Greetings And Salutations

Little odds and ends keep getting dug up that help fill in some gaps in the Topps archaeological record. Today we have an auction entry from Vintage Non-Sports Auctions, run by Friend o'the Archive Tom Boblitt featuring some greeting cards thats hows just how far afield Topps would range in promoting their nascent card issues in the late 40's and early 50's.

Some of you may recall I posted a long time ago about a 1949 Topps Varsity pack that had been stuck to a greeting card, which likely have been issued in 1950. I thought at the time it had been issued by the Barker Greeting Card Company as my book described how they struck a deal with that firm in '49 to affix Magic Photo packs on some of their greeting cards but as will be seen momentarily, it was another manufacturer that did the deed.  Penny Packs of Hopalong Cassidy would be burned off this way as well in a deal made with a company called Buzza Cardozo but they were not involved with the Varsity promotion as it turns out.  Tom has a lot in his June auction that sheds more light on this oddity.

The card below is the same as the one I posted about eleven (!) years ago but the 1949 Varsity pack affixed to is is legit and not clumsily restuffed with foil like my prior exemplar:

However, it turns out to be one from a box of 14 (wow) different cards -- with matching white envelopes of course -- measuring about 6" x 6" that was sold around 1950-51. Not all of these had confections attached and only nine remain from the original packaging but it's a neat little find.  Here's one with a lollipop attached:

I would not be surprised if it was a leftover or excess Rudolph Pop as the lolly looks like it was wrapped in a similar fashion to these:

My research dates Rudolph Pops to 1950 and Topps Candy Division, at least under that specific name, started either that year or a year prior I believe. However, I need to try and date this image BFF o'the Archive Jeff Shepherd recently sent me from a stereographic promotional slide that prominently features said lolly's:

Look at all that candy!  And Cigars!  And Vitalis? Anyhoo, I digress.

Not everything came with candy in this box of greeting cards, here's a hippo with a monocle!

Other cards are described as Get Well or for other occasions.  What a fantastic little package of fun! Here's how they came originally, as "Toycards":

As it turns out, the manufacturer was Doehla Fine Arts:

Neat-o!

Now, speaking of Christmas, I think a different manufacturer came up with these, which I have also blogged about previously Note the more traditional greeting card size from a boxed series called Christmas Fun's A Poppin':

Here's more on that, check out the card in the middle:

And here is the aforementioned Hoppy:

Hoppy had Pops as well, plus as a candy issue from Topps if I may digress again:

"Hoppily" that saddle bag is mine!

I'm bereft of a scan for greeting cards that attached Magic Photo packs but it's interesting how these are all centered around 1950 give or take-I suspect Topps had a marketing plan that covered third party sources of revenue for a year or two involving the greeting card trade.

Spooktacular Fun!

Well Hallowe'en is once again just around the corner and lo and behold something themed to the day before Samhain (which no one ever talks about) has just come across my bow.  I missed out on the auction of this great piece but a very early Topps sales brochure just sold on eBay:

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Those are some serious Leave It To Beaver graphics! I kid, I kid, this is a great brochure actually. For me, one of the best things about it is I've found another piece to add to the Master Topps type list: Trick or Treat Bubble Gum! There's little pictures and games on the interior so it counts: 

Now the sweetest thing of all is the fact I can date the brochure and also show what is likely the second earliest Topps Fun Pack. Take a gander at this, one of the most amazing things I have seen in relation to Topps:

This puts the brochure at 1950 to my mind as all the tiny little Topps card sets issued with penny gum tabs came out in 1949.  In additon License Plates (Stop &Go) and Varsity would still have been active retail products in the fall of that year. In fact, Varsity may not even have been out by the this brochure was created  Some of that gum must have been quite stale!  An earlier bulk pack was offered in the Spring of 1950 with similar items but also included five cent packs and wholesaled for a whopping 94 cents a pop. It also looks like Topps was pushing the Fun Pack idea based on past success with the format. These were just under 15 cents each (or 16 cents farther afield). This is really something as we have another distribution method for the 1949 Felt Backs (Varsity Gum).

Topps Hallowe'en products are on my radar for sure, more to come as I develop things!

Never Felt So Good

Well folks, thanks to the August Legendary Auctions catalog, there may be a way to pin down the 1949 Varsity Football sheet size.  Now I think it's pretty likely the sheets for these show either 100 cards arrayed 10 x 10 of that arrangement is carried over onto a larger sheet.  There is always the option a 7 x 18 array exists, a la 1948-49 Magic Photos but my operating theory on the latter is that they were printed at a different facility or on a different press than the Varsity Football and other similar cards in 1949 due to their chemical coating.  Further reinforcing this theory is the 1955 Hocus Focus small issue, which clocks in at 126 cards.

Legendary has a number of uncut panels being offered, most in a 5 x 5 quadrant array, consistent with prior panels seen by yours truly but with a bit more border area showing.  Check out the green panels, which I believe show left and right borders respectively:

The second and third rows seem to show some left gutter or border area.  Now look at the panel below, which has a lot of white wast area rightmost:

I don't believe they are a matched pair but they may both also hail from the top row-check out all the real estate above each side's first row above.

Now look at these two brown panels:

That's a different size panel but the left side must be an edge and the seven column view shows the repetition you would expect. Now look below:

Lots and lots of white off to the right.  

So is it a sure touchdown?  Not quite.  There could still be a 7 x 18 arrangement or something bigger than 10 x 10 but the 1949 sets (except Magic Photo, which a actually had a first series issued in 1948) all seem to revolve around 100 subjects or a multiple thererof.  X-Ray Round up had 200 cards, all printed at once no less:

While License Plates and Flags Of All Nations clocked in at 100 subjects apiece I have never seen any uncut sheets or panels for those sets.  I'll keep looking but I think the 10 x 10 print array for Varsity is right.

Fine Felt

Well gang, two of my better hauls in recent memory occurred at this year's National in Chicago.  I was a bit on the fence about which to discuss first but have elected to go with the sports theme to start.

The 1949 Topps Varsity Football issue, aka Felt Back Football in the hobby parlance, has been covered here previously and collectors of the set along with my faithful readers know that it consists of 100 cards, divided into four groups of 25, each of which has a bright background color (green, red, blue and then brown replicates what is also found on yellow, or vice-versa).  This is a tough little set, especially in nice condition.

So when I beheld this beauty staring back at me, I inquired, negotiated a tad and then spent a few bucks:

The back is colorful, albeit in a different way:

I have an operating theory that, except for the 1948-49 Magic Photos (and the small 1955 Hocus Focus cards), all of the small, postage stamp sized cards Topps issued snugged between the wrappers of their penny gum tabs in 1949 were printed on sheets, or possibly half-sheets, of 100. I feel that Magic Photo and small Hocus Focus sets were printed in sheets of 126, which is supported by both a known uncut sheet of Magic Photos and the size of said series (two of 'em, each 126 cards in length, not to mention the 126 card size of the Hocus Focus set).  But I digress. 

I bough the sheet from Touchdown Treasures and they had a green and brown sheet as well. Yellow had been seen previously I was told but nary a blue has surfaced.  I was tempted to buy the other two sheets as well but decided one was enough.

How Striking

Well once again I was going to post one way and have ended up posting another. Ah......

Topps released their first football set in 1949, a set of 100 small felt back cards that came inside penny packs of Varsity bubble gum:



I've shown the cards before but here is a front and back; the back was made of "felt", I guess to mimic a true pennant:





I am not here to dissect the set, that will be done another time. What derailed me today though was this scan:



The matchbook advertises the All America Football Conference, a competitive league that gave the NFL some headaches from 1946-49 before having some teams absorbed. One team that did not survive was the New York Yankees, itself an amalgamation with the old Brooklyn Dodgers team that found itself playing in Yankee Stadium in 1949. The Topps advertising is interesting but seems misplaced as it looks to be promoting the penny gum tabs that were still popular, albeit fading, instead of Varsity bubble gum. The "Don't Talk Chum, Chew Topps Gum slogan"was hanging on though.

The matchbook must have been produced before the season began as the six home games for the Yankees were their full slate. I can only think since the Varsity cards depicted college players, Topps did not think there would be enough interest among fans of the pro game to market their cards to the AAFC crowds, or perhaps the crowds were not too large. Anyway, I thought it was a neat item to share today.

Dollar Store

It should be no surprise to the intrepid readers of this blog that a time machine with the controls set to the late 40's and early 50's would be the number one item on my science fiction wish list of impossible gadgets. You see, the plan would be to find and purchase a large quantity 1940's U.S. Currency, go back in time and then buy up all sorts of goodies that would be mailed to my childhood home (purchased in 1956) with a note to my dad saying "do not open until Christmas 2010". Pops is a good guy and fellow collector (of toys and trains mostly, not cards) and he would definitely squirrel away such care packages as instructed.

Failing that, I'd like to find a wormhole to 1950 mail ninety-two cents to Topps for what looks to be the first Fun Pack:



That ad is from the April 29, 1950 issue of The Billboard, which as we all know used to cover all sorts of amusements and vending concerns in unbelievable detail until it went mostly music only in 1961.

While Topps indicates 6 different types of Novelty packs were available, they only list five in the ad: Flip-o-Vision, Pixie, Golden Coin, Varsity and Tatoo. The sixth could have been either Hocus Focus (the Magic Photo pack, not the later issue) or Stop 'N Go license plates. Another nickel pack like the Flip-o-Vision or Golden Coin is also a possibility. It was probably left open-ended so whatever return from the distributors was occurring at the time could be included.

The ad reappeared in the May 27 issue so Topps clearly had some overstock to move. While that fact and the ad itself are noteworthy, what's even more interesting to me is that every novelty issue described in the ad is known to definitively pre-date 1950 with one exception: Varsity, which contained the small Felt Back Football cards.

The Felt Backs have been the subject of past scrutiny via articles in hobby publications over the years, there being two distinct schools of thought. The first is that they were issued in 1949 and then reissued the following year. The second is that they are a 1950 only issue. Even Topps is at odds with itself on this; Sy Berger was in the 1949 camp while the corporate office in the early 1990's was in the 1950 only camp.

I think this ad eliminates the possibility of option #2 as it would not have allowed enough time for returns of the set to flow back to Topps. I also doubt they would have sold football cards in the early months of 1950 as they really would only be attractive in the fall. The wrapper carries a 1949 copyright by the way, which is meaningless as Topps sometimes copyrighted things a year or two before issuing a set.

Tatoo is another issue that may be dated incorrectly as some veterans think it was a 1948 issue, although it seems pretty clear from reading Chris Benjamin's guides that is came out in 1949. This ad does not give any further insight into that but it gives a pretty good look at what didn't sell through for Topps in '49.

Flip-o-Vision, which was a gimmick set of flip movies, had been beset with various licensing issues and may have been intentionally pulled from the market to avoid litigation. The Golden Coin set was probably just a poor seller as the coins are not around in any quantity today. Tatoo may have been overproduced as it seems to have sold well enough to be reissued and expanded in 1953 while Pixie, which held X-Ray Round-Up cards, was probably severely overproduced even after selling quite well. Likely a second run was printed after the first one sold like gangbusters. Multiple vending bricks of X-Ray Round-Up have been found after the fact so there was a bunch of unsold product out there for sure.

That leaves Varsity and with Bowman and Leaf having the NFL locked up in 1948/49 in a supposed deal that gave the former the 1948 season and the latter the '49, Topps was left with the less appealing college football market.

Given the scarcity today of the felt backs, it would seem even this attempt at an aboriginal fun pack met with limited success. I'd guess the remainder of the products intended to populate the unsold 100 count sample boxes were ultimately destroyed, possibly dumped in 1960 along with the 1952 baseball high numbers by Sy Berger himself.

Happy New Year folks!

There Can Only Be One First Time

I have spent a good portion of the last week contemplating the order of all things Topps. This rumination will eventually lead to a massive post on the multiple 1951 Baseball Candy issues (a brobdingnagian undertaking if there ever was one) but for now leads us to tonight's topic: The first Topps standalone card issues for the four major North American Sports.

While Topps issued some cards in 1948 and early '49 that included various sports stars and events, they were really part of non sport sets, such as the Magic Photos (I'll be posting on these shortly as I am still trying to suss out what the first actual Topps insert card was).

The collegiate gridiron claims the top honor here as 1950 saw the release of the multi-hued Felt Backs, although some claim a first issue of these in 1949, followed by a full reissue in '50. These tiny cards, similar in size to the Magic Photos and License Plate cards from the year prior, featured 100 top collegiate football players, including Joe Paterno and Jackie Jensen. The fronts are seemingly modeled on 1941 Goudey baseball cards as they use a black and white head shot set against a colored background. The reverses feature a flocked (or "felt") pennant showing the name of the player's college. This cards are exceedingly hard to find, especially in grades above VG. As you can see, beauty is in the eye of the PSA holder:



Technically speaking, these are Varsity Gum cards. There are 100 cards in the set and various background colors were used: Green, Red, Blue Yellow and Brown. Some muted colors are also possible as hues mellowed as print runs developed. Yellow is though to be the scarcest but there is some debate on the matter. Each card only comes in one primary color, except for the browns and yellows. The yellow background was replaced by brown at some point; this would give some credence to the 1949/reissued in 1950 theory but nothing is conclusive. I nabbed the next two scans on the W3, which show how the uncut sheets looked:





Topps would issue two more sets featuring college stars as Bowman looks like they had the NFL locked up pretty good in the early 50's.

1951 would bring the Baseball Candy issues. While it's not 100% certain, I feel the Red Backs came first in '51, particularly those with tan card stock on the backs (much more on tan and other shades in 1951 soon, I promise). Here is a young Duke of Flatbush, on the cusp of greatness:



The first appearance of the Red Backs was probably in the one cent Doubles packs but nickel packs could easily have been first. These came in two card panels-check out the nubs. When the cards were inserted two to a penny pack, they were separated as an unopened pack will reveal both cards laying the same way, trying to get away from what must have been some horrible caramel. Red Backs are prevalent today and went through at least three printings.

After this it was not until the 1954-55 season that Topps expanded their line with hockey cards. I just showed Mr. Timgren recently but he's the only example I have from this set. While not as tough as the Football Felt Backs, these are not the easiest cards to find as they were only issued in Canada. There are 60 golden age sized cards in the set, which could be found in penny and nickel packs.





Last but not least, we have the 1957-58 Topps basketball set, 80 cards in number.





That Nats uniform is snazzy! They became the Philadelphia 76'ers by the way. These cards were sold in nickel packs, both in the US and Canada (OPC licensed) and are standard sized. It's unlikely penny packs were used for basketball but it is not impossible. A penny wrapper or pack would be a holy grail type of collectible.

Are You Ready For Some Football!?

1950 style that is!

Since it's football season and I'm in a good mood over the Giants fast start, which is helping to ease the pain of the Mets annual September collapse, I thought I would post two scans related to the 1950 Felt Back issue that I boosted yonks ago. The Felt Backs are a worthy subject for a longer post somewhere down the road but I am stretched for time this morning.

The first is a Topps window display (smaller than actual size) and the second a period greeting card, almost certainly not issued by Topps but the attached prize contained a Felt Back hidden within nonetheless. Enjoy!