A Penny Here, A Nickel There

As we come up on the Fourth of July, which is perhaps my favorite holiday, I though I'd kick back today, practice my 12 oz. curls and just show a little eye candy representing items that are infrequently seen.

This is a box of some scarcity and it held 100 (maybe 120) tabs of Pixie Bubble Gum, each with an X-Ray Roundup card inserted between its wrapper layers. I can't swear I've seen another example of this box; this made an appearance on eBay a couple of months ago.

Dig the artwork:

They never missed a chance to get an advert in for Bazooka but as you can see here, were still making their original, Topps Gum in '49, although it would soon transition to a Chiclets style chew before going away completely in the early 50's. I think this box pre-dates the once-cent Bazooka tabs that were introduced in mid-1949:

Topps stopped including cards with their one cent gum tabs late in 1949 and I'm fairly certain they curtailed the postage stamp sized License Plates set accordingly and then reissued it in a larger size for 1950.  Flags of All Nations-Soldiers of The World also got this treatment as Topps transitioned so a larger card format. This format, measuring 1 3/4" x 2 7/8" was only used for these two sets. The 1949 Stop 'N Go wrapper (Topps named the cards and the gum separately back then) is tough, as is the 1950 version.

Bring 'Em Back Alive helped kick off off yet another, larger card size in 1950, one measuring  2 1/16" x 2 5/8" and which debuted with Hopalong Cassidy.

For some reason Topps used a date on their nickel packs but usually not their penny packs. That's a nice wrapper pardner!

This five-center is a lot more crinkly:

Any of those elongated five cent packs would have held panelized cards, a practice Topps ended by 1952. The practice of separately naming the gum and card set had disappeared by then as well.

Panel Parade

Once they left the postage stamp sized gum tab inserts behind at mid-century, Topps started selling nickel packs with two-card panels (usually three of them) and a big chunk of gum. The first two sets to receive this treatment were both reissues of 1949 releases that came out again in 1950.

Flags of the World-Parade took the same artwork from 1949's cards and just blew it up:

Those panels are why so many cards from this era have little nubs on either side; the ones from penny packs did not. License Plates also came this way in their 1950 version:

The degree of precision one would expect in scoring these at the printer's is not reflected in the finished product in many cases; here is a good example of the misalignment that frequently occurred, handily made visible in the scratch of material from the panels's reverse:

The elongated nickel packs these cards came in are not out there in great supply today and even the wrappers are scarce. These packs predate the Trading Card Guild red cello's that would start appearing in 1951.

Double Plated

If you haven't noticed, we're pretty much living in the late 40's and early 50's lately here at the Topps Archives. I find the pre-standard sized era to be one of the two most interesting of all (the other is the '66-74 time frame) in their history as Topps was just slinging out product in the early days to see what would stick.

One of the thing they did to compete with Bowman and other confectionery companies that issued cards was just ramp up their card size in a hurry, starting in early 1950.  Early on they just adapted a couple of sets and made the cards bigger without really altering the artwork much, although as more real estate was added more text started to show up. Topps also went from one cent gum tabs to an additional rice point by using panelized versions of their cards.

In 1948-49 this necessitated six card panels of their tab sized cards but once they upped the dimensions, they went to a two card panel,.  This configuration was used with three different sizes from 1950-52 and then was supplanted by the Giant Size cards even though a couple of sets lingered in the smaller format (without being issued in panels) until the mid 50's. One of the firsts sets issued both as singles and two card panels was License Plates, which followed Flags of the World - Parade. 

Both packs and wrappers for License Plates (marketed as Auto Magic it seems, in deference to the scratch off feature on the reverse) are scarce.  Here is the one cent pack, from a picture I found in Non Sports Archive Wax Pack Wrappers from the 20th Century by Adam Tucker and Marc Simon:

I've already shown the single card here, so let's go the the panels and five cent pack:

Inside were a number of panels, probably three, that looked like so:

The backs looked quite odd coming from the nickel pack and there was a lot of coating to scratch through to get to the quiz answer::

Topps would move from these 1 3/4" x 2 7/8" cards to a larger sized card measuring 2 1/16" x 2 5/8" after this set was released, a 1/8" wider card than Bowman was using in 1950, the better to feature a rootin, toootin' cowboy called Hopalong Cassidy.

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.