Iron Horseplay, or, Give A Hoot

Two killer (and fun) Topps pieces in two different auctions will be hammered later this week, each differing vastly from the other in subject matter but very much similar in scarcity. The checklists, incomplete for the moment (and possibly forever on one) for both are of interest to me as well.

As many readers here know, I have been trying to track down the final subjects in the 126 count "Small" version of 1955 Hocus Focus for years now, to complete what is now a 68-year-old checklist,. My last post on these had it down to 2.5 subjects (subset numbering was unknown for three subjects when I wrote it, with one of the fronts known).  Well all has been sorted out except for one final subject, thanks to this little bauble surfacing and now on offer the Love of The Game Auctions:

It's actually in a PSA slab now but I like the look of  the card outside of its holder.  Here is the reverse, it's #111:

Unreal!  When I started looking at this set in earnest while preparing my 2013 book on the early years of Topps, I was 17 subjects shy of completing the full list of subjects from nos. 97-126 (these 30 cards are the extension of the "Large" set, which concludes at #96). Now all that's needed is to find #97, which is possibly U.S. Grant (as Robert E, Lee is card #98).  Surely someone out there has knowledge or a scan!

The other fun piece is a 1953 painting that went unused in the Topps set that year, which has appeared in a framed piece on offer at Robert Edward Auctions:

These paintings come down through the family of Topps founder Phil Shorin and push the count of original art near 200 now (out of a possible 280+).  He must have been taken with the cleaner looking pieces, as only a couple have any trace of the rubber cement used in the production process on them. 

Now, take a look at the upper right corner painting:

Yup, it's Hoot Evers, a subject which, thanks to an old piece of correspondence from Keith Olbermann, was thought to exist as an unissued subject but had not been seen until now. I wonder if any more unissued subjects will ever turn up.  I suspect the odds are stacked against it but anything is possible in the Topps universe!

You CAN Go Home Again

It's a pretty well know fact, at least among collectors of 1953 Topps Baseball cards, that three cards feature background ads for the company that produced the set.  There's a couple of dozen "generic" ad representations as well, plus a handful that feature parts of actual ballpark billboard ads (Camel cigarettes for one) but the Topps ones are the most fun:

Yes, the Dodgers relief ace Clem Labine gets the first Topps ad on card #14, which seems appropriate, although that background in no way resembles Ebbets Field.  We have to wait for the high numbers (#252) to find the next one:

Well, that ain't Fenway! Willie Miranda, card # 278, gives us our final Topps ad, somewhat reminiscent of Labine's I think:

However, I believe there may be another Topps homage and it leads off the set.  Take a look at the background of Jackie Robinson's card:

At first glance it seems like it could be a ballpark superstructure looming behind Jackie but it's not Ebbets Field and there's no way the Brooklyn based Topps Chewing Gum would allow an image of the Polo Grounds - which I guess it vaguely resembles - appear on a Dodgers card.  If you look closely, it doesn't really look like a ballpark at all as there are no stands visible. In fact, the image used to create this card, a photograph by Brooklyn's team photographer Barney Stein, has no background, except for some clouds:

So what is it?  Well, my money is on a slightly cleaned up view of the elevated Gowanus Expressway superstructure and, behind it, Topps HQ at Bush Terminal.  Here's a couple shots of the Gowanus from the wonderful Newtown Pentacle:

This is about 16 blocks south of Topps HQ - note the cars parked underneath (and random tire-yikes!).  Sy Berger and Woody Gelman, who car pooled with some other Topps employees from their homes on Long Island, would park under the viaduct near the Topps office in Bush Terminal.  

Here's another shot of the underbelly:

Now here's a shot of their Bush Terminal building in 1940, courtesy of Brownstoner (their offices were in the second building down along the viaduct from the larger one sporting the ad):

Well, take a look at this cropped close up of the Robinson card:

I'm pretty sure that's the roofline of their Bush Terminal building behind the viaduct! It's all slightly altered by the artist but I have to think Woody Gelman could have been behind this little in-joke.

It's not the only card to feature the environs of their Brooklyn headquarters.  In 1955 the Rails & Sails set had a card that prominently featured not only Bazooka bubble gum, but what looks to be a small sliver of the same Gowanus Expressway viaduct, off to the right of the boxcar; quite appropriate given the extensive railroad tracks in the facility:

Fun stuff!

Finigan Begin Again and Again....

Sorry folks, formatting issues (still ongoing, apparently, so forgive the crazy quilt of fonts) kept impacting my post about the 1955 Baseball first series slits and the related 1955 Topps Stamp mockup/test.  The first part is now here and the balance below.
 
Here is the section of interest, from the 2,3,4, and 5 columns of the double Spahn sheet:

Related to all this is the 1955 Topps Baseball Stamps test, which was in-house only. I've previously speculated about these noting they came from a 40 subject section of an uncut sheet.  In addition, from those 40 cards (4 x 10 in array) at least one subject is known in every column and row.  The latest checklist I have for the Stamps (2011 Standard Catalog of Vintage Baseball Cards) has two no-prints from the above slits among its listed subjects.  Their list includes 23 subjects, with a 24th, Aaron considered likely by me.  I guess it's possible the stamps came from the other "series" sheet but I kind of doubt it as one of the possible subjects, Wally Moon, is 4x here.  This is why visual checklists are so important, although the Standard Catalog may indeed be correct. 

 

Interesting, no?  Here's the breakdown, noting there are several "One impression" players on it:

1955 TOPPS BASEBALL STAMPS-KNOWN (23)
"CORKY" VELENTINE
"RUBE" WALKER
ALEX GRAMMAS
BILL SKOWRON
BILL TREMEL
BOB SKINNER
BOBBY HOFMAN
CHARLIE WHITE
CHUCK DIERING
DAVE JOLLY 
DON MOSSI
HARVEY HADDIX
HOWIE POLLET
JACK SHEPARD
JIM DAVIS
JIM PENDELTON 
JOE CUNNINGHAM
KARL SPOONER
RAY BOONE
RAY JABLONSKI
RUBEN GOMEZ
STAN HACK
TED KAZANSKI

1955 BASEBALL STAMPS-POSSIBLE (1) HANK AARON

1955 TOPPS POTENTIAL BASEBALL STAMPS-UNKNOWN (16)
ERNIE BANKS - 1
"WINDY" McCALL - 1
DANNY SCHELL - 1
"JAKE" THEIS - 1
BOB BORKOWSKI - 2
DEAN STONE - 1
FRANK HOUSE - 1
BOB MILLER - 
WALLY WESTLAKE -1
JACK HARSHMAN - 1
"DUSTY" RHODES - 1
HANK SAUER - 3
FRED MARSH - 2
CHUCK STOBBS - 2
WALLY MOON - 4
TED WILLIAMS - 3

Numbers = Impressions on slits above.

However, unless a third sheet exists with a different array than the two presently known, it appears the Stamp array was rejiggered from the regular card's sheets by Topps for unknown reasons. I'm working on a full update, which will be posted here as soon as the facts warrant.

Finigan Begin Again

For some bizarre reason, I've never really put together the fact that the two 110 card first series slits are known for 1955 Topps Baseball.  Topps had some interesting things occurring on their press sheets from the inaugural 1952 Baseball set on and things just got weirder each year.  

1952 saw three double-printed high numbers, presumably due to Topps running out of viable players. By the time 1953 rolled around, Topps  had already been in court several times with Bowman (and possibly other companies) and they hedged their bets a little, leaving a five number "punctuated equlibrium" gap as each series went on, backfilling subjects once their contract status was deemed airtight enough, although they got tripped up in the end, with a total of six numbers never being issued.  

1954 saw some interesting gaps and a move to 110 card half sheets (which, forgetting Ferris Bueller's sage advice, I only realized about a month ago, thinking they were 100 card arrays per side for a very long and embarrasing time).  The problem with 1954 is I do not know more than one slit, which had a gap where cards #151-175 did not make the slit.  Although I based that on the idea the known slit was arrayed 10x10 and not 11x 10 I think that gap still holds up. I think Topps did this because the set size went down to 250 cards and, while a plan to keep gaps makes sense, they seemingly had a good enough grip on their players that year it wasn't required.  So the trend was downward on set counts: 407, 274, 250. 

Then we hit the planned 210 card 1955 set, a nadir for sure as Topps went below the Bowman set count for the first time since their direct competition started in '52. Bowman went big of course, issuing 320 cards and going out, on the baseball front at least, in a blaze of glory before their president, John Connelly, decided he wanted nicer things to play with.

As well all know, the 1955 Topps set lost four subjects in the high numbers, possibly printed but either way pulled and never to be identified, landing at a final count of 206 and making me think Mr. Connelly was still contemplating his next moves, which I don't think even he fully knew until the 1955 Bowman Football set got bum rushed by Topps. Here are the two "first series" slits and you will soon realize why I used quotation marks.

Here is the first slit, I think it's the "A" slit but but am not positive as there are no markings:

(courtesy Love of the Game Auctions)

At least one other sheet with this array is known.  The other slit, let's call it "B" but also the "double Spahn" for what will be obvious reasons:

That was posted over at Net54 not too long ago.  It looks so clean I thought it could be a digital recereation (and it very well may be) but this extremely old REA lot shows what I believe is the same sheet, as you can clearly see two Spahns stacked up in the lower right, even with the grainy shot (it was their June 25, 1993 auction).  While it's likely enhanced by whoever shot the original, the Aaron to the right of Spahn and Ted William in the lower right corner of the REA sheet nicely confirms this sheet array is legit:

Also of interest, the backs on the LOTG sheet are misligned!  At a guess, knowing that Topps printed the backs first, the  Love of the Game sheet was likely a test for the obverse colors. Ordinarily, I'd say there's a chance the double Spahn sheet array was altered prior to final printing but a miscut card of ol' Warren, as noted in the Net54 thread, proves otherwise:

The proof is on the reverse, as the miscut stat line is clearly Spahn's:

In the thread on Net54, it's also noted a "double" miscut Hodges exists!  He's #187 in the set as a high number, so Topps was clearly doing it on purpose (more below on this). Now, let's count together, from most to least:

FIVE IMPRESSIONS (1)

70           ROSEN

FOUR IMPRESSIONS (15)
14           FINIGAN             
23           PARKS  
29           WEHMEIER        
31           SPAHN 
58           RIVERA
59           ALLIE    
61           JACOBS
62           KIPPER 
67           MOON 
80           GRIM   
81           CONLEY 
84           PASCUAL            
86           WILSON               

THREE IMPRESSIONS (30)

2             WILLIAMS           
3             FOWLER               
7             HEGAN 
8             SMITH   
10           KEEGAN               
16           SIEVERS 
18           KEMMERER        
19           HERMAN             
24           NEWHOUSER     
26           GROAT 
30           POWER 
32           McGHEE               
33           QUALTERS           
34           TERWILLIGER     
36           KIELY     
39           GLYNN  
45           SAUER  
49           PORTER 
57           O'DELL  
63           COLLINS               
64           TRIANDOS           
66           JACKSON             
72           OLSON  
77           PORTOCARRERO              
78           JONES   
82           HARMON            
83           BREWER               
89           FRAZIER               
100         IRVIN    
106         SULLIVAN           

TWO IMPRESSIONS (15)

5            GILLIAM            
11           FAIN      
13           MARSH 
20           CAREY   
25           PODRES               
40           HOAK    
41           STOBBS 
47           AARON 
50           ROBINSON          
54           LIMMER               
55           REPULSKI             
74           BORKOWSKI       
90           SPOONER            
103         WHITE   
105         DIERING               

ONE IMPRESSION (35)

1             RHODES               
4             KALINE 
6             HACK     
9             MILLER 
12           THEIS     
17           HOFMAN             
21           GRAMMAS         
22           SKOWRON          
27           GRADNER            
28           BANKS  
37           CUNNINGHAM 
38           TURLEY 
42           McCALL 
43           HADDIX 
44           VALENTINE         
46           KAZANSKI           
48           KENENDY             
52           TREMEL                
53           TAYLOR 
56           JABLONSKI          
60           STONE  
65           BOONE 
68           DAVIS   
69           BAILEY  
71           GOMEZ 
73           SHEPARD             
76           POLLET 
79           SCHELL  
85           MOSSI  
87           HOUSE  
88           SKINNER              
102         WESTLAKE           
104         HARSHMAN       
107         ROBERTS              
108         WALKER               

ZERO IMPRESSIONS (14)

15           PENDLETON       

35           JOLLY     
51           HUGHES               
75           AMOROS            
91           BOLLING              
92           ZIMMER               
93           BILKO    
94           BERTOIA              
95           WARD   
96           BISHOP 
97           PAULA  
98           RIDDLE  
99           LEJA       
110         ZERNIAL               

It looks like Topps plugged in both the puncuated equilibrium and consecutive number gap processes at the same time in 1955! Nos. 15, 35, 51, 75 and 110 from the former method and nos. 90-99 using the latter, with 14 "no prints' resulting.  There's a lot of single prints and even a 5x player in Al Rosen, so clearly whatever the next "series" was should have included these, perhaps leaving some gaps they hoped to fill in, until the last series came and they were bereft of any further subjects, leaving 175, 186, 203 and 209 to never see the light of day. Presumably some of the 2x prints were trued up a bit as well but that's not a guarantee. Given the "divide by 5" look to the tranches (and Rosen plus the zeroes add to 15) it looks pretty well planned out to me, even though the arrays are all over the place. Just look how parts of a couple columns repeat elsewhere, the random placements like Spahn and the plethora of single prints.

APOLOGIES: There is some kind of weird formatting problem going on with this post.  Please see the continuation of it here.

Gouache They're Nice

It's been exactly half a decade since I last revisited the topic of the 1953 Topps Baseball original paintings and there is an exciting bit of news to report.

The recently concluded Love of the Game auction had a half dozen of these beauties, all new to the hobby and coming out of the Ted Patterson collection. All represent images from issued cards.  Ted was a Baltimore broadcaster for decades but I can't see any Baltimore link to the six he had, which were displayed in his home along with tons of ofther great memorabilia. Ted had interviewed Sy Berger before a big Baltimore card convention in 1975 and I can't help but wonder if these six came from Sy's basement stash of paintings at some point thereafter.

Here is Carlos Bernier, which is a bit below the quality of many other images in the set IMO:

Dale Mitchell is next, looking wistfully at a distant spring training horizon:

Frank Campos, the 1952 Topps semi-high variation legend, looks pretty pleased with things here:

Up next, Johnny Wryostek, whose visage graced the leftmost portion of the 1953 Topps strip that used to adorn this blog's apex.  Mantle was just to the left of him on the sheet,

Ray Boone is up next.  You all know about his son (Bob) and grandsons Bret and Aaron but did you know the Nationals inked great-grandson Jake out of Princeton earlier this year?  If he makes the bigs, the Boones will be the first family to send four generations of players to the majors.

Wally Westlake rounds out the half dozen:

If my math and inquiries are correct, 164 of the originals are now confirmed, plus nine paintings of unissued subjects.  110 to go!

Nixon's The One (Of Six)

More original 1953 Topps Baseball artwork has surfaced!

Goldin Auctions recently listed (and sold) six previously unknown issued paintings of primarily first series subjects but a high number was mixed in there as well.

The most interesting piece, least from a purely whimsical standpoint, was Minnie Minoso:

You can clearly see some of the glue remnants that mar so many of these paintings.  I'm curious as to why it's there though as Sports Collectors Daily recently ran a piece by David Cycleback that indicated the artwork was photographed and then a plastic negative was made before printing. A laborious process to be sure but not necessarily one requiring glue.

Here is a portrait of Hall Jeffcoat, deftly executed:

You want more characters?! Look no further than Bobo Newsom:

The three other paintings offered were of Danny O'Connell, Johnny Lindell and Willard Nixon and the latter suffered from a bit of paint loss. See:

We've previously looked at both issued and unissued artwork, most recently here.  Using the known subjects to date, we've obviously added six more. The previous math has changed somewhat as noted 1953 archivist and original painting collector Bruce McCanna has recorded sales of 153 different issued subjects (and that's possibly 156 as three were once noted as "seen" by the noted collector Bill Bossert). So about 56% (and possibly more) of the artwork has been found to date, plus at least nine unissued subjects.

It's doubtful we'll see any more big caches offered like the 117 Sy Berger unleashed on the world in 2010 through REA, although I suspect that mini stashes like the Goldin hoard still exist and likely are being introduced into the hobby when former Topps executives pass away.

What A Hoot!

Boy I go away for a week and return only to find out a 60 year old hobby mystery has been solved and that said solving was accomplished over 40 years ago...sheesh!

Mired in legal salvos with Bowman, the 1953 Topps Baseball set is infamous for having six missing high numbers.  In addition, it appears five numbers were withheld from the first series of 80 cards either by reason of court order, cease-and-desist demand or intentional skip-numbering (which could have been planned either to account for anticipated legal problems with player contracts or to keep the kiddies looking for cards that did not yet exist).

Keith Olbermann, in late July, devoted a short segment to the six missing high number cards.  In it he featured a letter from Topps mailed in 1973 to an inquiring mind wanting to know which numbers had been dropped from the fourth (and last) series. The answer was close to what I had guesstimated a while back but I got two names wrong and it turns out one of them was the subject of a painting that has not yet surfaced.

The six missing players were:

Joe Tipton
Ken Wood
Hoot Evers
Harry Brecheen
Billy Cox
Pete Castiglione

Of these, the Evers painting remains MIA.  Topps did include him in the "extended" series of their 1953 reissue but it's clear they did not have the painting in their possession:

Here is KO's amazing piece:



As you can hear, he was given the skinny by Bob Lemke, although the information is over four decades old now.  One mystery still remains, namely that of the five possible pulled subjects from series 1, resulting in skip numbering that was essentially carried through the first three series runs. Paintings of Max Lanier, Richie Ashburn and Andy Pafko are known and while Jim Suchecki is also known, non-established players were generally not first series subjects as a player needed 31 consecutive days on the roster from the start of the season to receive full pay (Lanier just made it, he was released on May 15th, Wood lasted another week in the bigs).

Looks like there is still a little legwork to be done on this set.

Contractual Obligations

1953 Topps Baseball original paintings continue to turn up.  The latest example is an unissued portrait of Jim Suchecki in a White Sox uniform rediscovered by Friend o'the Archive Phil Erwin:

Suchecki was a fringe player who never posted a MLB win in parts of three seasons in the bigs.  He never actually pitched for the Pale Hose but they did claim him off waivers from the Pirates in May of 1952.  He was just the type of player Bowman would ignore and Topps would sign.  The above cards shows evidence of staining from glue, which seems to indicate it was actually turned into artwork for production.  This is intriguing and a nice jumping off point for some contract law analysis.

Now my understanding of how the Topps contracts worked at this time is that a player had to survive the spring training cutdown and be on the major league roster for 31 consecutive days at the commencement of the regular season in order to be paid in full.  This is one reason why the first series of cards issued in any given year had well-known players and virtually no first year subjects, since they were produced before the season started. There were a couple of exceptions to this, especially involving Yankees players (Topps had a different deal with the team and its players in the mid 50's) but a guy like Suchecki would not have been eligible in 1953 for payment if he didn't begin the year with a big league team.  Interestingly, a player who started the season in the minors but came up and was active for game 2 or later of the season and who met the 31 day rule could have a card in the set but not be compensated.

I can't turn up a key bit of information though-which is that a player had to actually be on an active major league roster to have a card.  It seems like this should have been in the terms but I am relying upon an FTC document that describes certain portions of the contracts but does not indicate their full wording. 

I also cannot determine if the special terms with the Yankees were still in effect in the 60's and 70's. In 1956 for example, players who did not meet the eligibility requirements under the standard contract but who were Yankees would still be compensated if they made it to a card. I think this is why certain players like Hank Aaron, who you would think should have had a 1977 card like Mickey Mantle did in 1969 showing his full career stats, never got the "career tribute" card-they simply retired too early!  Mantle retired during Spring Training in 1969 and there was an expectation he would play until he made his announcement on March 1st. Did you know Mickey Mantle was exposed to the 1968 AL expansion draft by the Yankees (relevant article linked here)?!

Bowman had similar contractual wording, although like Topps their compensation scheme varied a bit from year to year.  The whole system was rigged to the advantage of the card companies, much like the reserve clause at the time was rigged to the benefit of the MLB teams.  I don't plan to get into the ins and outs of Topps contractual language as it's as dry as a well-done steak but certain aspects of card production directly relate to such wording.  Things were different with the NFL as the contracts were initially with the league and not the players; a situation which later reversed and resulted in numerous Topps sets not showing proper NFL team logos and uniforms.

And what of our protagonist today? Poor Jim Suchecki never made it onto a nationally issued baseball card. He came about as close as you could though, without actually being included in a set.

52 Is Not 53

One of the more enduring hobby stories has been that 1952 Baseball high numbers could be found in 1953 Baseball packs, especially in Canada.  I'm pretty sure I know why this is so but have never really made the full connection until now.

As discussed here previously, a normal five cent 1952 pack is predominantly green and red.  Two varieties of this pack were issued.  The first, as this example from Cardboard Connection shows, is horizontally aligned and has two side panel ads.  One touts the new Giant Size cards within, while the other extolls a premium offer for baseball pennants:

Above the pennant offer is a block of information that includes a 1952 copyright date. 

Topps also came out with a very similar wrapper but changed the "Giant Size" ad panel to one advertising baseball emblem premiums by retaining the short line about collecting the Giant Size cards. The webmaster at 1952baseballcards.com thinks these only held first series cards only but I am not so sure it was limited to only that series, for reasons that will be revealed momentarily:

The above wrapper is from a Huggins & Scott auction and you can see the emblem ad atop (the wrapper is not fully shown).  These are much harder to find than the other variety which would support the first series only theory but when the high numbers came out, Topps used the  above variety, replacing green with blue, so they may have been used here and there as needed (or found in the warehouse):

So the "emblem" wrapper was either trotted out again or the continuity is all screwed up, which is always a possibility with Topps. That blue block of color also appears jury rigged-look at how it does not seamlessly transition to the red portion of the wrapper.

Compare the high number '52 wrapper with the regular 1953 wrappers and you can see why confusion exists.  Here is the earlier 1953 wrapper, with clear dating:

Once again using a scan from Cardboard Connection, you can see the orientation has changed to vertical and the baseball design element has been rotated a little.  This version clearly identifies 1953 on a side panel and moves the copyright from upper right corner in the ingredient panel to lower left (and it's in a red font to boot).  The Bazooka ad though, is so prominent the other differences are almost moot, although the '52 uses a darker blue.

The undated version of the wrapper keeps the main design elements, as this eBay scan shows, but loses the "1953":

Interestingly the 1953 dating on the right side panel is gone, to match the removal of the date on the front.  I think Topps did this as the years wore on to allow sales to continue after the season ended.  It sometimes took many months for each series to be fully distributed across the U.S. back then.

Now any theory concerning Topps is subject to something coming out of left field to dispute it but I think the similarity of the 1953 wrappers with the 1952 high number packaging is one reason veteran hobbyists think the '52 highs came in '53 wrappers. There are also reports of 1st series '53 packs having 52 high's mixed in with them out there so there may be something to that as well.

Window Treatment

The advertising materials used by Topps in the early days of card and novelty production were quite varied.  Television was not yet entrenched in homes when the first Topps sets started coming out in 1948, so radio and print ads were really the two biggest methods available. Topps would provide their jobbers with advertising materials to be passed on to the retailers to help sell product and the earliest example I can find comes from 1949-a window display for Flip-O-Vision:

There are some big stars used to entice the kiddies to spend their nickels: The Marx Brothers, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby are still well-known today and Burns & Allen, Johnny Weismuller and Margaret O'Brien would not be far behind.  Kay Kyser though, the bespectacled middle aged gentleman above Harpo and Chico, would not be a name known to many.  Kyser was a bandleader in the swing era who had a TV show that was enjoying some popularity in 1949 but just a year after this set came out, he walked away, never to return.  He eventually ended up becoming President of the Worldwide Church of Christian Science.

Four years later Topps had taken the muted tones of 1949 and turned them into the bright colors of 1953:

Color movies had started to appear more frequently by 1950 so bold colors were showing up more and more in Topps packaging and ads.  This took another 22 years to reach its logical conclusion, when the crazy quilt 1975 Baseball window display was unleashed on an unsuspecting public:

The Topps Sports Club has been covered here previously but the use of the window display to push yet another Topps product is a little brash, no?

Glue's Clues

I've been having a bit of a think about the unissued 1953 Topps cards I covered here a little while back. As we all know, there are six holes in the 1953 Topps baseball set, with the operating theory being the players were pulled from distribution due to contract disputes with Bowman.

Well, sometimes the obvious solution is right before you and you miss it; I suspect I may have done that with the paintings used to create the cards by not considering the glue residue stuck to their fronts. The three paintings from the Autumn 1981 Baseball Cards magazine collage I showed previously are obviously candidates but I think only two of them have glue remnants in a pattern on their surfaces: Castiglione and Cox. The Pafko looks like it has a stain in the middle of the card but I pulled the magazine article again and it looks more like a water stain to me, rather than glue.

So take a look at these two:



If you look closely along the bottom of each, you can see the geometrical glue pattern:



The Cox pattern is harder to see in the scan but it's definitely there and runs horizontally across his thighs and, uh, junk. Castiglione displays an L pattern which is pretty easy to see. Note how the glue residue is not running along the edges of each but is more in the middle. I suspect this was the result of a mask that Topps used in photographing or copying of the paintings so they could be pasted up and printed.

Now look at this detail on the Pafko painting:



Foxing around the edges and a water stain in the middle is how I read it; I could be wrong of course but the stains don't really match the other two. Now look at these four (Ashburn, Brecheen, Lanier and Tipton), from last time, all clearly with a glue pattern present:



here is a close up of the right side of Rhichie's painting, you can see the glue pattern most clearly a little bit to the left of the right border:



Brecheen has clear remnants, very much so:



It's almost the opposite of what you would expect, I wonder if the process used to remove the mask caused all that muck swirling around his mug?

Lanier is another clear glue clue:



And then we have Mr. Tipton:



Top and bottom look very clear to me.

We also had the unissued Wood card (click back to see) but it's clean as a whistle so I suspect it was never introduced into the production cycle.

Some of the HOF'ers from the Guernsey's auction in 1989 (again click back for a look) looked very clean and were obviously made into issued cards but I understand those were stored separately from the Berger stash and it looks like they were recognized as "keepers" by the Topps brass even way back in the 50's. And I have to wonder if Pafko was pulled and replaced by yet another card that was pulled. Still, the glue that holds this thread together may be the same stuff used by Topps fifty eight years ago! So are these the true missing six?

Ashburn
Brecheen
Castiglione
Cox
Lanier
Tipton

I think it is very, very possible.

Unissued and Unknown

As promised cadets, I am back with more 1953 Topps original artwork musings after leaving everybody hanging last week. There are five paintings of unissued cards in the current REA auction, all from the Sy Berger collection:

Richie Ashburn (Philadelphia Phillies):



Max Lanier (New York Giants):



Joe Tipton (Cleveland Indians):



Harry Brecheen (St. Louis Browns):



Ken Wood (Washington Senators):



6 cards obviously are missing from the 1953 High Numbers, likely due to contractual issues with Bowman.

Max Lanier was released by the Giants on May 15th so his card may have been withdrawn due to the fact he was no longer with NY. Ken Wood's final game with the Senators was on May 23rd, whereupon he was either released, sent down or quit (can't tell).

In addition, the 2nd issue of Baseball Cards magazine in Autumn 1981 had an article with pictures of three other unissued artworks intended for this set:

Andy Pafko (Brooklyn Dodgers)
Pete Castiglione (Pittsburgh Pirates)
Billy Cox (Brooklyn Dodgers)



Pafko is shown as a Dodger (ignore the ersatz card back created for the article) and the author speculates he was pulled due to his preseason trade on January 17th to the Braves. Castiglione was also traded but not until June 14th.

Ashburn was Topps in 51, 52 and 54, Bowman from 49-55.
Brecheen was Topps 51, 52, 54 and 55 and in Bowman from 49-52.
Castiglione was on 52 Topps and Bowman from 50-52 and 54.
Cox was in 51 and 52 Topps and was Bowman from 49-55.
Lanier was 52 Topps and 50-52 Bowman.
Pafko was in 51,52 and 54 Topps, 49-55 Bowman.
Tipton appeared in 52 Topps and Bowman from 49-51 and 53-54.
Wood was 52 Topps and 50, 51 and 53 Bowman.

So if Lanier, Wood and Pafko were pulled due to team changes, that leaves five and possibly only four paintings to fill 6 slots, depending upon the Castiglione timeline in respect of the card production. Ashburn, Cox and Tipton look to have had iron clad Bowman contracts and Brecheen and Castiglione may have had such bad luck they could appear in neither set (depending on the trade timing, of course with Castiglione). Wood may have been Bowman bound as well and was shown as a Senator in the 53 Bowman color set. Lanier is a tossup but I would lean Bowman contract with him but he could have had the same fate as Brecheen and Castiglione. Pafko looks possibly Bowmanesque as well and appears as a Brave in the 53 Bowman B&W set, which was presumably issued after the color cards.

Has anyone ever seen evidence of any other unissued 53 artwork? I feel like there should be at least one more painting out there, if not two.

Interestingly, the article in Baseball Cards by Bill Bossert indicates he also purchased three paintings of issued players at the time. This gives us at least 121 known paintings that were issued and 8 that were unissued, so of the 282 paintings (at a minimum) that were created, just over 42% have been confirmed as still in existence. REA's catalog reveals some were given to various executives at Topps and MLB and no doubt a few players probably finagled some over the years so I don't expect we'll ever have the full set reconstituted in aboriginal form but it would be a righteous thing to see.