tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27257197959732447.post7072307075104288151..comments2024-03-24T16:08:17.795-04:00Comments on The Topps Archives: 55 Or Fighttoppcathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10698182920578539949noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27257197959732447.post-87771315217279063172012-05-10T01:33:14.634-04:002012-05-10T01:33:14.634-04:00Nice detective work on this set! 1955-56 is also t...Nice detective work on this set! 1955-56 is also the period when Topps stood in pitched competition with Bowman for card customers. <br /><br />Before it ended with Topps' purchase of Bowman's assets prior to opening day 1956, I think their business and design teams worked overtime trying to convince kids Topps would give them more at the candy store. They put a bunch of work into extra sets for 1954 (Scoop), 1955 (Doubleheaders), and 1956 (Hocus Pocus/Pins), but this stream of extra baseball work dropped to a trickle after 1956, with Bowman no longer a competitor.<br /><br />Hocus Focus strikes me as Topps' fallback, a revival of late 40s Magic Photos technology that enabled them to cheaply provide photo-like baseball cards. It also makes sense to me that both came out in 1955, given the smaller companion sets (210-card "main" and 66-card Doubleheaders). <br /><br />1956, on the other hand, boasted a 300+ card main set and costly-to-make pin backs. Adding a second run of spit-and-wave photos to that workload seems excessive, especially compared to the quality of the color-based cards.<br /><br />Long story short, Topps often spread distribution across multiple years, but I see a good business rationale that supports both Hocus Focus sets in 1955.Matthew Gliddenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00058637926401334906noreply@blogger.com