Check All Of The Above - The Theory of Checklist Relativity Part 1

Back to the subject of Checklists today campers, specifically from 1958, the year major league baseball became bi-coastal and the Topps cards really started to show their colors. It also marks the beginning of what I call the Theory of Checklist Relativity, or TCR for short.

As we know, Topps started printing cards on 132 card half sheets in 1957. These were always arrayed in 12 rows of 11 cards each. You would think this would lead to nice, even 132 card series but it never, ever did in the baseball sets. Without looking at an uncut sheet it would be hard, if not impossible to see which cards were printed with each other. However, thanks to the way Topps printed their checklists we have a window to peer through.

I managed to track down my tearsheet from the January 22, 1999 issue of Sports Collectors Digest which detailed Mr.Mint's October 1998 "Philly" find of about 200 uncut sheets (mostly partials but some 132 card half sheets were found) from the second series of 1957 baseball cards. If you remember or saved that issue, just beware that the sheets shown on the cover were reconstructed as virtually all sheets from the find were damaged, some quite heavily.

We can see how both halves of the full 264 card sheet when reconstructed yield three copies of each card, in what I call an A B A / B A B pattern, with each letter representing a distinct group of 4 rows of 11 cards. This is one half sheet (Mantle is rightmost in the second and tenth rows, so he appears in the A grouping):



So the pattern is A B A. Here is the other half sheet sheet with Mantle rightmost in the sixth row, with a B A B array. You can see how the A B A / B A B pattern works when comparing the two:



There was a closeup detail or description of about a dozen cards which show they ran from numbers 90 to 170 so I feel safe in saying the 88 cards from the second series were all printed together and that the first four series in 1957 were 88 cards each, which exactly matches the checklists. The fifth and final series of 55 therefore also checks out using this reasoning.

I am not certain if Topps co-mingled series in 1957. I suspect they may have but don't have access to unopened pack runs. It does seem certain that they were seeing if the checklists would be a good way to advertise the next upcoming series.

In 1958 they did something different and started a trend that would continue through 1972, occasionally refined, where the series runs didn't match what was on the uncut sheets. In addition, the team card backs became home to player checklists which continued through 1960.

The information on the 1958 checklists in the major price guides gives us the following series runs and totals:

Series 1: 1-110 (110 cards)
Series 2: 111-198 (88 cards-#145 Bouchee pulled so an extra print of someone added)
Series 3: 199-286 (88 cards)
Series 4: 287-374 (88 cards)
Series 5: 375-440 (66 cards)
Series 6: 441-495 (55 cards)

The checklists tell a different story though, revealing five 88 card series on the backs of the team cards:





Those show numbers 177-264 belonging to series three and a look at all five confirm that the first five checklists had 88 cards listed on them. This is why I call it the Theory of Checklist Relativity; they are showing series that are different relative to the uncut sheets or what is shown in the major price guides.

What does it all mean? Well, I'm going to be a tease and put that part of the discussion off until my next post, which will delve into the '58 uncut sheets and their assorted mysteries. Not gonna leave you totally hanging though, let's look at series "6" before we go.

The four team cards that appear after #440 (Redlegs, Orioles, Braves, Tigers) come two ways as you can find a numerical checklist or an innovative alphabetical one:

The alphabetical cards that showed the numbers of your favorite players spread out over four cards so you could track them down:



They only go up to #440 though, or exactly five runs of 88 cards each. As you can see on this numerical checklist back, something was afoot in the sixth series:



So, where oh where is the checklist for the Sport Magazine All Stars? Why on the back of the All Star Managers card,of course!





That is from checkoutmycards.com kids, the only site I could find with a back scan.

Those all star cards are one of the reasons I am holding off the rest of this discussion until next time. See you soon!

Unchecked

Following up on last episode's look at 1957 baseball checklists, we have received some scans from Firiend o'the Archive Doug Goodman that confirms the theory the checklists were printed separately from the regular issue cards and likely cut in strips. Here is the front of a 2/3 Series checklist, with some red title block showing on the bottom:



The back shows a similar story:



A checklist and corresponding contest card (which are about to be blogged upon in our next installment and which consist of four distinct dated guess-the-score contests) could have been printed together and inserted into the packs series-by-series.

1957 would be the last year of these bland checklists as a new paradigm was unveiled in '58. Have no fear though, we still have to take a look at what was in the football packs in '57 too!

Checking In

Today will be the day you read more about unnumbered 1957 Topps Baseball Checklists than you ever thought possible.

As we know, Topps issued some unnumbered checklists with their 1956 baseball and football cards. They started seeding in contest cards as well in the football packs and then in '57, amid shrinking their cards to standard size, there was a riotous frenzy of checklists, contests and premium cards added to the packs. I'll address the contest cards in my next post as this one is going to be long enough but you can see the premium card insert here.

Still actively promoting Blony, the gum brand that came to Topps with the Bowman purchase in February of 1956, the '57 baseball checklists had ads for that brand and Bazooka as well. I have to think Blony was a still big seller for Topps, likely in the Philadelphia area, since they were going into warp drive promoting Bazooka otherwise.

First we will look at the fronts. As you can see below, there were four checklists issued covering five series in total: 1/2, 2/3, 3/4, 4/5. Each checklist covered two consecutive series as Topps continued to work in previews of what was coming next, a meme that would grow and grow in the future.









You can see the blue/red/blue/red alternating header block pattern which appears to be consistent all year long but there are also three different style fronts; only the second and fourth series obverses look close to the same and even there they swap secondary colors. By the way, all the scans in this post are either culled from Ebay, Mike Wheat Cards or 707 Sportscards.

Those first two up top have wavy or off cuts which leads me to believe the checklists were cut at high speed from vertical strips. 1957 uncut sheets have been seen and while they are the first to be made up of two 132 card half sheets - a sacrosanct array for Topps stretching across four decades) - none have been seen with checklists on them so once again these cards were pushed into the nickel wax and whatever cello packs were sold that year.

The reverses carry either Bazooka or Blony ads. Here we go with Bazooka first:









While the ads don't change, the cardboard stock seems to, although it's always hard to tell from scans. The final Fifth Series header is also in Blue, matching the color on the front designating the Fourth Series while the prior three were Red, also matching their front Series designator. There seems to be no difference between Bazooka and Blony fronts but there is some variation with the Blony backs and if you look at all of the 2/3 fronts and backs together, that series does seem to have been printed on white stock whereas the others are gray:









Even the "Twin" goes to blue for the last series! The 4/5 checklists seems to be appreciably harder to finds than those from the earlier series. I can only speculate as to how they were seeded into the packs but the 4/5's could have coincided with the scarcer semi high number (4th series) cards in '57. Notice how Big Blony appears on the first two and Twin Blony on the final two. I wonder how the rough and tumble boys of 1957 liked the "made of...sugar 'n' spice 'n' ...everything nice" line?!

In case you are into symbolic gestures, note how the 1957 set matches the 1952 with 407 subjects, and includes team cards once again but also two multi-player cards of the Yankees and Dodgers (almost a first if you discount the 1954 O'Brien twins card) plus a combo of the league presidents, a sure fire bicycle spoke candidate. The first four series in '57 have 88 cards, which means each would have been printed three times over two 132 card sheets and a final series of 55, a number which seems to lead to short prints in the Topps universe (along with 77). I'll post a 1957 Topps Baseball set overview someday that delves into this more deeply.

For some reason the 1956 checklists seem to be in greater supply than the 57's. I find this odd as the normal Topps trendline is increasing production for each successive year but maybe more 56's were simply printed. The price guides seem to price the 3/4 checklist at about double the level of the previous two but supply of all three seems pretty similar. As noted above, the 4/5 checklist is the toughest by far.

Hang tight-a look at the 1957 contest cards will be coming up right quick! Meanwhile, we'll see if any of our eagle-eyed readers can find some further checklist variations.