Among the trove of super tough Topps tests recently hammered by various auctioneers, one non-sports release really stood out to me. Issued (barely) in 1968, Gruesome Greetings have been on the wantlists of many collectors for decades. Recently, a good chunk of gruesomeness was sold by the The Collector Connection and then some more oozed out at Vintage Non Sports Auctions. I feel a post-mortem is in order.
A whimsical approach to the macabre, with a detour to some kind of dark Valentine's Day was the theme of the 44 larger size cards in the set auctioned by The Collector Connection, all from the Roxanne Toser collection:
The fronts were from the hand of Gahan Wilson, a master of wryly gothic, head-scratching illustrations that permeated Playboy for decades. How he ended up doing a job for Topps is something I'd love to know. The work doesn't really display his trademark dark witticism though, and I assume he was illustrating gags that were provided to him by Topps.
Wilson on the fronts, Jack Davis on the backs, but just the one image there, repeated 44 times:
Yonks ago, the Topps Vault (which is now shuttered) had an uncut sheet:
The Vault also had a box flat proof, which is where the card set derives it full name:
I love the unusual packaging and card colors; Topps was in a highly experimental stage when they tested these but the card buying public didn't like what was being offered.
Vintage Non-Sports Auctions recently had a lot of 24 GG, here's three of them:
Gags aside, they're pretty great!
A 1993 set shared the same name but had a totally different vibe, featuring John Pound Art in booklet form That set was popular, unlike the original, and each three card pack offered one subject that had a "scratch 'n' stink feature (!). I'm not really familiar but there's a good writeup: here.
WE HAVE A SAME DAY UPDATE! The first comment here (thank you) brought up a Heritage Auction from August of this year offering an uncut white border/background set with completed salmon backs. It seems there were two tests, or maybe a reconfigured one, which Topps sometimes did with their Valentine's Day and Hallowe'en sets from this era.
I wonder if they dialed back on an all black set, as only four (and a half) have that color background here.
I purchased the uncut sheet recently auctioned by Heritage, with finished backs (in Topps salmon). The fronts, though, are on a white background instead of black.
ReplyDeleteThis is interesting as the Toser collection examples were cut into singles and did not have GRUESOME added to the reverse. The Heritage reverses add it and look quite complete. I wonder if it was tested both ways?
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