Regional Lithographic

One of the longer lasting comments threads on this blog belongs to a post about Zabel Brothers from August of 2010. There are some very informative comments there, a good number by former Zabel employees or children of employees.  The latest comment posted by an alumnus really caught my eye as it mentions Topps printed the backs of their cards at a different plant than the fronts, whcih explains a few things but so far as I know, is something never before mentioned anywhere.

I'm still trying to determine all the nuances of this revelation but I have to say it's something I've never heard before.  The story is a plant in Connecticut printed the backs and then they went off down (and potentially up) I-95 to Philly or Providence or northwest to Rochester, NY.  There is much more to come on this but I thought I would revisit the various Topps lithographers here and see if anything else comes through the pipeline before revisiting.  So.....

Lord Baltimore Press (Baltimore, Maryland) - I believe they printed the majority of Topps cards from 1948-58 or so and also did gum tab wrappers (and probably a lot more) for the company, very possibly all the way back to 1938 but certainly in the 1948-49 time frame as their logo appears on some issues of that era.  Bought out by International Paper in 1958 and converted to a carton printing operation by 1960.  I have a bit here on them but check the links at right as well. They had a major sales office in New York when Topps used them.

Zabel Brothers (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) - A printer for Bowman, they almost certainly produced the 1956 U.S. Presidents set after Topps bought Bowman from Connelly Containers earlier that year and then slowly but surely became the main Topps printer until 1981 when a strike ended things.  This then led to the Engravers Union pillaging of a large historical store of printed, uncut sheets used for reference. Some sheets were later found after the plant was abandoned and before it burned down. The firm was founded in 1885 and was a major printer of sheet music, possibly the largest in the country before World War 2. Zabel was bought by Wagaman Brothers Printers of Lititz, Pennsylvania in 1980 and the Philadelphia plant was closed in the wake of the strike.

Wagaman in turn was bought by American Bag & Paper Corp. (later called American Packaging), also of Lititz, in 1981 and stopped commercial printing in 1983. Topps seems to have stuck with them until the shutdown, then switched to Panel Prints of Old Forge, Pennsylvania. The link at right is your best bet for more Zabel Brothers details. I found this over at oldadsarefunny.blogspot.com:



Case-Hoyt (Rochester, New York) - Founded in 1919, they were the biggest lithographer in Rochester and opened a New York City Sales office in 1954.  Some good information is found here. Purchased in 1984 by Bell Canadian Enterprises, they bought Great Lakes Press a year later. They survived until about 2004.

Lebanon Valley Offset (Annville, Pennsylvania) - The firm did work for Topps starting in the 1990's when production switched to smaller sheets.

Chromographic Press (Hamden, Connecticut) - Owned by P. Peter Shorin at the time it was shut down in 1971 (as Topps got ready for their IPO) I think this was previously the Stecher-Traung plant but am not positive. Some firm in Hamden did work for Topps from at least 1962, that I do know.

Federated Lithographers (Providence, Rhode Island) - Friend o'the Archive Bob D'Angelo best summarized their Topps involvement here.  They did a lot of work for Topps when the big baseball card boom hit in the mid-80's. Bought out by Quebecor in 1989.

A. Hoen & Co. (Baltimore, Maryland) - Not much is known other than they were founded before the Civil War, did some work for Topps at some point and shut down in 1981.  The best information I have on them is here.

Great Lakes Press (Rochester, New York) - The infamous 1962 Baseball second series Green Tints may have been printed by them.  Founded during the Depression, they were acquired in 1985 by Case-Hoyt.

Stecher-Traung (Rochester, New York) - Possible printer of the 1962 Green Tints (I'm starting to lean toward no though, after many years of thinking yes), also believed to have printed some portion of the 1952 Baseball set.

Topps Chewing Gum (Duryea, Pennsylvania) - Len Brown once indicated in an interview that Topps printed cards at their plant in Duryea at some point and Friend o'the Archive Lonnie Cummins sent along some information about this I will get into fairly soon here. I believe this began in the early 1990's. (UPDATE 4/10/20: John Tassoni Jr., former pressman and union man at Quebecor in Providence says that the items purportedly printed at Duryea were actually printed at his plant and not the Topps plant). 

Who did what when is the thing to suss out! The standard sized issues were cut down from 264 sheets to 132 card half sheets, palletized and trucked to Topps in Brooklyn (until 1966 for the most part), then thereafter to Duryea, PA, before actually being printed locally in Pennsylvania.

Thanks to Karl Schoettle, who worked at Zabel Brothers, American Packaging and Panel Prints for much of the above information. He mentioned sometimes sheets were stolen enroute to Topps!

March Mix

Some more odds and sods today kids, showcasing some rarely seen, albeit not particularly valuable, Topps items.

Let's commence with a double of a triple!  After Topps bough Bowman out in early 1956, they continued issuing Blony bubble gum (and probably some other legacy confectionery products) in to 60's and even tried to revive it in the 70's. At a guess it was probably intended for sale mostly in the Philadelphia area and suburbs, maybe down into the Chesapeake, and likely encompassing old, defensive Bowman jobber territory.  Blony was wrapped with Archie comics for a few years in the mid to late 50's and this example is a prime one:

Mirthful comic aside, the real star here is the offer for Triple Nickel Books, which were a Woody Gelman and Ben Solomon production.  Talk about your cross promotion!

An old series of threads on Valentines Day issues showed a single example of the 1962 Valentine Stickers Topps produced for this once annual offering in 1962.  A recent eBay auction, which I happily won, provides visuals for three more stickers, plus a peek at the reverse.  These are very, very hard to find, no doubt partly due to the stickers being used for their intended purposes, namely being peeled off and applied to a plain sheet of paper for a low cost "card". However, they are so much harder to find than just about any other sticker issue from the 60's, I have to think they were not widely distributed and suspect Topps may have pawned off one of their Funny Valentine issues from years prior as well in '62. I hesitate to call my look at these a Visual Checklist since only four color shots are known to me (there is a B&W example of a fifth sticker in the Sport-Americana Non-Sports Guides as well). You can go over to Todd Riley's http://non-sport.com/ and find examples of all of 44 them I believe, as I'm not copying images out to populate a checklist.

Here are the three:

The backs are tan, which is expected but nice to actually see:

1967 Giant Plaks box flat anyone?

That's the ten cent version that held packs with two plaks of the thinner variety (vs. the thicker ones sold in five cent packs) and it's a set not a lot of people really follow, but at the bottom right of this proof box slick is a very interesting stamp:

As documented a while back, Chromographic Press was another Topps printer, but it was family owned (by P. Peter Shorin) and I believe it printed mostly oddball issues, a moniker the Giant Plaks richly deserve but this is a mere box flat, so who knows if I'm right. It was shut down prior to the original Topps IPO in 1972 and probably was started up in the early 60's.

See ya in April!

Printers Link

One of the more esoteric things I like to look at sometimes is the actual production of Topps cards. Artwork was worked up by firms such as Solomon & Gelman in the 1940's and early 50's before Topps took this vital function in-house but the printing of the cards was always outsourced, at least in the vintage era. I've taken some quick peeks before but wanted to get all of the details I can into one post.

There were two main Topps printers early on: Lord Baltimore Press (alternatively Lord Baltimore Printing), with offices in New York and a printing plant in Baltimore; and Zabel Brothers Lithographers of Philadelphia, which functioned as Bowman's printer.  It's fairly clear to me that, after they acquired Bowman from Connelly Containers in early 1956 Topps, first used Zabel Brothers to print the 1956 U.S. Presidents set. Bowman's main card size at the time of the purchase was of the same height used by Topps but 1/8" lesser in width, which matches the dimensions of  U.S. Presidents in '56.

(Lord Baltimore Press logo from 1949 Topps Stop & Go wrapper)

The other Topps Giant Size issues from 1956 (Baseball, Football, Davy Crockett "A" Series, Round Up and Flags of the World) were manufactured  in the regular size used by Topps for such cards since 1952 and almost certainly were all the work of Lord Baltimore Press (LBP). Topps went to standard sized cards measuring 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" when Elvis Presley came out in late 1956 and never looked back, so any differences in size were rendered moot.

LBP was purchased by International Paper in 1958 and within about two years had been switched from high quality commercial lithography to producing shipping cartons and the like. I suspect Topps sporadically used Zabel Brothers in the 1957-60 period before switching over somewhat permanently but right now it's impossible to tell.  Complicating matters are three other printing firms that come up.

The first of these, Stecher-Traung Lithographers of Rochester, New York may have been involved with the production of the 1962 Baseball green tints series and few other sets. Stecher-Traung also had a facility in Hartford, Connecticut and until about two months ago I never would have associated that state with the printing of Topps cards.  However it turns out another printer in the Nutmeg State, namely Chromographic Press, Inc. of Hamden produced some cards from roughly 1966-71 and was owned by Topps director P. Peter Shorin.  The plant may have been in New Haven but that's not clear to me right now. The Shorin connection is interesting as Topps co-founder Philip Shorin held at least two patents relating to printing technology.

Then there is the mysterious case of A. Hoen & Company of Baltimore, also commercial lithographers.  An obituary for Thomas Townsend Hoen, known as "Townie" and noted to be the last President of A. Hoen & Company appears in the May 25, 2011 issue of the Baltimore Sun and mentions the firm printed cards for Topps. A. Hoen certainly did high quality work as they printed maps for National Geographic. Chromographic Press went into bankruptcy around 1971, likely a planned one as Topps consolidated expenses in advance of their 1972 IPO.

Zabel Brothers was shut down in 1982 after being sold to American Bag & Paper, also known as American Packaging (around 1980) while A. Hoen printed its last in 1981.  Stecher-Traung looks like it managed to hang on until about 1985 after it merged with Schmidt Lithographic of San Francisco (printer of the glorious Obak tobacco cards from 1009-11) and an offshoot or two may still be around today. What Topps did post-Zabel I am not 100% clear on. Len Brown mentioned Topps printed their own cards in-house at some point in Duryea while I recall some hobby press articles about high quality printers used by them in the 1990's when the technology really leapfrogged mid-decade.

(courtesy http://www.sheaff-ephemera.com/)

Large scale commercial lithography of course was done in eventually by more modernized methods of reproduction and printing but despite it being a business, it was also an art form. Just look at the detail in the advertisement above.