cards as the gray would be printed as a big block of color on the reverse of the uncut sheet:



Each card back has a distinct drawing or two-the amount of detail is amazing!  As is often the case I can't find a sheet back showing both orientations but I have something better-a sheet of Rails & Sails Stamps:



Sold in a 2004 Mastro auction, the gutter separating the Rails and Sails stamps differs from the way the cards were printed as there was no separation of genres.  These would be related to the just-as-rare Topps baseball stamps from 1955, unblogged upon here at present.  I've never seen any other examples of the stamps!  Their existence though, helps show the flip-flop orientation of the Sails rows.  Some partial stamps are also present, a tantalizing hint of a larger sheet.

I am not certain if the set was printed in a 100  or 110 card configuration, although I slightly suspect the latter as the baseball cards from that years were arrayed 11 x 10 on each half sheet, for a 220 card full sheet.  The cards though, are also printed schizophrenically as #1-80 (all Rails) and 131-150 (all Sails) were printed together in a first series that would probably have three groupings of the 20 Sails and two of the 80 Rails (or one less grouping of Sails if a 100 card array was used).  This type of series breakage was used for the 1954 baseball cards so a 100 card array is certainly possible.

The second series was printed in significantly lesser quantities and features the opposite chunks o'cards: #81-130 for the Rails and #151-200 for the Sails.  100 cards per half sheet would work out neatly but the stamp configuration makes it seem like a row of Sails could have been slipped in between the Rails and Sails, meaning a likely extra row of Rails and one of Sails for a 110 half/220 card full sheet.  Whew!

The box and wax packs are magnificent:

See-I told you it was nice-one of the great sets of the 50's, no doubt about it!