Six Flags

I have written here a couple of times now on the incomplete checklist for the smallest of the Hocus Focus issues but there are at least two other early Topps sets where the checklists are not entirely confirmed. One of them I have written about extensively here, the 1949-ish Play Coins of the World, where the issue is not of identifying subjects but colors. That little enigma is about to get even thornier (stay tuned) but today I want to look at the 1949 Flags of All Nations/Soldiers of the World set and its six missing cards.

There should be 100 cards in this set, which resembles the other 1949 small Topps cards in size and execution, measuring 7/8" x 1 7/16". These two sided, unnumbered cards feature a flag and attendant pole, mostly of various countries but also featuring flags of the US Marine Corps, the Confederacy and the like printed on a very strange, textured silver surface. The flip side is color painting of a representative citizen of that country or organization.

Here's my only example, a pinholed Viking flag and, uh, Viking:



The small paintings looks like they were executed by the same artists or firm that did the X-Ray Round-Up paintings of the same year's vintage:



I used to think Topps had licensed the "human" artwork for both sets but the more I delve into their early history the more I think they were done by an ad agency. The 1949 Flags of All Nations cards came in penny packs of Parade Gum and possibly in a very limited test of a Fruit Flavored Topps gum tab:



Like the other harder to find small card issues such as Varsity and License Plates, those issued only in penny packs and not via the additional avenues of vending and mail-in offers are difficult to find today. The Parade wrapper would have been primarily yellow with accent colors but I have no idea what color the Fruit gum wrapper was (I would guess pinkish or yellow though) and the above example from the 2nd Edition of the Sport Americana Price Guide to the Non-Sports Cards, 1930-1960 by Chris Benjamin is the only one I have ever seen.

Now we know the set should have had 100 cards because a year later Topps issued a 100 card set of cards that were larger at 1 3/4" x 2 7/8", a somewhat transitional size for Topps after the abandoned the penny gum tab inserts but have a matched checklist with the 94 known 1949 cards. We'll get to the checklists in a minute but let's look at a 1950 card first:



The backs are not nearly as nice as the Soldiers from a year earlier but you can see why these cards are often referred to as Parade (and confusingly the 49's are called that too sometimes). The subsets break down as follows:

Africa - 7
The Americas - 31
Asia - 18
Europe - 41
Pacific - 3

The 1950 cards came in these packs, one cent and five cent varieties were sold, with two card panels (presumably three of them) within in the latter:



There would be three other significant Topps Flags issue over the next twenty or so years but those will be touched on at a later date. The 1950 Flags cards were also used as a tie in to the bagged dime packs of Play Coins if the World, shown here previously:



Here is the checklist for the 1950 set, with an asterisk showing the missing cards from 1949. There are rumors of short prints but I suspect it's just a matter of the smaller cards being harder to find and catalog generally. The numbers are from the 1950 issue but I have done the checklist up alphabetically to make it easier to deal with:

20	1ST AMERICAN FLAG
59	ABYSSINIA
61	ADMIRAL-GREAT BRITAIN
57	ADMIRAL-ITALY
60	ADMIRAL-JAPAN
87	ADMIRAL-NETHERLANDS
83	ADMIRAL-NORWAY
85	ADMIRAL-SPAIN
43	ADMIRAL-US *
10	AFGHANISTAN
82	ALAMO *
76	ALBANIA
8	ARGENTINA
62	ARMENIA
6	AUSTRALIA
79	AUSTRIA
4	BELGIUM
2	BOLIVIA
31	BRAZIL
94	BULGARIA
30	BURMA
28	BYELO RUSSIAN SSR
25	CANADA
24	CHILE
52	CHINA
50	COLOMBIA
78	COLUMBUS' FLAG
23	COMMODORE PERRY'S FLAG
26	CONFEDERATE STATES
47	CONFEDERATE STATES 1861
49	COSTA RICA
46	CUBA
44	CZECHOSLOVAKIA
72	DENMARK
70	DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
68	ECUADOR
67	EGYPT
65	EL SALVADOR
9	ESTONIA
93	ETHIOPIA
100	FINLAND
91	FRANCE
64	GENERAL STAFF-FRANCE
1	GERMANY
5	GOLD COAST *
90	GREECE
86	GUATEMALA
84	HAITI
19	HONDURAS
55	HUNGARY
16	ICELAND
15	INDIA
13	IRAN
11	IRAQ
96	IRISH FREE STATE
98	ISRAEL
80	ITALY
99	JAPAN
58	LATVIA
37	LEBANON
35	LIBERIA
34	LUXEMBOURG
32	MEXICO
7	MOROCCO
29	NETHERLANDS
56	NEW ZEALAND
54	NICARAGUA *
53	NORWAY
51	PAKISTAN
48	PANAMA
77	PARAGUAY
75	PERU *
71	POLAND
63	PORTUGAL
27	PRE-REVOLUTIONARY JACK
41	RED CROSS
45	ROYAL AIR FORCE
73	RUMANIA
69	SAUDI ARABIA
97	SIAM
33	SPAIN
95	SWEDEN
36	SWITZERLAND
92	SYRIA
74	THE PHILIPPINES
81	TIBET
3	TRANS JORDAN
89	TURKEY
88	UKRANIAN SSR
21	UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA
17	UNITED KINGDOM
14	UNITED STATES
12	URUGUAY
38	US MARINE CORPS
18	USSR (RUSSIA)
66	USSR AIR FORCE
42	VENEZUELA
22	VIKING FLAG
40	YEMEN *
39	YUGOSLAVIA

The six countries yet to be found from 1949, in case you are asterisk-challenged, are: Admiral's Flag from the US, The Alamo and flags from Gold Coast, Nicaragua, Peru and Yemen. I'll bet they exist and will post scans if and when I find 'em.

Small Order

When I started this blog a few months ago, I figured I would mostly post on Topps test and oddball baseball issues. As it has turned out, while compiling scans and doing research for my posts, I started to really dig deep into the history of the company and have zeroed in on the late 1940's recently. I have discussed some of these before, in a slightly different context.

Since Topps didn't officially introduce baseball cards until 1951, the pre-baseball era is almost all non-sport in nature. At first I thought Topps had issued a few sporadic sets in '49 but it turns out they had all sorts of things cooking. After introducing Bazooka comics around 1947, Topps started inserting plastic coins and cards into their non-Bazooka penny packs a year or so later and by 1949 were issuing stand alone products in both penny and nickel packs on a regular basis.

I want to focus on the penny packs here, in particular the tiny little cards that came inserted between the outer wrapper and the individually wrapped gum pieces (or "tabs" in the confectioner's jargon). Before I do that though, there was a non-card issue in 1948 that amazes me:


(From the Jeff Shepherd Collection)

Choking hazard aside, this may have been the first Topps penny pack to have an insert. It also shows how the packaging was assembled. There was nothing holding the coin in place save for the inner fold from what I can tell. This penny pack likely came out in 1948 and continued to be sold through part of 1949.

Around the same time Topps issued the first Magic Photo, in Hocus Focus Gum:



The cards looked like this:



Interestingly, I am now finding information that Magic Photos may have come with both square and rounded corners. In addition, there may be some back variations and at least one obverse variation. If there is any correlation between the corners and variations I hope to find out, so stay tuned.

1949 also saw the release of X-Ray Round Up, which must have sold well as there are more of these around than any other tiny Topps cards from what I have seen. They came in packs of Pixie Gum (note inner green wrapper):


(from the collection of Todd Riley)

The fronts had Pirates, Indians and Cowboys on them and were quite colorful.



You put some magic X Ray paper over the back to reveal a picture:



Here are some proof and uncut versions from the 2004 Robert Edward Auction, plus a 100 count sheet of stamps, that may or may not have been issued by Topps:





There was also a License Plate set issued in 1949, featuring the first Topps scratchoffs no less. The set was also issued without the scratch off feature (1950 saw a reissue of both type in slightly larger format).

Outer and inner wrapper (Topps usually printed something on the inside of the paper wrapper):


The cards were as you would expect:



Looks like a switch to foil from wax for the inner wrapper:




Want some gum with that?



Last but not least, we have Flags of All Nations/Soldiers of The World. The "front" of the card is on textured, silvery "foil" and the back looks like a normal card's front. Bizarre! I don't have wrapper scans for this set at the moment and will add them when I can. Here are the cards:



There was so much more in 1948-49, including some early text-based little cards and a number of wrapper interiors. Fodder for another day's post. Enjoy these for now!