Alive in '55

Last month's post about possible dating anomalies concerning the Topps Robin Hood set caught the attention of Friend o'the Archive Lonnie Cummins, who pointed out a couple of things of import on that front. First and foremost, I either need screens with better resolution or a new prescription for my glasses. Lonnie then pointed out the copyright on the one and five cent wrappers was a unique one for Topps, especially the penny version.

Here is the one cent wrapper, in case you forgot how it looked:

Double the indicia, double the fun:

I spent some time casting about for the meaning of "OFF F" but it turns out the five cent wrapper had it spelled out all along, which I couldn't quite resolve on the pack example shown last month.  Lonnie kindly sent along a wrapper image with more clarity:

Just below the five cent circle, you can see that it says "OFFICIAL FILMS":

Lonnie also passed along a five cent retail box scan, which was Canadian in origin (you can easily tell by the "36 Count" stamp).  The packs would have held four and not five cards like in the US and you can see the Official Films name at bottom right of the top flap:

Nice box!

As it turns out, Official Films were the syndicator for The Adventures of Robin Hood in the US (and possibly Canada).

There's still  dating and attribution anomalies as the October 1955 copyright for the set being at odds with the 1960 American Card Catalog entry:

All of this leads me to think the Topps Robin Hood debuted in 1955 and then, well, I dunno.  Did it sell so fantastically it lasted until 1957?  Was it reissued? But if so, where are all the one and five cent wrappers? What of the Lucky Penny insert then, eh? And why, if Woody Gelman was one of the ACC editors, is the date for a Topps set wrong?!  Was it just a typo? Then there is the notion it was based upon some undefined movie. 

I've identified six possible silver screen candidates, all of which were released after the classic 1938 Errol Flynn version, with the actor playing Robin in parentheses:

• The Bandit of Sherwood Forest (Cornel Wilde)
• The Prince of Thieves (Jon Hall)
• Rogues of Sherwood Forest (John Derek)
• Tales of Robin Hood (Robert Clarke)
• The Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men (Richard Todd)
• The Men of Sherwood Forest (Dan Taylor)

The Richard Todd vehicle was a 1952 live action Disney feature, and the The Men of Sherwood Forest was a Hammer Films production released first in the UK (seemingly in 1954) which then, maybe (hard to tell) debuted two years later in the US, so perhaps it was just a brain cramp somewhere coming up with it as the source, but none of these flicks starred Richard Greene, so it's an obvious error.

Questions, questions...but I am now considering this is a 1955 set, with confusion still about the dating in the ACC; your mileage may vary. That would make it the first standard sized set from Topps then, and not Elvis Presley more than a year later, quite surprising but the boys from Brooklyn were experimenting with various dimensions for most of their first card-issuing decade. I suspect it was conceived as a Giant Size set, hence the divisible-by-ten set count, then a decision was made to reduce the size of the cards to 2.5 x 3.5 inches for release.

Hoodwinked?

I've briefly touched upon the 1957 Topps Robin Hood set before and today I want to take a more detailed and nuanced look at it. It's a bit of an oddity at 60 cards given it was printed in standard size (2.5 x 3.5 inches), seemingly coming on the heels of the first 66 card Topps set (1956's Elvis Presley) and the implementation of the 11 cards-per-row/12 cards-per-column print arrays used with standard sizing. The set count, being divisible by ten, very well might have been planned at the tail end of the Giant Size era, with its corresponding 10 card rows. However, I've found a major anomaly as Topps filed for the Robin Hood trademark on October 28, 1955 and indicated in their filing that what appears to be the card set was being sold as of October 4th that year:

If that's true (and why wouldn't it be) then something is off. This is a real puzzler and could possibly make Robin Hood the first standard sized Topps issue, arriving over a year ahead of Elvis. I really don't know what to make of this, although two potential options come to mind:

1) A failed test set to coincide with the US premiere of the program in Fall of 1955, but I've never seen anything anywhere to inform that possibility. 

2) It does seem possible a gum-only release or a tattoo issue, possibly generic like the 1955 Davy Crockett tats, was first contemplated, tested and then rejected, with the trademarked bubble gum brand reused when the cards were finally issued in 1957. Again, I can find no evidence to confirm or rebut.

The show, set in the Twelfth Century's densely wooded Sherwood Forest (which as we all know was ensconced in Nottinghamshire, England) was officially called The Adventures of Robin Hood, and was the first of several Lew Grade ITC productions that would find their way in syndication to lucrative U.S. shores. As noted, it aired from Fall 1955 until the Fall of 1958, always on Mondays at 7:30 and carried by CBS, with each episode running for a half an hour. After the third season it was switched over to Saturday Mornings, which then melded in season four, which was the final one produced.  I caught an episode by chance not too long ago and the forest scenes, filmed in 35 MM, were pretty great, as were the various sword fights.

The set used colorized back-and-white images from the TV show, which have that sickening, muted color used in several late Fifties Topps releases:

The reverse, despite the fairly accurate illustration of series star Richard Greene, is kind of hideous too:

It is not hard to find these cards today as they were massively overproduced.  What is hard though, is finding examples that look OK, as print defects are legion.

The packaging was far nicer than the product it contained.  Here's a flattened box straight from the Topps file room:

It was sold in all possible retail configurations: penny and nickel packs, cello and vending. I suspect cello ruled the day as the wax wrappers are hard to find:

For once, the repeater looks nicer than the five cent version, at least to my eyes:

(Courtesy Chuck Mann)

So the whole thing's a bit of a mess!  The set is also known for its inclusion of the Lucky Penny insert card:

The more I type, the more I wonder about all of this.  Thoughts, dear readers?

Factory Upsettings

1957 was the first year since 1951 where Topps didn't issue any cards in their formerly ubiquitous "Giant Size" format of 2 5/8" x 3 3/4".  Instead, "Standard Size" cards measuring the still-familiar-to-this-day 2 1/2" x 3 1/2".  However, it seems this decision to shrink the card size by a smidge over 11%--and the corresponding increase from a 110 card half sheet (arrayed 11 rows x 10 columns if measured the long way top to bottom) to one with 132 impressions (arrayed 12 rows x 11 columns measured in the same manner)--resulted in 11 being the eventual "divisor" for many sets, variations and short prints.  It took Topps a little while though to sort this out and while they were operating in an 11 column environment after the switch, it seems they were still often designing sets in a 10 column framework some time into 1957.

Elvis Presley was, of course, the first standard sized set and it managed to clock in at 66 cards, neatly fitting into the new order.  Considering every card set Topps issued in 1957 was standard sized, it's odd that they managed to issue four that were still designed in "base 10" after Elvis hit the streets.  These were:

Basketball (80 cards)

Goofy Series Postcards (60 cards)

Planes (two series, in theory, of 60 cards each)

Robin Hood (60 cards)

So what happened?  Well for the Goofy Series Postcards and Planes sets, since both used illustrations and not photographs, the design and numbering had likely been locked in place prior to Elvis Presley being issued.  But what of Robin Hood and the Basketball sets? Well as it turns out, the NBA had eight teams in place for the 1957 season and each could sport a ten man roster.  If you look at the distribution of players in the set, each team gets 10! So that one is no mystery.

Now Robin Hood was not limited by roster size but it may have been impacted by Maid Marian being played by a new actress for its final two seasons (and which I note, was a British TV show that was rebroadcast in the US).  Bernadette O'Farrell bowed out of the role and Patricia Driscoll then took over until the series concluded.  Check out this card, #37 in the set:

I believe that is Ms. O'Farrell...

 ...and not Ms. Driscoll:

Here's the gist, then. A lot of Topps TV-themed sets were understandably tuned to the normal September start of the annual season but I don't necessarily think this one was.  Given the show was an already established import and the new Maid Marian would have debuted in September of 1957 in the US, the set could have been released while the 1956-57 season was being broadcast with O'Farrell still in the role and Topps still dividing by ten.  Could this have impacted the set total?  Possibly, but we will never know.

We can't even look to 1958 for help.  The reissue of Space Cards as Target: Moon was 88 cards, as was the Zorro set while T.V. Westerns, a bizarre mish-mash of shows and stars, totaled a clearly truncated and extremely odd 71 subjects, likely impacted by threats of lawsuits or the inability of Topps to secure certain rights.  There was no Basketball set in '59 and the three other major sports all were firmly in step with a "base 11" setup so that was that.  

With Topps, always expect the unexpected, even if expected! Speaking of which, stay tuned for next week's look at Planes...