Following their move to Duryea, PA in the winter of 1966 and subsequent period of settling in, Topps started toying with the use of what are usually referred to as commodity or production codes toward the end of that year. These codes, documented, in a way, the vast majority of their output for decades thereafter. I've shown and tried to explain these here several times - perhaps haphazardly - in the past but today I'm trying to sift through the origins of these little strings of numbers, which as we all know, generally followed this kind of pattern (example taken from 1972 Baseball): 0-401-90-01-2.
Here's a closeup of the code:
The first digit represents the medium (wrapper, box, sheet) and the second two the product number (which also covered pure confectionery products, somewhat reset every year and is loosely tied to the chronological order of release within that year as well). Sometimes the code for a product issued series-by-series could slightly change. The third set of digits is for the packaging format code, while the fourth batch represents an iteration number, documenting meaningful changes in some aspect of the release such as revised retail box or pack artwork. The last, single, digit is often said to represent the year of conception but that's not entirely true. This often does tie to the year of conception (and 95% of the time, release) and can never represent a date after the release year but sometimes (there's that 5%) can signify the one before. So a set with a final digit of -2 could have been released in 1973 but not 1971.Worth noting, the annual Baseball sets have this number matching the season of release, presumably tying to some form of contractual wording with the specific league and/or player's union regarding payment of royalties.
As mentioned, thanks to another superb sussing out by Friend o'the Archive by Lonnie Cummins, this use of the commodity codes is well known in the hobby but does not match the packing date codes stamped on each shipping carton (the solution to which can be found here). So, the commodity code represents an internal green light for production as it ultimately details a "Bill of Materials" code. This was assigned and authprized by the Topps Bill of Materials manager, who (possibly) oversaw and (definitely) coordinated with such disparate departments such as Manufacturing, Engineering and Shipping but also had to dovetail with others such as Woody Gelman's New Products and Ben Solomon's Art Departments. In essence, the code was assigned when a project intended for full release was formally started and the costs associated with producing and distributing said product needed to be tracked, all of this happening once the BOM Manager gave it the thumbs up.
Some exceptions did occur. Test issues from some time in 1966 until 1973 or so were not always tracked via any kind of numbering system found on the issued boxes or wrappers. After that, Topps began using using a much shorter T code for tests. In addition, most products that were imported from abroad, such as some of the metal pin issues, and merely repackaged (and sometimes rebranded) and then sold as a Topps release (i.e. not manufactured by Topps but merely distributed instead) had no codes at all. That simply meant these projects were tracked internally via some other system. Products that contained an insert, which was another 95% situation, did not have a separate code for them, although a handful of times even that was not the case.
Of utmost interest are the annual sports releases, primarily baseball, where, as noted above, the BOM code date matches the intended season of issue. This does not always apply to some of the myriad baseball test issues roughly running from 1967 to 1971; some of those have a BOM code that predates the year of issue. A non-recurring project, such as sets timed to Valentine's Day, would usually have a code also signifying the year prior to issue, as it took several months for most of these to be prepared, tested and then tweaked for general release.
I've tried to track down the start of these codes and it seems like they all may have started with the Batman Color Photo (aka Bat Laffs set):
Check out this box bottom:
That's 454-06-1 snaking up from the bottom right corner. The expected prefix indicator digit is missing, and it's unclear what 06 refers to (probably not the year, as we shall soon see). That trailing -1 could be the iteration number, in this case the first iteration.
As for the wrappers, no code was imprinted on them. However, a revised box was used to sell the Riddler Back cards:
That's pretty much the greatest Topps box art ever! The bottom of some didn't have a code though, although to be fair it was a generic box bottom used that year for several releases:
Throwing me a little, however is this wrapper for the Riddler Backs:
That code reads: 444-01-1-6. This somewhat matches up with the cello box code for the series...
... which reads 444-046-1-6. So that's not quite there yet. By the way, there was a special Rak Pak header created for Bat Laffs:
The Riddler Backs also got one, a sure sign Topps was making bank on Batmania; it's also a thing of beauty:
The green header has no coding but the yellow one does: 444-029-1-6. It seems like -029 could refer to the pricing but I think it's just a coincidence.
At least two other sets with non-conforming codes were issued in 1966:
Green Hornet Stickers
Display Box: 466-06-1-6
Wrapper: 466-01-1-6
Lost In Space
Shipping Case: 470-10-1-6
That code? It reads:
The codes were also assigned to pure confectionery products so they are hard to fully track but Rat Patrol has to be one of the earliest ones to use the familiar cadence.
