Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Never Felt So Good

Well folks, thanks to the August Legendary Auctions catalog, there may be a way to pin down the 1949 Varsity Football sheet size.  Now I think it's pretty likely the sheets for these show either 100 cards arrayed 10 x 10 of that arrangement is carried over onto a larger sheet.  There is always the option a 7 x 18 array exists, a la 1948-49 Magic Photos but my operating theory on the latter is that they were printed at a different facility or on a different press than the Varsity Football and other similar cards in 1949 due to their chemical coating.  Further reinforcing this theory is the 1955 Hocus Focus small issue, which clocks in at 126 cards.

Legendary has a number of uncut panels being offered, most in a 5 x 5 quadrant array, consistent with prior panels seen by yours truly but with a bit more border area showing.  Check out the green panels, which I believe show left and right borders respectively:


The second and third rows seem to show some left gutter or border area.  Now look at the panel below, which has a lot of white wast area rightmost:


I don't believe they are a matched pair but they may both also hail from the top row-check out all the real estate above each side's first row above.

Now look at these two brown panels:


That's a different size panel but the left side must be an edge and the seven column view shows the repetition you would expect. Now look below:


Lots and lots of white off to the right.  

So is it a sure touchdown?  Not quite.  There could still be a 7 x 18 arrangement or something bigger than 10 x 10 but the 1949 sets (except Magic Photo, which a actually had a first series issued in 1948) all seem to revolve around 100 subjects or a multiple thererof.  X-Ray Round up had 200 cards, all printed at once no less:

While License Plates and Flags Of All Nations clocked in at 100 subjects apiece I have never seen any uncut sheets or panels for those sets.  I'll keep looking but I think the 10 x 10 print array for Varsity is right.


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