Oh Captain, My Captain!

I am telling you, the more you look at the Topps Punchboards, the more confusing things get! Just when it looked like the 66's were sussed out, along comes a mystery man who expands the set count by 40-some-odd-percent. Then you get a ton of details on the 67's (much more on this below) and think you have that particular set figured out when in comes even more information. Egads!

Well, enough kvetching......let's talk 1967-ish Topps Baseball Punch-outs!

After what looks like a full production ramp up that was killed just before test marketing in 1966, Topps revamped and greatly (understatement of the year) expanded the offering for 1967. Whereas we have 14 cards featuring 28 players in '66, the 1967 Topps Punchboards (or Punch-Outs, the wrapper and card backs differ) were sent off into the Summer of Love with a possible 86 players and just under 200 permutations presented in crisp, elongated cellos and mysteriously distributed wax packs.

I have shown 67's here before but always like showing off my Cleon Jones:



American League players had red backgrounds while all of the Senior Circuit players were draped in black like Cleon. Here is one I used to own, taped on one side which made me think it may have been a Topps file copy at some point:



We'll get to the perforations in a minute. The back tells you how to play the game (greatly simplified and made more cost effective than it was the year before) but also gives us a clue about the size of the set:



"Nearly 200" different lineup cards is the veritable truth. Veteran Topps test collector Larry Serota has been tracking this set for years and has some significant observations. He has found there are 86 Team Captains and 195 different lineups. Good grief!

When you consider this is a set that is only a step up from a typical Topps test issue in scarcity (it was likely issued in a few, select locales), Larry' s collection of 192 out of 195 possible cards is one of the more amazing hobby feats I can recall.

Let's start by examining the most commonly issued format. Still occasionally found in their aboriginal state of three vertically connected cards, these babies were gumless, ten cent cello packs with two full panels, or six cards; likely a foray by Topps into the world beyond the corner candy store. Here's a few now, apologies for not having the source:



We'll get back to the cellos later.

Now, our man Larry has observed over 1000 panels (oh, yes he has) and found that each three card strip has lineups unique to that particular grouping. Here is a shot of a still-unopened pack that shows a three card strip:



That would be a red AL card under the middle of the wrapper and presumably the other strip below it would reverse the pattern. What Larry is getting at is that the lineups do not repeat on different panels, which is a remarkable feat of design by Topps when you get down to it.

Now Larry has not stopped there; he has determined that if you are a Team Captain in this set, you almost always appear more than once, albeit with a different lineup. Larry figured out that each Captain appears on from 1-4 different cards, as follows:

LAST	FIRST	LINEUPS	NOTE
AARON	HANK	2
ALLEN	RICHIE	3
ALLEY	GENE	2
ALOU	FELIPE	2
ALOU	MATTY	3	2 POSES
ALVIS	MAX	3
APARICIO	LUIS	4
BARBER	STEVE	2
BATTEY	EARL	3
BOYER	CLETE	3
BOYER	KEN	3
BROCK	LOU	2
BUNNING	JIM	1
CALLISON	JOHNNY	2
CAMPANERIS	BERT	N/A
CARDENAS	LEO	3
CARTY	RICO	2
CASH	NORM	3
CEPEDA	ORLANDO	4
CHARLES	ED	1
CLEMENTE	ROBERTO	3	2 POSES
CLENDENON	DONN	2
COLAVITO	ROCKY	1
CONIGLIARO	TONY	2
DAVIS	WILLIE	2
EDWARDS	JOHNNY	2
ETCHEBARREN	ANDY	2
FLOOD	CURT	2
FREEHAN	BILL	1
FREGOSI	JIM	2
GIBSON	BOB	N/A
GREEN	DICK	3
GROAT	DICK	3
GROTE	JERRY	N/A*
HALLER	TOM	2
HART	JIM RAY	2
HERSHBERGER	MIKE	4
HOWARD	ELSTON	3
HOWARD	FRANK	4
HUNT	RON	3
JACKSON	SONNY	1
JONES	CLEON	2
KAAT	JIM	2
KALINE	AL	2
KILLEBREW	HARMON	3
KNOOP	BOBBY	3
KOUFAX	SANDY	2
KRANEPOOL	ED	2
LEFEBVRE	JIM	2
LOCK	DON	2
LUMPE	JERRY	1
MANTLE	MICKEY	2
MARICHAL	JUAN	2
MAYS	WILLIE	3
MAZEROSKI	BILL	2
McAULIFFE	DICK	1
McCARVER	TIM	3
MCCOVEY	WILLIE	1
McLAIN	DENNY	2
McMILLAN	ROY	N/A
MENKE	DENIS	2
MORGAN	JOE	2
OLIVA	TONY	2
PEPITONE	JOE	2
PERRY	GAYLORD	1
PINSON	VADA	2
POWELL	BOOG	4
REICHARDT	RICK	1
ROBINSON	BROOKS	N/A
ROBINSON	FLOYD	1
ROBINSON	FRANK	3	2 POSES
ROMANO	JOHN	4
ROSE	PETE	2
ROSEBORO	JOHN	1
SALMON	CHICO	2
SANTO	RON	2
SCOTT	GEORGE	3
SIEBERT	SONNY	1
SNYDER	RUSS	3
STARGELL	WILLIE	3
STOTTLEMYRE	MEL	2
TORRE	JOE	2
TOVAR	CESAR	2
TRESH	TOM	2
VERSALLES	ZOILO	1
WAGNER	LEON	2
WHITE	BILL	3
WHITFIELD	FRED	3
WILLIAMS	BILLY	2
WYNN	JIM	3
YASTRZEMSKI	CARL	3
	TOTAL	195

Yes, there are three pose variations: Frank Robinson as a Red (almost certainly an honest mistake) or Oriole, Matty Alou facing left or right and Roberto Clemente with a slice of stadium behind him, or not. These all are three lineup players. There are also cropping differences in some of the Team Captain photos. All of this is reflected in the lineup counts. If you are keeping score at home there are 14 Team Captains with a single lineup, 41 with two, 25 with three and 6 with four.

The five cards shown as N/A are bonafide red herrings according to Larry. Grote's asterisk indicates he never should have been on the Standard Catalog checklist (my bad, I actually caused that error) which leaves the thorny issue of Brooks Robinson, Campy Campaneris, Bob Gibson and Roy McMillan. I am warning you now, I am making some serious guesses on the manner of distribution from this point forward.

Gibson in particular has vexed collectors for years but appears to be chimerical, as do the other missing Captains. If you discount McMillan, who appears in the '66 set and could be a mistake on an old checklist, that leaves B. Robby, Campy and ol' Gibby as orphans on the list. Larry feels they do not exist, as do other advanced collectors. He does concede they could all be part of a single panel, which fits the observed lineup phenomena as it would appear they are not on any other lineups. It would also give us 66 three card panels, which would be a righteous number in the Topps universe, but I merely speculate. Each of these three would be a single lineup Captain if actually printed, I have to think.

Prior posts have shown a reconstructed box but our correspondent John Moran, reporting from the wilds of the internet, culled out a wax wrapper from 1967 (it is likely an OPC version) in an old Mastro auction:



That is a rare wrapper friends. Rumor surrounding this set is they were issued in the Baltimore area. I have long thought certain odd-sized Topps test issues were printed in Bawlmer; I lean towards the Punchboards in that regard.

The kicker to all this is that John found evidence the ten cent cello packs were marketed in 1968. This could explain the persistence of hobby wisdom that this was a '68 issue. This flat though, clearly shows a March 1967 proofing process for wax. Looks like a multi-year issue is a distinct possibility, which could account for our three pose variations and cropping differences. I also wonder if Team Captains with three and four lineups beneath them were reprinted for the '68 season. No real way to tell at this point but it's an intriguing idea.

Topps must have had huge plans for this set but it most certainly did not sell well. While it may have satisfied Sy Berger and Woody Gelman's nostalgic impulses, it does not seem it caught on in '67 or '68. You can find these cards with some digging, although major stars and single-lineup captains will run you quite a bit of dough. Punched out cards can also be had, for a fraction for the cost of intact boards. Personally, I think this is a great set!

UPDATE 1: John Moran was kind enough to send a scan of the 68 long box, just wider than a three card cello:

Punched Up

Last year I posted about a very rare Topps proof set from 1966 commonly referred to as Punchouts but technically known as Punchboards. Since then, I have been receiving e-mails and scans from a gentleman (who shall remain nameless at his request) who inherited a small cache of these. After going through his stash he has managed to add 9 players, or 4 1/2 full cards, to the known checklist. He has also been kind enough to provide scans and I thought this would be a great time to show a visual checklist of the set and discuss some of its slowly revealed nuances.

As it stands today, the known checklist is comprised of 14 full two-card panels featuring 28 players. For reasons I will get into below, I do not believe this to be a complete checklist, although it may be close. Here is the latest, in alpahabetical order by the name of the NL player shown on the card (each has one NL and one AL player).

NL Player	AL Player	NL Pos	AL Pos	NL Team	AL Team
Banks	Stottlemyre	1B	P	Cubs	Yankees
Callison	Grant	OF	P	Phillies	Twins
Cardenas	Hansen	SS	SS	Reds	White Sox
Clendenon	Kaline	1B	OF	Pirates	Tigers
Flood	Skowron	OF	1B	Cardinals	White Sox
Hart	Mantle	3B	OF	Giants	Yankees
Koufax	Yastrzemski	P	OF	Dodgers	Red Sox
Marichal	Rollins	P	3B	Giants	Twins
Mays	Conigliaro	OF	OF	Giants	Red Sox
McMillan	Robinson, F.	SS	OF	Mets	Orioles
Roseboro	Richardson	C	2B	Dodgers	Yankees
Santo	Battey	3B	C	Cubs	Twins
Stargell	Mantilla	OF	2B	Pirates	Red Sox
Torre	Killebrew	C	1B	Braves	Twins

As you can see, the distribution of teams is not even and some are missing. Five teams remain unaccounted for: one from the NL (Astros) and four junior circuit teams (Angels, Athletics, Indians & Senators). The Twins, participants in the 1965 World Series along with the Dodgers, have four players in the set while the Giants, Red Sox and Yankees have three apiece. The Dodgers, Cubs, White Sox and Pirates net two players and the remaining known teams have a sole member represented.

If you want to speculate (and I do) then there should be at least four full cards to add as that is the minimum to make sure all teams are included. That would bring the total to 18 full cards, with 36 players on them, a number that is not implausible. However there is another wrinkle that throws a spanner in the works, namely the distribution of positions:

Position	NL	AL
P	2	2
C	2	1
1B	2	2
2B	0	2
3B	2	1
SS	2	1
OF	4	5

A definite pattern emerges here. The six "infield" positions each are represented by no more than two players per league, while the outfield slots top out at five. If we were to add two NL second baseman to the mix, we would need at least an extra card beyond 18 (assuming one of them was on one of the four theoretical cards added to round out the team distributions). 19 is a very unwieldy number for a small Topps set (although not impossible as the 1968 Plaks have shown) but there is yet another clue, which is the uncut sheet configuration.

As will be made reasonably clear in the visual checklist, there are nubs on one, two, or three sides of each full card as they were attached to each other at some point. I made a jigsaw puzzle from the scans and while it required a couple of educated guesses on "nub positioning" I believe the known cards were oriented as shown in the schematic below but cannot determine how many middle columns there were (I ciphered with the NL players at top and each number indicates how many cards have that position on the "sheet"):


Now, if the cards were oriented differently then the distribution could change as a bottom right corner could become an upper left, etc. and I also do not know if more then one middle column was printed. Another complicating factor is that two to four copies of each card may exist as our mystery man has two copies of some and I have identified a couple myself from other sources. In addition, Topps would usually keep one or two reference copies, two of which have been known for a while (Marichal/Rollins and Roseboro/Richardson). It's enough to drive you batty! What is clear though is that no card has four sides with nubs so two rows high looks to be as tall as a sheet can get.

What does this tell us then, other than the fact I am clinically insane? Well, it might mean there are 30 cards in the set (5 sheets of 6 cards each) or that maybe there are only three sheets of either six or eight cards apiece (if there were two middle columns). A yield of 18 works if you eliminate one of the missing NL 2B positions and add four cards as discussed above but I don't like the missing NL 2B position if you do that, as I have to believe the 2 players per league per position for the infielders is a set figure. You can get a nice distribution with 24 cards/48 players though if you assume there could be 8 pitchers, 10 infielders (excluding pitchers) and 6 outfielders per league which would also allow for common multiples of 4, 6 and 8 but that is adding a lot of cards and my source thinks he has most of them.

But what if there three middle columns giving us 10 cards on a sheet and there were two sheets? Two more pitchers (balancing lefties and righties at two each per league), two infielders per non-pitching position (10 total) and six outfielders per league would certainly fit the pattern (even moreso if you assume 2 each of LF, CF & RF) and give us 20 full cards (4 pitchers, 10 infielders and 6 outfielders) while filling in all the positions and teams. But then there are too many corner pieces (at least three bottom rights or top lefts depending upon orientation). Aaaargh!

Adding up those puzzled out permutations gives a possible 36 cards/72 players at a minimum, which seems excessive to me. Given all this, I am going with the 20/40 count for now as it jibes nicely with the two-per-position theory and necessarily assume there were some double prints created, but this is not iron clad.

Anyway, enough speculation. On with the visual checklist:















Some of the nubs and edges have been trimmed off since I cleaned up the scans a little. I can assure you no nubs were harmed in the production of this post.

You will note Frank Robinson's airbrushed cap, no doubt a result of his trade from the Reds to the Orioles on December 9, 1965. Since he is shown as an AL player, the cards had to be produced after that date. It is also worth noting Joe Torre is depicted in a Milwaukee Braves hat as the team moved to Atlanta for the 1966 season. I would guess therefore it was a late December '65/early January '66 production cycle for these cards.

Now, given that a box flat was produced, these cards very nearly made it to the retail test level, although I don't think they actually hit the streets given how few surviving examples there are. Instead, I think the game proved unwieldy and was reconfigured for release in 1967. A look at the instructions on the back probably shows why:



The problem was you needed nine cards each to play the game, which is way too many cards to obtain a dime at a time before you could even start properly poking holes in the cards! The re-jiggered set as issued at retail in 1967 allowed you to use a single card each with a lineup of players on it, a much more realistic scenario for game-playing purposes. Still, these '66 Punchboards were almost finished products, with the possible exception of a score line to separate the two halves. I would love to see a wrapper proof someday; Rob Lifson believes he once had one from Woody Gelman's archives that featured Mantle on it, much like the box flat. I do expect some more players to be uncovered though; time will tell if my prediction of 20 full cards proves right.