Let's Go

One of the things that constantly amazes me is how organized the Topps sales department was in the 1940's.  I have seen letters involving orders of only a few dollars and records detailing down to pennies the status of accounts Topps maintained for jobbers and employees alike.

Topps was very, very good at following up their jobber and constantly pushing them to move product. One way they did this was to use a penny postcard to send a stream of reminders.  This one is from the wilds of the WWW and is for Stop 'n Go gum, so it pertains to to either the small, 1949 and/or larger 1950 version of the gum that was sold along with the License Plates cards.  It's in rough shape but that's probably due to the real cheap stock used:

They certainly grabbed your attention from the first word, those Topps boys did!  The use of the word novelty may lean toward this being for the earlier issue but it's really no smoking gun.  The front shows this card was never used:

A simple penny postcard was a vital tool in the early days.  By 1952 the rate had gone to two cents, so I wonder if Topps changed methods or just went along with the bump.

License and Registration Please

License Plate cards must have been a big deal in post war America. TV, that popular new gadget, was sending forth an electron beam awash with car commercials as Detroit was entering a golden age so it's no surprise that Topps would issue some cards showing license plates. They liked it so much they issued three different sets in five years!

The 1949 set has been covered here recently. I'll post scans again but you can read all about it on the prior post, just scroll down a bit. As you can see, you had to scratch off the coating on the back to "Name This Car". A small white border surrounds the license plate on the front:



The 1950 set is a bit larger than the '49 version and a black border has been added to the obverse. There are still 100 cards and the scratchoff feature remains. Note the new registration sticker too:



The 1953 set was reduced to 75 cards even while the size of the card grew yet again and was more international in flavor. Alas, my example is from the US but Topps spanned the globe in '53. The border is white but since my Arkansas plate is too, it's impossible to tell. You'll just have to trust me.



Now ordinarily you would need a mirror to see the answer on the back of the 53's. But here at the Topps Archives, we want you to have the best blogging experience possible and have handily done the heavy lifting for you; no need to schlep a mirror over to your monitor:



How do these measure up?

1949: 7/8" x 1 7/16"
1950: 1 3/4" x 2 7/8"
1953: 1 7/8" x 3 3/4"

It's probably easier with a visual:



There are more nuances to these sets than I have time for now, especially in 1950. These are neat little cards, well worth checking out on your own. The fact that in 1949 and 1950 you only needed five digits on the plate is quite amusing these days.