And Then A Step To The Right

More REA goodness this week kids!

I love uncut sheets and there was a doozy in the April Robert Edward Auctions offering, namely a 1956 Topps Flags Of The World half sheet:

Uncut sheets often tell a story about production methods and this one is no exception. Topps used 110 card press half sheets in 1955-56, increasing from 100 card arrays in 1952-54 without changing their main card size, which at the time was referred to as Giant Size (2 5/8" x 3 3/4").  You would think then that a 100 or 110 card series or set would make a lot of sense but generally things didn't work that way.

If this was the annual Baseball issue, Topps would have another half sheet for each series, usually with a slightly different array. They most likely did these due to the sheer volume of Baseball sold each year vs other series like Flags and had a need to print things a certain way.  Some of the print arrays were influenced by packaging patterns as well.

Here, if you count columns from left to right, you can see 5, 6 &7 repeat as 9, 10, 11 and this corresponds with the 30 known double prints in the 80 card set.  But why leave a one-column gap (at #8) between the trio of repeats?   Compare with a sheet from an 80 card 1956 Baseball series 3 sheet:

Here it's a repeat of the 2, 3 & 4 columns in 9, 10 & 11 so the extras off to the one side seem to be something of a Topps Giant Size hallmark. Even on the first series of 1956 Baseball, which had 100 subjects, the one repeated column is the rightmost one on the known half sheet:

If we could find the other half sheets for 1956, I'd bet all the repeats are in the rightmost columns. Now, the question is, what did this allow Topps to do? I mean, every kid must have wanted an extra card of Warren Giles, right?!

Flaky Goodness

It's hard enough keeping track of all the things Topps issued on their own so when you add third party promotions to the mix, especially in the Seventies, you start running into some odd little pockets of hobby history.

As is my wont, I was noodling around the ol' internet a while back and found some posts over at the PSA forum concerning a very strange pack of basketball cards, namely a "36" card cello pack of 1972-73 Topps Basketball.

Thanks to Friend o'the Archive John Moran, we have some swell pictures of it to share. It's worth noting the pack has been described as containing 50 cards over on the Collectors Universe forums; we'll get to that momentarily. The front of the pack:

I have to say I never noticed the little Houston graphic across the Rockets logo when I collected these cards in 1972. The set used team names and not cities, so it's curious why their 1971 move from San Diego was highlighted. Topps added a Houston or Denver city designation to differentiate between NBA and ABA flavors. (Thanks to John Batrman for pointing that out as I spaced on that one).

The back is pretty neat as it has Wilt Chamberlain showing:

John has provided the all important side view, which reveals just how fat this pack is:

That is one big pack!

The box itself remains elusive, no surprise give the amount of time that has elapsed and the ephemeral nature of such things.  However, there is one more surprise, namely this uncut first series sheet that was also part of the offer:

This is a very interesting idea for a Topps tie-in, although I'm not sure of the timing of it.  Did they have extra sheets lying around or was this a promotion done at the same time the first series cards were issued in the fall of 1972?  While I ate a lot of Wheaties back in the day, I do not recall such an offer on any Wheaties box back that I dutifully studied while slurping down a bowl of the Breakfast of Champions. Thankfully Friend o' the Archive Matt Neely was able to track one down.

Matt, who runs the quite staggering Wheaties King site, was able to provide scans of the box with the offer. It's an adapted 1972 box:

Here's a closer look at the offer; the pictures do not appear to have been provided by Topps but in fact were as they are taken from cards the year prior with backgrounds turned to gold:

The back is a bit, well, odd.....

Here is the offer for the uncut sheet:

The cello pack is offered as a 36 count, so that's the official number but reports of collectors opening these seem to indicate 50 is the actual count.

The proof-of-purchase and mail in panel looked thus:

You just never know what kind of thing you'll find Topps wrapped up in...

Gray Area

As we journey into 1959, Topps was starting to standardize how they printed their baseball cards. 1958 saw a real slapdash final series (6th) and what I believe were four 110 subject printings made to look like five 88 card series prior. After their efforts to conclude that season's set, the Topps braintrust look have have really started planning out the best way to issue their cards.

I found a 66 card proof sheet on my hard drive that is the key to seeing how the 59's were printed:



You will note this block of cards spans 66 numbers, from #375 (Niemann) to #440 (Burdette). The checklists on the back of the team card in '59 would have us believe the 4th series ran from #353-429 and the 5th series from #430-495, so this group is smack dab in the middle. #495 was also the last number in the 1958 set, so I think that was an intentional move by Topps as they were going to expand the set by 77 cards for '59.

However, the high number series in 1959 was printed as a 66 card run:



identifiable by the black number block on the reverse, as well as the cream stock:



Compare this with the last card of the prior run, with a green number block and gray stock:



From #1-506 the blocks are green, as was the text; I think the black looks much better. I wonder if the ink color was changed when Topps started printing the 1959 football cards, which also have black ink and may have been a move to expedite printing of the omega and alpha series of each respective set.

The gray stock also helps us pin down the production cycle as cards 199-286 can be found with either type of stock. This once again point to a 110 subject press run to start the year, followed by an 88 subject second run to get to #198. 88 cards again through #286 and the another 88 gets us to #374. Since we know #375-440 is another run (totaling 66) then we have a 66 card gap to get us to the true high number run starting at #507. This gives us print runs as follows:

1st 110
2nd 88
3rd 88
4th 88 *
5th 66 *
6th 66 *
7th 66

I have a sneaking suspicion that Topps printed some combination of the 4th, 5th and 6th runs above together so have marked them with an asterisk but don't have the uncut sheets to prove it. They end up at at #440 though, through the "5th" run, which trues up in the real world as the previews would get get too far past the press runs otherwise. This is where they caught up in 1958 as well. I have to think a bit more about the implications of two 66 card semi-high series being printed separately.

The Checklists give us a fictional account:

1st #1-88
2nd #89-176
3rd #172-264
4th #265-352
5th #353-429
6th #430-495
7th #496-572

No matter how you look at it, the checklists on the back of the team cards showed series that only existed in the minds of the creators of the cards. Look at the 7th Series checklist to see:



Those black number blocks begin after 11 with the green blocks if you go by the official count. I do not believe those 11 cards from #496-506 were printed with the rest of the high numbers but if you are selling cards the kids are already buying those 11 before the last series comes out. Boy, I'l l bet they wanted to complete that run badly!

Here is a checklist card from the third printing (the card stock variation run):



And just for fun here is the 3rd Series checklist with an error with the two rightmost columns are transposed:



You get the idea. Topps was using the Theory of Checklist Relatvity once again but with a bit more forethought than in '58.

88's The Key

I thought I would continue my haphazard look at uncut Topps sheets and the 1958 printing arrays as I found this 55 card partial from the year Elvis got drafted lurking on my hard drive. There is a little bit of a tieback to the Series Preview and Checklist Relativity Theories as well!

Check out the murderer's row at the right side bottom portion of the sheet:



I believe Topps loaded up the first series with stars now that MLB was bi-coastal. That is not the most interesting thing about this sheet though. No, it does not have yellow letter variations either but what it does have is card #1 (Ted Willliams) and #110 (Johnny Logan) on the same partial sheet of 55. This clinches for me the fact Topps was previewing 22 cards from what they were calling the 2nd Series while printing at least 110 subjects on the first series sheet. I say "at least" but if I had a full sheet scan it would likely confirm 110 different cards.

See, here is a first series checklist from '58, courtesy of Doug Goodman:



See, it goes to 88!

Just for fun,here is the 2nd Series Checklist (also a Goodman scan) showing the gap at #145 where Ed Bouchee should have resided:



That would have been confusing as you had no idea what had happened or who it was supposed to be. If you do the math, you end up with five series of 88 printed over four sheets, ending at #440. A little teaser for the kiddies back in the day and some proof of my wacky theorems today!

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!

Bigger, Longer, Uncut

I have received a couple requests to show some more uncut sheets here and with time scarce at the Archive (indeed, as it is every spring) I am more than happy to oblige. Today will bring a look at the "big boys", the 1952-56 baseball sets.

I previously showed a 1948 Magic Photos sheet here and have not ever seen uncut Blue Back or Red Back sheets from 1951, although the uber-scarce Major League All Stars exist in partially uncut form and there is evidence the Connie Mack All Stars and Team Cards were printed together and shown in older posts here so will start off with a 1952 quadrant (not mine, probably from an auction as the only uncut sheet I own is from 1982):



Note there is a double printed row (1 and 3 are the same). There are 80 cards in the first series in '52, where this sheet came from, so another DP row would be in there somewhere. But, as we know from last time it is far more likely two different sheets were composed. No full '52 sheets are known.

Here is a smaller '52 panel:



Strips of 1953's are famously known and some reconstructed sheets are presented here for your consideration:





You can see the two sheets are arrayed differently. There is a lot more on the printing of the 1952 and 1953 sheets here (just click on THE LIBRARY and you will see George Vrechek's Closer Look at these).

Full 100 card 1954 half sheets are known, although I do not have a color scan but sometimes black and white just seems right:


( from Sport Americana Baseball Card Price Guide, 3rd ed.)

Here are a couple of partials, shown previously: and which match the bottom five rows of the bigger sheet:



The 100 card sheet has a gap in the numbering of the cards printed upon it. #126-150 and #176-250 are displayed and I have to think #51-125 and the #151-175 are on the other half sheet as #1-50 were almost certainly the entirety of the first series that year. This means Topps either intentionally left a gap or printed (and sold) both runs together. I don't think there is any way around it but after the shenanigans they pulled a year prior, I would love to see the other sheet. Given the lackluster Bowman cards in '54, Topps looks to have altered what would likely have been a four or five series set to stimulate sales.

After 1954 we move from 100 card half sheets to 110 cards as Topps increased their printing capabilities. Full 1955 sheets are known but I do not have a good scan at the moment, although I thought I did. Here is a '55 partial:



Very colorful cards!

We conclude our golden age journey with a 1956 sheet:



It looks like two columns (rightmost) are double prints but they are really rows if you reorient the sheet.

I'll pick up with a look at the the "tween era" sheets next time out.

Cut Up

I talk a lot about uncut sheets here but never really show any. That will change today, with a short object lesson.

My fascination with uncut sheets began about 25 years ago when I reconstructed, using a grainy b&w photo from one of the numerous hobby papers at the time and my trusty Sport Americana Team Checklist, a 1967 Topps high number sheet, which had several anomalies when compared to the known list of short prints. A little while later it dawned on me that Topps had printed two sheets of high numbers, each different than the other.

What I did not realize at the time was that what I thought was a full uncut sheet of 132 (12 rows of 11 cards each) was actually a half sheet. A full Topps press sheet is actually 264 cards, divided into two halves.

Here is a fairly standard looking 132 card half sheet, from the first series in 1971:



It looks a little weird due to the black borders. Now here is a full 264 card press sheet from 1964 (sorry about the duct tape), another first series beauty:



For some reason, more uncut sheets seem to survive from the first series of Topps baseball cards. I don't know why that is. You can see how the two halves would be separated into 132 card sheets. Also note the left and right sides, while containing the same cards, have different arrays. Topps would use different orders for the rows on each side. When you have a 66, 88 or 132 card series, then the different structure of each sheet would not matter (allowing for the next series checklist card "preview" usually printed with the prior series and likely the reason for so many checklist variations over the years).

However, when you had a 110 card series, you would get into "overprints", which are usually from first series sheets. An overprint is really a triple print in such circumstances. Where you had 55 and 77 card series the fun would begin as the opposite effect would take place and yield short prints.

A lot of this had to do with how Topps packaged their cards and I still do not know why those 1967 high numbers have such crazy quilt short prints, although I do have a theory which will be expanded upon here real soon.

I am fairly certain the 264 card full press sheets began in 1957, along with standard sizing. Working our way back, in 1955 and '56 a 220 card full sheet most likely was printed. In 1953 & '54 either two 100 card half sheets or 200 card full sheets were printed, I can't quite tell.(Update: 6/28/23-1954 used a 110/220 array as it turns out).  In those four oversized years, the effect was the same no matter what, with planned overprints and also some intentional gaps in numbering on the sheets. The 54's have crazy holes that lead me to believe they only came out in two series. There is more on that story here.

1952 probably just had similar 100 card half sheets that almost certainly were printed in 10 x 10 format but the largest known uncut 52's are in 25 card quadrants, arrayed 5 x 5. A full uncut 1952 sheet would be quite the find!

As is stands, full 264 card uncut sheets are very difficult to find in the wild. I also have a theory many uncut baseball sheets that exist in the hobby (through 1965, when the last of Topps baseball cards were printed in Brooklyn) were either top and bottom protectors for pallets of uncut sheets where the top or bottom few sheets would bear the brunt of the metal or twine bands holding the stacks in place as they were shifted around. The sheets used for such purposes may have been rejected from earlier printings for whatever reason. These protective sheets were then discarded into the legendary Topps dumpsters, where friendly sanitation and production department workers salvaged them.

That's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

King Kong

Since I have posted about Topps very rare Flash Gordon cards recently, I thought it might be time to look at a companion set, namely King Kong, which was issued by Topps subsidiary Bubbles, Inc. Here is one of the great movie shots of all time in case you forgot what a marvel this picture was.



One of the most famous movies of all time, it was 33 years old when Topps developed a 55 card black and white set in 1966. These are rare cards and I certainly do not own any. However, I was organizing my hard drive recently and found a scan of two partial uncut sheets that make up the full set. The photo above looks to be memorialized in the bottom left corner.



Unlike the very similar Flash Gordon set, which was possibly issued in retail cello packs, King Kong appears to have actually been tested in wax packs as John Neuner's Checklist & Prices of U.S. Non Sport Wrappers has a wrapper listed with a production code of 0-418-21-01-6 (the last digit signifies the year).

Interestingly, Donruss also was given a license to produce a King Kong Set and those can be found rather easily:


(From monsterwax.com)

Topps must not have liked the results of the test they did and declined to do a national release while Donruss forged ahead. The 1965 Copyright Date is when RKO granted the license, by the way.

The backs of the Topps cards have a narrative that follows the movie, the Donruss cards have puzzle pieces. Scans of the Topps fronts and backs are hard to find, I'll post some If I ever find a few.

While I understand the appeal of both Flash Gordon and King Kong as they were all over TV in the 60's, why Topps issued black and white cards in the 1960's is beyond me.

1954 Where Are You?

If there is one book that really propelled me into studying the myriad issues of Topps Chewing Gum, the 3rd edition of the Sport Americana Baseball Card Price Guide (Beckett 3) is it.



To be fair, everyone calls these "Beckett" books but Denny Eckes was the man behind the card research and Dr. Jim was the numbers guy; Beckett just had a better PR machine! As an aside, I received a very informative e-mail from Mr. Eckes' daughter after he had passed away, which led me to the conclusion he was an extremely nice and gentle man with an unabiding love of the hobby.

Within its pages were some great shots of rare cards in full color and, more intriguingly to my oddly focused nineteen year old mind, an article on old Topps uncut sheet quadrants from 1952 and a 100 card '54 sheet. The '52 sheet (high numbers, no less) captured my attention to be sure, but the writeup on the '54 sheet did not take hold for a while. Then one day, after sussing out a '67 high number sheet from a hobby article (remember, "oddly focused") I decided to work up the '54 sheet array from the photo in Beckett 3. What I found was that the numbering ran from #126-150 and #176-250. This left me somewhat nonplussed.

(from www.baseballtoddsdugout.com )

This is Sy Berger's favorite set by the way.

Now, did they issue packs with cards from only one 100 card half-sheet or were they mixed together? Mark Murphy's Unopened Pack, Wrapper & Display Box Guide details a fifteen card '54 cello pack with cards in the "4th" series, which could mean it spanned both sheets (see below). Unless a lot of '54 nickel or cello packs are opened someday (unlikely as so very few exist) we may never know.

The penny packs would not reveal the answer but their wrapper looks nice!



This is how the hobby papers and guides viewed the 1954 Topps series years ago, note the span of series 4:

Series	Cards
1	1-50
2	51-75
3	76-125
4	126-175
5	176-200
6	201-250

Current thinking is that 1-50, 51-75 and 76-250 are three distinct series, with the middle being almost twice as valuable as the other two. I am not so sure about that. I think there were only two series: 1-50 and then all the rest came out in one big whoosh, possibly staggered geographically but maybe just box to box.

What is pretty cool though, is that some of the glass printing plates from the sheet shown in Beckett 3 still exist and were auctioned a little while back. These were described as from Lord Baltimore Printing, in Baltimore, MD. Half of the sheet is represented. Note how every other row is flipped due to full color bleed top borders:



Some detail of the glass plate:



Not quite sure what this was, maybe copies of the cards on the glass plate?




For those who are interested by such arcana, Topps baseball cards from 1952-54 were printed on 100 card half-sheets (UPDATE 5/5/25: 110 as it turns out), in 1955 they were most likely printed on either 100 or 110 card half-sheets (possibly the first series was on 100 then the size changed to 110 for later series) before converting to the standard 132 card half-sheet in 1957 for the new, smaller (yet "standard") sized cards. 132 card half-sheets were used during the entire post '56 Topps vintage era for their annual sets, in arrays of twelve rows with eleven cards per row.

Now if I could just find that other '54 half sheet.........