Unboxing Day

More cellophane today campers!  Football cards also got their own little boxes protecting cello packs in 1970 and '71 but unlike their Baseball counterparts, no 1972 box came out.  This could have been due to Topps becoming a public company in March of 1972, thereby killing off any "un-needed" additional expense but it also could have been because Topps had a better idea on the pack graphics. I tend to think it's a combination of both.

Friend o'the Archive Dave Schmidt sent along a picture of a 5th series Baseball cello from 1972 with graphics on the front that highlights the transition:

I was not aware of this variation pack and am advised these were only tested with 5th series cards and obviously no outer box housed them. The test must have been a good one as the 1973 Baseball cards followed suit:

But I was talking about football, wasn't I?  The first Topps cello packs that I am aware of that had football cards came out in 1955 and featured the All-American set.

Topps used the cellos in '55 to help kill off Bowman, stuffing these ten cent packs full of as many as 22 cards!  The Trading Card Guild boxing came with a topper (as did a number of TCG retail boxes I suspect):

1956 saw a similar approach but Bowman had been vanquished and you didn't get 22 cards anymore in what was the first Topps NFL set.  Check out this amazing image from a past REA auction:

Cello Football issues continued into the standard card size era in '57 and I can't find any vintage FB cello's with graphics on them from 1957 onward. In fact, once you get to 1960 Topps seems like they almost abandoned gridiron cello issues.  I could find no entries in the PSA pack pop report for 1962, 1964 or 1965, although Mark Murphy's unopened pack guide indicates they were issued in all years. A 1965 tall boy cello would be a thing to behold!

1967 though, brought us a 1967 Football rak pak, once again memorialized in an REA auction:

Topps often test drove things with Football before following suit with Baseball the following spring.  For instance, pack inserts started in 1960 Football before they appeared in Baseball starting the following year.

There's definitely Football cello's in the 1966-69 years and then 1970 brought a nice, bright red box as Baseball test drove Football I guess! Mile High auctions had this bad boy a little while ago:

Topps already had reduced the card count from the 33 offered in 1970 Baseball cello's but the gum came onboard to soften the blow:

1971 brought a yellow box for Football, scans of which I found over at the quite wonderful Sports Collectors Daily:

The card count was excised on the reverse, foreshadowing the 1972 Baseball cello box:

1972 remains interesting as Topps used two cello pack varieties.  One was plain and one wasn't.  Here's a front and back from REA (again):

And here is a '72 cello with graphics:

These can be found in either flavor for the first two series. As for the infamous 3rd series, seemingly only distributed in wax to Stevens Point, Wisconsin, I don't think there are any cellos.

I'll end it here as it's quite homogenized from 1973 on as Topps had no competition and a bottom line to protect for its shareholders, resulting in a period of general blandness.

Cello, I Must Be Growing

1970 brought some significant changes to how sold their Baseball cello packs (and their raks).  Having made the decision to up the wax pack price to a dime, they could no longer offer 36 cards for 29 cents in a rak pak or ten for a dime sans bubble gum. The solution was to go big and add some splash.  Here's how they shaped things in 1970, with an outside box containing a 33 card clear cello, which could be had for a quarter:

(Courtesy Mile High Card Co.)

When I was a kid collecting these--and 1970 was my first heavy, heavy year of doing so-- I never realized those mountains were in Arizona! Cactus League shots are more dramatic than Grapefruit League shots, that's for sure.

The reverse of the box had a fairly nice graphic.  It seems this is the pretty much the same size box they sold the 1968 Batter Up Game Cards in, which was also 33 cards, so I wonder of that issue was some kind of a packaging test.

(Courtesy Mile High Card Co.)

Raks moved up to 54 cards for 39 cents in 1970:  

I can tell you the majority of cards I bought from 1970-72, which were my three biggest collecting years back in the day, came in raks, mostly from a fabulous store on Long Island called Coronet, where they hung by the cash registers.. And why not, the price per card was just .0072 vs cello's at .0076 cents per card.  Either way, Topps was selling more cards with far less packaging.

Still, they felt the need to change things up a little in 1971.  Check this out, there is an obvious enhancement, which softened the blow of fewer cards being held in the cello, which was a clear one again:

(Courtesy Wheatland Auctions)

That's right, bubble gum was now wedged within.  I wonder of this was to take the thickness of the three missing cards so the pack fit the box better.  I guess we'll never know.  The back had a new graphic but I've always been mystified why there were no premium offers on these.

(Courtesy Wheatland Auctions)

In 1972, with the upcoming IPO, the hedged their bets but ultimately included 27 cards, deployed in a clear cello wrap, they just didn't advertise the count:

(Courtesy Huggins & Scott)

That's a slightly lighter shade of blue as well and the card count has been excised on the reverse too:

(Courtesy Huggins & Scott)

Whatever advantage Topps thought they would gain with the outer box must have dissipated as the 1973 cellos started another trend, cello packs with their own graphics:

(Courtesy Heritage Auctions)

Checklist back of the pack, yuk!

(Courtesy Heritage Auctions)

Baseball rak paks stayed at the same count and price through 1973 but the new "naked" cellos still only had 27 cards in them despite losing the outer box and its associated cost. This predated the oil crisis but that shock would reverberate going forward.

At some point I may take a look at the post 1973 Baseball cellos but to me once they stopped issuing cards in series, the whole ballgame changed and things got a lot more generic year-to-year. I'll take a gander at some other sports cellos first for sure.

The Blue Period

Back at it i.r.o Topps cello packs kids, this time our quarry is 1968-69.  Topps was killing off the rak pak encased cello issues with the commencement of the 1968 baseball season and the more familiar modern rak pak was born:

(Courtesy Mile High Card Co.)

Now it may look like the rak contained three cellos but it did not, Topps was just using old wording on a new style header, probably so as not to confuse young consumers. One of the implications of this move was that you would not be able to get an insert in the rak paks anymore; they still came in the wax and cello packs of course.

A 1968 cello pack therefore could only be had for a dime:

(Courtesy Heritage Auctions) 

And who's in here?

(Courtesy Heritage Auctions)

1969 saw a big MLB expansion and Topps followed suite with their biggest set yet, 664 cards in a classic design.  They also expanded their cello offerings, which I will get to in a New York minute:

 (Courtesy Robert Edward Auctions)

Kinda weird seeing Maury on an Expos card....the reverse has a couple of Mets:

 (Courtesy Robert Edward Auctions)

Topps was grappling with rising costs in 1969 and as was their M.O. at the time, took to some experimentation.  Wax packs were still a nickel in 1969 and the margins must have been getting pretty thin with more cards to produce, higher royalties to pay the MLBPA (as of 1968) and a myriad of supplemental sets they were trying out, so it made sense when they did this, although it was done as a cello, with gum no less (you can see it straining through):

(Courtesy Heritage Auctions)

The reverse is very, very interesting to me.  This is a first series pack, evidenced by the Twins Rookie Stars card peeking through (hello Graig Nettles):

The Duryea in the indicia is, I believe the first mention Topps put of their production facility move since it occurred in 1966.  The odd thing though, is that the regular, nickel wax packs in 1969 listed Brooklyn until series five, when they too switched over.

The blue cellos are very, very hard to find.  The 69's are tough generally but check out these PSA pop report ratios:

1968 Cello: 200

1969 Cello: 67

1969 Blue Cello: 1

That 1 count is possibly wrong as PSA likely didn't start differentiating the two styles for a while but they are tough packs even though they were seemingly issued across all series (seven series, but only six press runs I think).  Topps probably pushed the raks more and more and throttled back the cellos, especially with two styles issued.

The 1969 rak pak header continued the cello reference but the blue cello experiment must have been considered a failure as Topps took a whole new approach to how they sold cards in 1970.  We'll take a look next time at what they did.