Candy, Man

Way back in 2009 I posted about the 1951 Baseball Candy set and, as part of what is now a mostly obsolete series of observations, examined how this multi-faceted set might have been assembled and distributed by Topps.  To refresh your collective memories, Baseball Candy was an overarching marketing name and its constituent parts were comprised of what is now considered by the hobby at large to be five separate sets: Red Backs, Blue Backs, Connie Mack All Stars, Major League All Stars and Teams. The latter three were exactly twice the size of the first two, so they all fit neatly together for packaging and printing purposes when the two card panels of the Red and Blue Backs rode along. You can click around on the labels at the right for more details if you like but this is how Topps decided to take on Bowman in the start of what some (not me) have dubbed the Bubble Gum Wars.

There is evidence that the Connie Mack All Stars and Teams were printed together (note the sliver of brownish-orange along the right side of the Mack card)...

That's a color match for sure:

It also seems the Red Backs could have included in at least one, if not two, of the Connie Mack/Teams press runs, thanks to this oddity -a favorite - that resides in my collection: 

It's possible all three red reverse sets could have been arrayed on the same press sheet but it's not a given, even with that with that Senators reverse as they may have run a waste sheet or two. But it sure seems possible. I've not yet seen scans tying the Blue Backs and Major League All Stars together like this; fingers crossed though. 

Topps had issues with distribution of Baseball Candy, and of course there are three Major League All Star cards that are true hobby rarities. I won't get into why and how today (which I have refined since my 2009 post) but I believe combinations of those three rarities (Roberts, Konstanty, Stanky) and the Teams cards could have brought the entire Baseball Candy set down.  Ignoring those Teams cards, which are somewhat scarce in their own right, the blue-themed sets are relatively tougher than their red-themed counterparts and seem to have had only a sole press run, vs. at least two for the Red Backs and Connie Mack All Stars.

This raft of problems left Topps with a bunch of undistributed Red Backs (and Connie Macks), plus a smaller amount of Blue Backs (and possibly MLAS cards) and they had to find ways to dump their excess inventory.  Topps was relatively new at this but had already come up with several solutions for reselling some earlier sets that involved primordial Fun Packs and, for the Red Backs, (and a scant amount of Blue Backs) they blew them out in 1952 in packs of Doubles:

These were marketed a hailing from T.C.G. and had no caramel or other confection in the packs:

But there was also something called the Trading Card Guild, which I believe was created by Topps to:

a) funnel cards to non-confectionery markets, but also

b) dump excess inventory, and

c) possibly allow for third party selling of "dead" sets by sellers like Sam Rosen.

Back in my 2009 Baseball Candy post, (what the heck here it is, take some of it with some salt) I did mention panels of Red Backs had been seen in Trading Card Guild packs that were elongated and made of red cello but until recently I had never seen one.  Well, thanks to a recent Lelands auction, we now have eleven of these sighted, with ten entering the hobby via said auction.  I managed to snag some scans of the packs before they were overwrapped following verification.  As you might imagine, it's a veritable sea of red:

Wowsers!  Flipping them over, one held a surprise:

Yup, that is a Connie Mack All Star (featuring Mickey Cochrane) at bottom right!  What you can't really see is the indicia on these packs but thankfully I have a couple of the wrappers in my collection and it reads like so:

These could have been used for any of the sets Topps issued in two card panel format from 1950-51 (there were eight counting Baseball Candy as one big release) and you can see the 1951 copyright at right.  The oddity here is really the Topps For Toys reference, a division they had originally created around 1948 to market a game. I believe these red cello packs were the last gasp for their toy division.

As mentioned, eleven packs were found but only ten made it to the auction block.  Well it looks like the Luke Easter/Yogi Berra combo was withheld, and I think it could have been consigned by a big time Yankees collector who simply held on to a killer pack:

So here's the thing-could some cello packs of Red Backs potentially have a Connie Mack All Star sandwiched within? If a similar Trading Card Guild pack of Blue Backs ever came up, could it also have a Major League All Star card hidden within?  Questions, questions...

Gee Whiz Kids

My rule of thumb putting together my collection of Topps type cards has always been that anything I have on my wantlist appeared in a retail pack or store setting at some point. I exclude standalone candy and gum products for the most part unless they are pretty early (nothing really after the mid 50's) and my interest in Bazooka comics peters out by the mid 60's. I collect some proof items (examples of Bewitched, Bonanza for instance) but they are not part of the core mission.  Those two are in the price guides generally--and are thought of by many as being part of the "Topps experience"-- but there is a lot of stuff that doesn't make the grade or just wasn't known about when the formative guides were published in the 80's and early 90's.  This puts some things into WTF territory!

Take a look at this grouping below:

The little piece of cardboard in the upper left measures 1" x 1 3/4", so you can get a feel for the other items in that scan, which I will address individually.

The cardboard piece is the biggest head-scratcher in this group. I got it from Bob Marcy's amazing non-sports notebooks at the 2015 National, although Bob was not in attendance at the time. He had it with the 1949 X-Ray Roundup cards in a binder and given his depth of knowledge on all things non-sports, that's how I have categorized it.  However, it's slightly bigger than the cards proper and the jagged short edge is interesting.  I am thinking it's related somehow to the vending boxes for this set but I'm really not too sure.

This bad boy seems related to X-Ray Roundup as well. It's 1 1/16" tall and as you can maybe see, is folded in a bit.  I am loathe to unfurl it given its fragility and it seems a little too wide for the set but right now that's the attribution.

This one's easier and belongs to the classic 1952 Look 'N' See set.

Last up, 1957 Isolation Booth as near as I can tell although there's a few later candidates:

Unopened packs likely yielded all the red cello viewers but it's pretty amazing these have survived. Topps would issue sets needing viewers into the 60's; I think they are pretty groovy!.