Red Light District

Well the NHL is back but things are still quite a bit wonky out there, so why not take a peek at the ur-Topps Hockey set today!  Why not indeed, it's gorgeous:

I've covered the 1954-55 Hockey set here previously and figured it's high time to lok at some original artwork.  I'm going off memory for some of this as the Vintage Hockey Forum shutdown has impacted my ability to document things properly but here goes anyway (and please contact me with corrections).

First though, some hazy "facts"-according to hockey hobby maven and Friend o'the Archive Bobby Burrell, the cards were transported into Canada whole, where they were cut and paired with some O-Pee-Chee bubble gum in wrppaers produced north of the border.  I recall seeing an accident involving a truck carrying the sheets somewhere near Detroit (London Ontario, home of O-Pee-Chee is about 120 miles Northeast of Detroit) made at least one news report but as noted, no dice on the source at present.

The 60 card Topps set only included the four American teams while Parkhurst, the main competition in Canada, had all six in their 100 card set (they switched to just the two Canadian teams after this for a spell).  The Topps set is more abundant these days than Parkhurst's by at least a 2 1/2 to 1 ratio on a card-to-card basis if you go by PSA's numbers and they are not difficult to find generally, although top grade examples are rare due to the full bleed borders.

Bobby Burrell advises no Topps cards were sold in Boston, Chicago or Detroit.  It seems possible that the New York City area saw some being Topps HQ-land and all but I can't imagine they sold too many that way.  The March 20, 1959 Card Collectors Co. Catalog #10 offered singles and sets ($3!) and I'm assuming the offered cards did not readily flow back across the border (even allowing for Detroit "black market" activity).  A year later the price had doubled in the catalog and then they were gone. Topps may have had sheets held back, or they had cut the cards already for sale but either way, Woody Gelman had 'em. Fun Fact: -Topps would cut sheets specifically for CCC (and presumably for its antecedent, Sam Rosen) and also pre-sort the cards they sold to Woody:

Several years ago (decades really) the original art from the hockey cards were offered on a team-by-team basis and they went for a song (again, from memory).   The artwork, as you can imagine, is stunning, as this scan nicked from Heritage Auctions shows:

Here's the card for that art, I just love the flying ice:

The backs are superb as well and the All-American red, white & blue scheme seems like a pretty overt choice to me:

Here's four Red Wings, likely remnants of the 15 player team painting groupings:

Friend o'the Archive Mark Newgarden indicates there was a lot of touch up work done on these but either way thay are fab an whatever they did to them at Topps sure worked!

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.

Ice, Ice Baby

It's snowing here outside the Topps Archives main research complex, so I am in a chilly state of mind and thinking about hockey right now.

After baseball, hockey probably has the most fanatical collector base in the hobby. I just picked up a great book called the Vintage Hockey Collector Price Guide, compiled by Bobby Burrell. It's a pictorial reference book covering about all you could think of when it comes to hockey cards and it is the best illustrated hobby reference I have ever seen-a true work of art with hundreds of wonderful color pictures. It has put me in a mood to go after some hockey types and I just picked up two nice cards.

The first is a 1954-55 Topps Hockey card. These were only sold in Canada it seems, probably hitting the market just after New Year's 1955 as Parkhurst used to release their cards first, in the late fall, when the season started. The cards, 60 in number, feature what I gather to be oil-painted photos and they are stunning. I chose this one as it has a cloud of ice being kicked up by Ray Timgren of the Chicago Black Hawks.



Pretty cool, huh?

The back is nice too.



Topps did not produce another hockey set until 1957-58. I am not sure why but Parkhurst missed a year in there too, so some kind of licensing problem may have played a part.

I also picked up a 1968 O-Pee-Chee Push Out along with Mr. Timgren. These were inserts in the 2nd series OPC hockey packs in 1968-69. Instead of being peel-off stickers, once you popped out the puck you had to moisten the back to get it to adhere to something.

This could only be improved if his nickname "Gump" was on it instead of his given name. What a classic shot of a hard-nosed goalie!



These are the first hockey cards I have bought in about 35 years!