Bucket List?

A very interesting bit of Topps history has popped up at Huggins & Scott this past week.  Our most intrepid readers may recall a major Pennsylvania find about a dozen years ago of the 1968 Topps Baseball Plaks test issue being covered here. You can click through for the full story but a former Topps employee in Scranton had saved a bunch of the Plaks (it seems employees could take home failed test products!) and would occasionally hand some out to the neighborhood kids.  Interest in little plastic busts of baseball players remained low however and she literally shelved the Plaks for the next forty years as they resided in a bucket in her garage. There were some intact sprues of three subjects still and some singles but who knows how many she hand handed out forty years prior?

Mile High's Brian Drent ended up with the consignment and began selling them in 2009. The find revealed 19 of the 24 players depicted on the stunningly nice cardboard checklists plus a Mantle variant ("big nose"). A lone Willie Mays Plak was found elsewhere and the set checklist remains I believe at 20, with four players still unaccounted for:

• Hank Aaron
• Don Drysdale
• Gary Peters
• Frank Robinson

A minimum of four of each subjects (save Mays, with none) were in the original find and some players appeared on three different sprues, fueling thoughts the missing four were just subbed out with duplicates.  I would caution against that scenario being accepted at face value as it's unknown how many Plaks were handed out by the former Topps employee. Here is an example of an intact sprue with the Mays no less, courtesy of Larry Serota:

The Plaks and even the little connecting pegs and blobs are actually quite sturdy, surprisingly so as I found out when I ended up with a "Tom" Davis bust from the find. Prices were depressed a little after the find (it was extremely hard to find examples prior) but the sell through was not completed IIRC. These remain scarce, still with limited appeal I'd say although the colorful photo checklists are popular with HOF collectors and around in a little bit more quantity with 67 showing in the present PSA pop report. 

Now we have another Pennsylvania find (or maybe something held back from 2008)-uncut strips of the checklists!  Check these bad boys out, eleven in a row for each league!

I don't know if these were reference copies, proofs or what but the rows seem to be complete at 11 across.  I had through the checklists were originally cut vertically before the final cut but that may not be the case. Either way, this is a crazy and wonderful find!

Howser 'Bout That

There's been some Flexichrome related discussion over at Net54 Baseball recently and its inadvertently brought my attention to a neat bit of Topps production art.

Topps used the Kodak Flexichrome process in earnest through their 1962 Baseball issue and then sporadically after that for another several years as needed.  It eventually became an unnecessary process and in fact the Flexichrome product line was discontinued in 1961 by Kodak. Used in combination with some airbrush techniques, you can usually spot a Flexichromed card a mile away.  Here's a couple of examples you may know.

1959 Topps #468:

See how "soft" the pictures look in the triptych? That's Flexichrome.

Here's #130 Lou Jackson from the same set.  If Topps has a sharp color image they would use it and forego the coloring process.  You can see the freckles on his face this shot is so clear:

Compare that to this 1960 Rookie Star, #131 Ed Hobaugh, who looks decidedly unnatural:

This all brings us to a quite stunning piece of pre-production artwork, namely that of Dick Howser, showing how his image was prepared, courtesy of Friend o' the Archive R. C. McKenzie:

There is a bit to unpack here.  The sticker on the bottom lefty indicates this was from the famous 1989 auction of original Topps production materials, and indeed it was lot # C10 on  page 65 of the catalog:

The 17/049 notations must have been a storage location used prior to the auction.  Note the bitchin' Topps Auction stamp in the upper right corner:

Woody Gelman himself hand wrote the player identification...

...and the instructions to the Flexichrome artist:

The upside down writing on the right hand side of the backing board is a little harder to puzzle out and are in a different hand, possibly that of the artist coloring the piece. Sizing instructions are aboard too and that line at the end of the bottom pointing arrow here (pointing up on the original) is where the image was cutoff for the card:

Take a gander at the two left side line markings in red, laying out some macro geographic color real estate levels I think:

And the piece de resistance:

I love how you can see the green and blue Flexichrome paints oozing out from the original, like blotted watercolors.  A lot of masking went into the colorizing and it looks to me like the piece has slipped up a hair off the backing based on how the lines match up (note the one to the left indicting the top of the grass line and the 1 1/2 indicator arrow atop the right side).

What a fabulous piece of Topps history! Here's what all that massively involved work produced, you can see the crop atop Howser's cap indicated by the line shown above (it got cropped a little on the left and right sides, even if you account for the framing neatline:

Cartoon Reruns

Happy Wednesday folks-more inspired research from Friend o'the Archive Roy Carlson today.

Take a look at these three Topps cards from 1966 and '67:

No apparent connection, right?  Well Mr. C has certainly found one. Check this out:

Yup, those cartoons on the '67 Ribant are recycled from 1966!  Let's take a closer look.  Here's what ended up on his 1967 card:

So poor Sammy Ellis had his cartoon hijacked and then changed.  At least both of the noted events were no hitters! Here's a little peek-a-boo or two:

Roy notes regarding the Ribant that "the 1967 finished card's left cartoon has an extra 2 hash marks by the pitcher's left arm. Those are actually a portion of the number "3" from "377", the card number that was written on Turk Farrell's 1966 cartoon. Also, based on the crudely cut and glued 1967 text board, a portion of the pitcher's glove gets covered.  One needs to look at the 1966 card to fully enjoy the full glove detail.  Plus, the 1967 text on the right cartoon was written on separate board, then apparently cut poorly, slicing a bit of the boxed "I" in the word "IN".  The artist or editor had to re-draw the left portion of the I box on the final cartoon."

Here's more from the Ribant card's back, you can see the glove is cut off on the left cartoon and the redrawn point of the I is broken on the right side one:

More cartoon fun soon!

Gummy, Gummy, Gummy

Well I am approaching my third month of quarantine and I have to tell you, seeing some MLB on TV or maybe the NHL playoffs would be real nice right about now.  Alas......

I thought this would just be a series of random images today but a bit of a gum theme developed, so I just went with it.

1949's Pixie Bubble Gum, which contained an X-Ray Roundup card (the gum and the cards were assigned different names early on by Topps before someone realized it was a stupid idea) and the red cello viewer needed to decipher the back.  I can't say I've seen a pack (emptied of the gum) offered with a viewer before but the card is also missing!

You could send away for a handheld viewer though, via this "waxy" insert found, in this case, in packs of Hopalong Cassidy:

Check out this other waxy insert from A&BC with Bazooka Joe offering a premium scarf of your favorite football club-fab!

Reminds me of similar 1967-68 inserts from the Topps Baseball and Football packs that advertised or promoted various things.  I tried to determine the date of this thinking it just listed First Division teams and a couple from the Scottish League but there was no correlation.  Seller just had it as being from the 70's.

After Topps tried to resurrect their Mini-Chiclets like Blockbuster gum in a bizarre reusable straw configuration they went with a new name, Gumniks, filled with the product in 1974. Or was it vice-versa?  Either way:

Here's another gum piece that Friend o'the Archive Lonnie Cummins passed along a little while ago.  I can't find any information on it, does anyone out there know anything about it?

That's a very wholesome looking ad!

Stay safe out there folks!

(Update 5/23/20: Found a Grape Gumniks, in all its artificially flavored glory-I loved that flavor as a kid):

Parade Of The Horribles

Further to a very old post here, I've found some additional information regarding the very strange and Topps affliated 1967 Rubber Uglies "set".  These little blighters were loosely associated with the 1965 Ugly Stickers set but were soft, rubbery, icky looking monsters and not made of cardboard.  I thought they had been sold in vending capsules (and very well may have) but it looks like you could buy them right out of the box:

That's a whole lotta Ugly! Except not enough as it seems full set is 32 in number (unconfirmed but likely).

It turns out that box artwork was done by Wally Wood, so maybe not so ugly after all: 

These are still a bit mysterious and there are a zillion knockoffs that were sold over the years but these are the real ("Topps", sorta) deal. I'm not real clear on whether or not this was a quasi-licensed set (wink-wink) or a total bootleg job but the Wood and Norman Saunders connections gives them an air of legitimacy.

My 2009 post mentioned a 1970's resale in blister packs, well here is an example, from the Norman Saunders site:

I like how the three in the pack form a kind of choreographed scene!

A Rosen By Any Other Name

Some very old (and old school) hobby catalogs have crossed my threshold recently, including a special one from Sam Rosen, who was Woody Gelman's Stepfather and started selling baseball cards as a retirement project prodded on by his Stepson.  Kind of handy to have a Stepson who worked for Topps if you were selling cards, right?

Sam issued a series of catalogs from (I believe) mid-1954 on and I suspect did fulfillment for the Trading Card Guild (note the initials) brand that was used by Topps to market ten cent cello packs with no gum, both a ploy necessary I'm sure to stave off legal action with Topps reselling their overstock and returns. I also believe the Guild fulfilled individual orders for various promotions run by Topps in those early years of card production.

This thread on www.net54baseball has some great old hobby catalogs shown and discussed within and there is some really nice Sam Rosen stuff in the mix. You will note, if you click through, a reference to 1958 catalog inserts from Rosen, specifically the 1956 Baseball Buttons Topps had pulled the plug on before one-third of all the ninety promised pins had been produced.  I recently obtained a single page sheet from Rosen detailing the set, which also served as a checklist, a hard to find resource for a lot of issues at the time:

The limited quantity of complete sets may be the result of three buttons issued in lesser quantities than the other 57: Chuck Diering, Hector Lopez and Chuck Stobbs. All three were bottom row subjects and being an edge subject  with Topps usually led to some production issues.  But I digress.

Sam Rosen died suddenly on New Year's Eve in 1958 and Woody Gelman took over the company, dubbing it the Card Collectors Company (CCC) and moving HQ from Midtown Manhattan to Franklin Square, Long Island. P.O. Box 293 was likely just that as Woody lived the next town over in Malverne and wouldn't want to give up his home's location.

In March of 1959 Gelman issued CCC catalog #10, picking up some kind of numbering scheme I cannot decipher from Sam Rosen (who was up to #12 well before 1958) and you will note the quick message at the top of the first page referencing the predecessor company:

Well, a look at page three shows that those limited sets of Baseball Buttons were holding on, albeit at higher prices than 1958's:

The 1960 CCC catalog #11 just had a line item for sets and singles (with unchanged pricing) and by catalog #12 from 1961 there were no more Baseball Buttons on offer, so I guess Woody finally dumped them all.  I would think a lot of the high grade examples in the hobby came from Rosen and Gelman.

Speaking of CCC catalog #12, they were well ahead of the Topps Vault and Guernsey's as there were "Topops" spot art cartoons being offered for a buck apiece, or three for $2.50, which was a steal considering that is some prime Jack Davis artwork being featured:

That's from McCovey's 1960 All Star card by the way, although it's flipped, no doubt because Willie batted left. I'm not sure why they didn't portray him as an African-American but there's no guarantee the batter in the cartoon was originally drawn to caricature Stretch.

Big Mac could really rake, huh?

Sign Here Kid

Happy Wednesday kids!  Back at it with some midweek cheer from Friend o'the Archive Roy Carlson.

Hobby veterans are aware that Topps used to sign up almost any and all promising minor leaguers (Maury Wills excepted!) with a contract stipulating a $5 payment to retain their rights.  Famously called "Steak Money" as the idea was the player could go buy a nice steak to celebrate, I think it's possible that term is actually a neat enhancement of "Stake Money" but no matter. Today we get a peek at one of these contracts, that of Hall of Famer Ferguson Jenkins no less.

Jenkins was a Barbadian Canadian from Ontario whose mother was descended from a "passenger" on the Underground Railroad. Ferguson was a tall (6' 5") righthander who came to baseball late but clearly found his path once he started playing.  His height and inexperience relegated him to first base duties initially but his arm got noticed by Gene Dziadura, a Phillies scout who roamed the province and who would work out with the young Fergie, having him throw pitches into ever shrinking targets for accuracy, chop wood to hone his delivery and heave a heavy hammer to develop his curve.

Jenkins signed with the Phillies in 1962, although his referring Scout was apparently Tony Lucadello, who also had the distinction of recruiting Mike Schmidt. His signing caught the attention of Topps of course and he signed with them on June 22nd of that year.  Here is his steak money deal; I have never seen one of these before:

Sy Berger signed a LOT of autographs on contracts over the years.  Not sure who "Parnell" was but I can advise it is not former major leaguer Mel Parnell. Perhaps a witness?

Fergie was under 21 and needed a parental signature to make it legal though:

Jenkins was actually 19 at the time - LOL!

Here is the key clause in this one:

It's a little fuzzy but in addition to the $5 Jenkins would receive $125 once he had 31 consecutive days on the active roster of a major league club. This is a phrase I have seen before in Topps contracts and it's important as it partially explains why Topps often didn't issue full cards of players who were not yet major league ready.  This applied to some degree to players that had retired but like anything else with Topps there is consistency in their inconsistency.  To wit:

1) Lou Piniella: 1964 Topps card #167 (shared with Mike Brumley as Senators Rookie Stars).  Piniella did not debut until September 4, 1964, after Washington had traded him to the Orioles. I'm assuming some rookies who had "Rookie Stars" multi-player card debuts had not yet fulfilled the 31 day requirement but must have had a side agreement to allow their premature Topps debut. Fodder for another post for sure.

2) Sandy Koufax: Retired November 18, 1966.  Team Captain on the 1967 Topps Punchout cards but nowhere to be found in the 1967 regular issue.  The Punchouts seem to have been developed and produced in late 1966, before the regular issue even.

3) Mickey Mantle: Retired March 1, 1969, Topps #500 that year. Late retirement in terms of the upcoming season but still had a card that could seemingly have been pulled given the later series it was in. Possibly the customary two year contract extension from Topps allowed this.  Too bad most other stars didn't get the career summary card. Additional fodder for the future.

Payment made:

That bank was fairly close to Topps HQ.  They used Manufacturers Hanover for their business financing but I guess the allure of a local branch of what eventually became Citibank was too convenient for them.  Note the check was issued months before he actually signed with Topps and the "pay to" field was blank. Someone (Parnell, a secretary, Berger?) other than Jenkins (see below) looks like they filled it in. I guess Sy Berger wandered around with a pile of fungible $5 checks!

Ferguson was able to endorse his own check for deposit, although I'm puzzled how he got anywhere near Williamsport at the time. I'm not positive but it looks like the local bank stamp for deposit was done on July 13th.

So the check was cut in March, paid to Jenkins upon signing in June, cashed in July but his parent didn't sign and make it legal until August-whew!

Jenkins was traded by the Phillies to the Cubs on April 21, 1966, after appearing in seven major league games the year before and one prior to the trade.  He was sent along with John Herrnstein (a scrub essentially) and Adolfo Phillips (a useful player for several years but let go in the 1969 expansion draft) for Bob Buhl (37 years old and totally shot) and Larry Jackson (three good years for the Phils, with 41 wins but still), in one of the worst trades ever in major league history.

Here's the 1966 Topps debut of Jenkins:

1967 gives us another look at his sig ("Fergie" now), and Shea Stadium, plus his new togs:

Jenkins is a guy I would see pitch a couple of times at Shea, my dad always seemed to buy tickets for games where an opposing ace would face off against Seaver or Koosman and the Mets would zip through a game in about 2 hours and 20 minutes! Sometimes we both skipped school (he was a teacher!) to go.

I saw some memorable games in the 70's as a result. I can't quite recall but I remember the Mets dropping one to Fergie 1-0 and another where I think they won in 10 but I'd need to scour Retrosheet to figure all that out.  No matter, Jenkins could pitch with the best of them and often did!