Where Have You Gone Dom DiMaggio?

I've dabbled over the years in researching the Baseball issues Topps licensed and/or printed from 1959-68 in Venezuela but even with a lot of digging not much information is available.  One large bit of information I overlooked though, relates to distribution of Topps baseball cards prior to 1959.  I warn you, some foreknowledge of the subject is helpful as you read along.

Thanks to Friend o' the Archive Josh Alpert, who is the king of all that is Venezuelan Topps, I was redirected to an ad from the January 16, 1987 issue of Sports Collectors Digest that had all sorts of interesting things going on:

Pat Quinn of the Sports Collectors Store, along with the now infamous Bill Mastro and later John Rumierz, were among the earliest dealers to undertake buying trips in Venezuela.  This probably took some nerve but it opened up an important pipeline for the hobby. The relevant portion of the ad, at least today, is not the great stuff for sale but rather the preamble:

While I'm particularly interested in the 1952 high number distribution, the big takeaway is how Topps was getting rid of some excess stock and returns for most of the 1950's.  Venezuela was (and is) baseball mad and the fact their Winter League season began a little after the end of the MLB season each year before a January tournament-style to crown a champion occurred, was a happy little development I'm sure when it came time for the excess Topps baseball cards to be dumped.

A Bill Mastro article from the January 17, 1986 issue of SCD actually predates the ad above but has a very interesting little tidbit:

I didn't reprint it but Mastro states some of the albums produced to house the cards beginning in 1964 were made by Topps. The 1964 and 1966 versions seem to be the most likely candidates as their covers feature the Rookie Team trophy and the 66 cover in particular seems to mimic the advertising for that set in the US. Here, take a look at the 1966 album and then a Topps wax box from the US:

That's from Friend o'the Archives Spike Glidden's blog. Here is the US wax box:

Topps would have had to have a hand in the design of the Venezuelan album, don't you think?

Back to our blurb. The ultimate fate of the 1952 high numbers seems to be a bit of a mixed bag.  Sy Berger of course alleged a garbage scow dumped all remaining stock in the Atlantic Bight in 1960 following years of effort to unload them on "carnivals"; there's evidence some went to PX stores at US Military bases; and it seems Canada got them on both coasts, with possible leeching in the west down into the Seattle area.  In addition, we have a Venezuelan connection as described above and let's not forget the Card Collectors Company, which seems to have regained their stock of highs (last seen in their 1958 catalogs) starting around 1960, which totally dovetails with the alleged dumping at sea.

The Shorin family was very comfortable dealing with Latin and South American interests due to the family tobacco business founded by their father Morris, first as an individual entrepreneur in the 1890's and following that, for thirty years starting in 1908 as the American Leaf Tobacco Company.

The 1959 Venezuelan cards were printed by Industrias Benco, who are identified on some card backs that year.  Some later issues (although not 1962) show evidence of being printed in the US and the final set of cards issued in 1968 were made by a Venezuelan printer called Litoven.  Any local print work would have been done in Caracas. Benco was acquired by the Beatrice Foods conglomerate in the mid 1960's and they were quite involved in snack foods and confections at the same time the Topps cards were being sold. Beatrice also acquired a distributor in Caracas called Distribuidor Marsanita around the same time.

Some points to ponder: 

1) Who printed the Venezuelan cards in the  US in the years after 1959?  I can't believe it was the usual Topps printers of the time (Zabel Brothers, A. Hoen, Chromographic Press, or Stecher-Traung) as they did fairly high quality work and the Vennies are usually not up to snuff when compared to the US issues.

2) What was the relationship between Topps and Litoven?

3) Did Distribuidor Marsanita handle the Topps Venezuelan cards?

4) And what of the mysterious 1967 MLB/VWL/Retirado issue that does not conform to the standard look of Topps cards during the Venezuelan run?

5) How many 1952 highs made it to Venezuela?

6) What kind of idiot carnival owner would agree to take on old baseball cards as prizes anyway?

7) How did Card Collectors Company restock their 1952 high numbers in 1960?

That last question is relevant specifically to Sy's barge story I think and the Venezuelan Topps story in general.  The Card Collectors Company (which sold off Topps overstock and returns from about 1955 onwards and was first run by Woody Gelman's stepfather Sam Rosen until his death in 1958--when Woody took over), was out of 52 highs by the time their March 1959 catalog came out.  In a July 1958 price list, put out by Rosen, the highs were a dime apiece, compared to three or five cents for the lower numbers. So sometime between 1958 and 1959 Card Collectors Co. ran out of their original 1952 high number stock.

The 1960 ACC, which had Woody Gelman's input on "R" cards, listed the 52 highs at thirty cents apiece. I don't have scans or copies of catalogs from 1960 or 61 but in the March 1, 1962 catalog and through at least early 1968 CCC offered the highs at a dollar apiece in every catalog, vs either ten or fifteen cents for the lows. I find it a big coincidence that the Berger barge dumped the excess 1952 Topps high number inventory just around the time CCC restocked theirs. From what I have seen when it comes to Topps, there are zero coincidences on product that entered either the wholesale or retail distribution chains or the hobby directly.

So let's hope more turns up on Venezuela.  I'm also hoping for more details to be revealed on the operations of Topps in Mexico but that is a ways off as it's even harder to find information on that than it is on their Venezuelan operations.

Album Art

Well eBay ain't what it used to be these days (what is?) but there is the occasional offbeat treasure still to be found there. I stumbled across a few scans for the 1967 Venezuelan Topps album, which is  a fantastic item, moreso because it's meant to house the most intriguing off all the Venezuelan issues licensed by Topps.

Here is a shot of the cover, which confirms a key detail about the set:

As noted here previously, these sets were issued from then end of one year into the next, as that is how the Venezuelan Winter League season was played.  So the 1967 set is really 1967-68 and the next year's, which mimics the 68 US issue, spans 1968-69.  

The interior pages had numbered spots for the entire set and you cansee there was space for all three types of cards:

This spread shows the cards licensed from Topps.  The rough shape of the album is pretty typical.  The next page shows some Retirado cards plus a couple of big names:

You don't get much bigger than Luis Aparicio in Venezuela and clearly the Mick is the biggest name in the hobby here in the States.

The Venezuelan Winter League is also represented:

Love the stolen bases graphic at the bottom!  The back cover is illustrated as well:

I'll have more on Topps' adventures and misadventures in Central and South America next time out.

El Fin de Invierno

The end in Venezuela for Topps began with a first, before a stuttering denouement played out almost a decade later. For the first (and last time) a third consecutive year of issue was accomplished in 1968.

The '68 Venezuelans picked up where the 1966's left off. A 370 card set, printed on cheap cardboard and with a companion album sold alongside was issued. Cards from the first press run of 109 in the US, with their more "pebbly" burlap mottling were mirrored in Venezuela (US card is on the right):



and you can see the usual lack of gloss and muted colors of the Venezuelan example quite easily, even if the scan (which I nicked from Ebay) is a little out of focus.

The more refined burlap of the next three US print runs would also follow in Venezuela, US card on the right:




The backs are almost clones, although the gray cardboard on the Venezuelan card is a dead giveaway it's not a US issue:



It's hard to pick up on the Venezuelan card but the copyright line reads "HECHO EN VENEZUELA – C.A. LITOVEN"

The 68's seem to be in shorter supply than the 67's but may just reflect what would have been a normal print run absent the exuberance of the prior year.

There were no Venezuelan cards issued in 1969 while 1970 saw a non-Topps effort from Ovenca that is not a bad issue, just not something I will get into here and will leave it instead to the Venezuelan Topps Yahoogroups afficianados instead.

Another year of nothingness in 1971 followed before a strange set of small stamps (or stickers, even though there was no gum on the backs) was issued in 1972.

Using the photos but not the design of the 1972 Topps cards, 242 thin "cards" were issued and designed to be pasted into an album. Check out Blue Moon Odom's Topps card, then the photo on the stamp (not to scale):



The back is snow white (c'mon, you can see this, right?):



Whether or not Topps licensed their photos in 1972, there does not seem to have been any undue noise from them over their use so maybe it is a legitimate use of an official license.

Four more non-Topps issues would follow before some of 1977 US cards were shrunk down as part of a bizarre issue that featured 402 cards, 50 of which were taken from the US set and the balance produced locally with subjects from the VPBL. The latter highlighted local teams and uniforms using a design that bears a slight passing resemblance to the US issue (much like the VPBL cards of a decade earlier, although this set is not nearly as nice) and printed on white backed paper designed for pasting into albums.

Here is a front and back of the Venezuelan example:



while the US card is here:



Here is the VPBL style "card":



Again, much like 1967, these were 1/8" shorter in each dimension than a standard sized card. The 1977 US reissues are quite collectible here in the States, moreso it seems than many other efforts from Topps in Venezuela.

Any Topps involvement seems to have ceased following this issue. Why the Venezualan issues are so haphazard is something beyond me; I suspect it had a lot to do with the local economy and difficulties finding good printing facilities in Venezuela but who knows? My four posts (to date) are meant only as an overview and much, much more is available at Josh's Yahoogroup, linked here and peppered throughout these four posts.

In case you were wondering, the English translations of the titles for my four posts on the Topps Venezuelan cards are:

-The Boys of Winter (1959, 1960)
-A Winter's Tale (1962, 1964, 1966)
-Borderline Crazy (1967)
-Winter's End (1968, 1972, 1977)

Thanks for playing!

Limite Loco

Back to Venezuela today folks as we take a look at the multi-faceted and intertwined sorta-Topps, sorta-not 1967 issue (or issues to be a tad more precise). For the first time since 1960, two consecutive years of cards were issued, although the '67 Venezuelan issue would not get to the Topps designed MLB cards until the end of the series. We'll get to it in the next installment but another set would be issued in '68 and the three year run would prove to be the last time consecutive Topps inspired cards were issued. In what must have been a very well thought out plan, the first 138 cards in 1967 were of players from Venezuelan Professional Baseball League (VPBL) teams. The design of the VPBL cards mimics that of the 1967 Topps issue, although the cards, like all the Venezuelan cards from this year, are 1/8" shorter in each dimension than their US counterparts. This led to razor thin borders on the cards, which looks a little strange:

   

 The photos used are quite nice, as you can see. The league consisted of teams from six cities: Caracas, Oriente, La Guaira, Valencia, Lara and Aragua, having expanded two seasons prior from an original count of four. Caracas was the defending Champion and would repeat in the 1967 tournament. While some MLB players are depicted in the VPBL series with their Venezuelan teams (Luis Aparicio being the most prominent) it primarily consists of local players who never reached the majors in the states and the flavor is decidedly local. I would think many of the stadiums in the backgrounds are not well represented with extant photos so the set provides a neat historical reference as well. The backs are where the fun begins. and the VPBL series runs from #1-138. The vast majority of the first series backs look like this:

   

Spanish language backs have returned! I can only describe the color as somewhere between red and pink and it likely is imbued with just a tad more orange than Topps would use in the states. The cards must have been printed locally and while the fronts are Topps inspired, those backs are unique. As always though, there is a twist with these cards. Only 132 of the 138 cards can be found with the reddish backs. Six cards in the series (46, 60, 62, 95, 107, 123) are found with blue backs, which as we will see shortly were used for the US themed cards and the presumption is they had to be printed on another sheet.  (UPDATE: Dec. 20, 2021.This is somewhat incorrect, all six can be found with both colors on the reverse but there is indeed a twist!  See my Jan 1, 2022 post for more details on this and other aspects discussed below.)

In addition, three numbers (46, 60 and 115) can be found with two players (unsure if these were cards that depicted players who replaced those who had departed the league or changed teams or were merely a mistake) so there are 141 different players in this run, plus a pose variation of card #133. Why two of the doubled numbers are blue backed and the third is not just adds to the intrigue. Now, in a world where 132 card uncut sheets (or, technically speaking, half-sheets) were a Topps certainty for many a year, you would think that the 6 blue backed VPBL cards indicate that was the size of the uncut sheets but it may not be as simple as that since the next two series of cards are tied to runs of fifty. In addition the next run of cards, called the "Retirado" series, was a radical departure from previous Venezuelan sets not only in terms of sub-series size (fifty) but also design. Here, check it out:

   

That vibrant blue color setting off the black and white photo was used on all fifty cards in the series. John Rumierz had a full set of these at the 2010 National and when seen together the blue is mesmerizing. You can see the cards are a little smaller than the US whens by the way Joe D. is swimming in his PSA holder, which uses a "card condom" to keep things in place. The vast majority of Retirado subjects are hall of famers and the sub set is quite pricey; you could buy a new car with the Bolivars it would require to piece all fifty of these together. I plan to take a much closer look at the Retirado set someday as the list of players who would eventually make the hall but would never have been thought of as immortals in 1967 is quite impressive. The backs of the Retirado series continue the style and numbering commencing at #139 but the back color is now a dark green:

   

The above Joe D's sadly are not mine, they were lifted from Ebay, likely from John Rumierz's store. The DiMaggio card is an anomaly in that it is in nice shape. I have a Cy Young that is more typical of the average condition Retirado card, with a bit of a dirty front...

 

...and reflecting the fact you could get an album for all three series in '67, resulting in massive back damage when removed (forgive the glare):

   

The Retirado's are the most difficult of the three subsets in 1967 while the VPBL cards are the easiest to obtain. Somewhere in the middle lies the traditional US reissue (with a US Foy alongside for comparison but not to scale):

   

You can easily see the Venezuelan card has muted colors and smaller borders and the lack of gloss common to the Venezuelan cards is highlighted as well. For the first time since the run began in 1959, the reissued Venezuelan fronts did not mirror US print sheets but feature cards taken from a variety of series. I haven't checked but don't see any obvious '67 US high numbers in the Venezuelan cards but do see some higher series cards such as Tony Perez who is #476 in the US and therefore part of either the fifth or sixth press sheet in the US. As you might imagine, this allowed a better selection of players to be used in the 150 card series and many hall of famers lurk within. The backs continue the numbering and style but are in blue:

   

The backs can be oriented one way, like shown above, or the opposite when flipped over and the best guess is 100 of them are one way and fifty the other. I do not yet know if the 6 VPBL cards with blue backs have one orientation or the other. Additionally the color on the fifty "flipped" cards is slightly different being a darker shade of blue. Whether these were printed on 132 card sheets is unknown; I suspect not and think 110 or 121 card sheets are possible as the 132/50 discontinuity is bothering me somewhat, even with the thinner borders making any speculation about specific print arrays dubious. Prevailing wisdom over on the Topps Venezuelan site is these "flipped fifty" were part of the last run of cards printed. Here is a comparison of what happens when the card is flipped the same way over to the back for each type: a "left/light" of Gaylord Perry From the 'bay) on the left and a "right/dark" of Sam Ellis (from Josh's Yahoogroup) on the right.

   

The fifty darker blue backed cards seem to be available in far lesser supply on Ebay right now, as in I can't even find one among a large group of auctions over there! Whether or not it's because the group being offered is from one collection bought intact from a specific area in Venezuela I can't say but it seems odd and suggests the dark blue backs are either harder to find or were sold separately from the light blue ones. All three susbets in '67 were sold at once but in identifiable packaging for each so the different coloration of the backs and consecutive numbering scheme was meant to unify them all. In my opinion this is the best of the Venezuelan issues by far and one of the landmark issues in the hobby, albeit one that is not widely collected. I plan to look at the entire 1967 Venezuelan set in much more detail fairly soon but will be back with the final Topps related cards from the Bolivarian Republic next time out.

El Cuento de un Invierno

Last time out we covered the first two Venezuelan Topps sets, which probably lulled everybody down that way into thinking these sets would be annual events. Well, there was no 1961 set, perhaps due to the uncertainties associated with expansion or maybe just because no license was issued for that year. 1960's set must have sold better than the 59's merely based upon surviving examples so it remains a bit mysterious why '61 was skipped with sales ascendant.

The hiatus allowed for a bit of a retooling as well. 1962 saw the implementation of Spanish to the backs, thus making identification a lot easier. Once again 198 cards were issued but it seems they all came out at once and since they came from the first two American series' the the darker tone wood grain fronts of the second series also were on display in the Venezuelan set. As you would expect though, some particular twists were introduced.

Here is a series 1 card of a shell-shocked looking Don Larsen, with a first series Topps card following (the bottom border missed the scan on the latter):



The Venezuelan example lacks the "punch" of the US version but the lighter grain is more pronounced as a result.

The backs tell the story in two languages when compared side by side:



You can see the background color of the stats area is much pinker on the Venezuelan card. That little blob of paper is common on '62 Venezuelans by the way; it is from the wrapper and production problems during sealing led to the back card in each pack of four having some leftover residue come along for the ride. Fronts can also display this streak.

The cards from series 2 show the darker grained wood is much richer and deeper on the US version (right, or bottom depending upon your browser and screen):



The back from South America is also pinker in tone again (same order):



I think the pinker tones look much better than the muted salmon, don't you?

The last two cards of the "second" US series, 197 and 198 were not issued (Daryl Spencer and Johnny Keane got the heave-ho); instead two Venezuelan born players, Elio Chacon and Luis Aparicio were assigned numbers 199 and 200 and imported from the US 3rd series (Chacon was #256) and 4th series (Aparicio is #325 in the Topps set). Josh's Yahoogroup writeup for this set indicates cropping differences exist between the North and South American cards for these two players. But wait-there is more to the story.

1962 was the second year Topps included checklists in their sets as numbered cards. As a way of previewing their upcoming series (which did not match the checklists and was generally off by either 22 or 11 cards), Topps started putting a checklist from that series on the sheet with the prior series cards, essentially reducing 110 card series to 109 cards as printed and 88 card series to 87 on the sheets. Therefore, the second batch print run ended at #196 in 1962 but there were almost certainly two holes created when the extra checklist was pulled from each print run in Venezuela. Hence Chacon and Aparicio appeared in a neat solution to a mundane problem.

I realize I have to finish my series on the Theories of Checklist Relativity and the Series Previews soon ad they don't cover the post 1960 period!

1964 brought major changes to the Venezuelan set as a whopping 370 cards were issued. Using the same solution as in '62, the print series of 109+87+87+87 add to 370. If there is a likely year where one style was sold to cover two seasons, my guess is it would have occurred in 1964-65 but that's only idle speculation.

An album was introduced for the Venezuelan market in 1964 as well (once again, Josh has a scan) and this was when gluing of the cards, somewhat traditional in Central and South America, started in earnest. The card stock is pretty poor in '64, gloss is a distant memory and the card sizing can vary about 1/8" from the US cards sometimes. More cards probably resulted in a slight weakening of quality control.

Here are the comparative 1964 scans, fronts V to U, then backs:



There seems to be more orange in the Venezuelan color tones, frontwise.



The Spanish has disappeared but those black backs make it easy to identify a Venezuelan issue. Loco!

Another 370 card set came out in 1966, once again without Spanish backs. Organized and sold in similar fashion to the 64's, the gloss shortage has eased just ever-so-slightly but the off sized cuts remain. Thankfully, so does the excess orange in the mix as the backs make identification easy.

Fronts, then backs, South to North each time:





Josh has the intel on other differences, so go check out his Yahoogroup for more.

Next time we'll look at one of the best baseball sets ever issued in any hemisphere or country, the 1967 Venezuelan Topps set; a three-in-one killer of an issue. Estar allí o ser cuadrado!