Ersatz All Folks

Hey kids-kind of a "so good it could be real" post today, so hang on for a fun ride!

Here's a couple of esoteric Topps sales stimulators I found from an old Morphy Auction some time ago.  These are of the neater items I've seen in the ersatz-promo vein.  The first is a "Baseball Certificate" which very much resembles an admission ticket of yore-because it actually was one!  It's hard to read but it indeed bestowed a granstand seat to the bearer.  This may have been from a Bazooka contest but I'm having trouble tracking which one so perhaps it was instead from a distributor contest, something Topps ran with regularity.

Next up, we get this fantastic item from two years later, hawking the first Topps Baseball inserts (Baseball Stamps) and the standalone albums used to house them:

That was clearly designed to look like a Western Union telegram and given that Thanksgiving is almost upon us, this one seems apt to show as an example (plus it was sent on the exact day I was born!):

Western Union killed off telegrams on January 27, 2006 in case you were wondering why you hadn't received one lately!

Topps would up their game considerably in 1962 with faux fiat currency.  I can't find any promotional material for these, which doesn't mean there wasn't any of course, but it's MIA right now.

Baseball Bucks came first and were an entirely separate product from the flagship Baseball, sold in one and five cent retail packs.  This is a typical example, tilt and all:

The change of seasons brought Football Bucks of course, which might be the most miscut-prone issue Topps ever produced.  These were pack inserts with the regular issue Football set:

And if you lived in Canada Hockey Bucks also saw daylight once a pack of Hockey cards was opened, although they had a decidely North of the Border look. These are not the easiest things to find:

Still tilted after all these years!

-30-

180 Degrees of Separation

Further to my two previous posts, the always resourceful Jon Helfenstein (of the Fleer Sticker Project Helfensteins) sent along a number of scans that nicely complement my comments about the 1961 and 1962 Topps Baseball Stamps.  I have to admit I've not seen the sell sheets before and they are just super nice.

Here is the 1961 sheet:

I have to wonder if a brown version of this sheet exists to complement the two color schemes of the stamps proper.  Probably not but wouldn't that be cool?! Nice to see my guesstimate of 12 albums per box was spot on but it appears Topps was 28 stamps over the 180 stamp capacity of the albums.

The 1962 sell sheet is much nicer and appreciably more colorful as well

I'm not sure why Topps didn't mention the albums on the regular sell sheet-seems like a missed opportunity.  But wait, there's more, namely the name checked 3 Pak:

Nice job with the cello sleeve raks (never knew Topps called them 3 Paks but they also called them Rak Paks!) but again, no mention of the album. Speaking of albums, here's the '62:

That is one frightening looking kid!

Thanks Jon, for sending over all these goodies!

Stamping Around

1961 Topps Baseball Stamps are ubiquitous in the hobby.  Inserted in little two card panels in five wax and cello Baseball packs the 208 stamps were the first baseball inserts produced by Topps. I'll post a whole treatise on the stamps someday but today want to look at a bit of a tougher item, namely the album Topps sold separately to house the stamps.

Green and brown in color, the insert stamp panels have been seen countless times by collectors:

But back to the albums. They are rather cheap affairs, but a little hard to find in nice shape, often due to handwriting, tears, sloppily affixed stamps and general abuse. Unused ones are tougher still although they can be found with a little diligence. What is definitely a tough item though is the retail box the albums came in. Thanks to a recent Mile High auction, that particular items has made a recent appearance.

I'm not sure I've seen the box before-here is a nice top view:

I've never liked the generic player on the album cover. I get Joe Shlabotnick vibes whenever I see him!  I'm not certain but suspect it held 12 albums:

The idea of selling a secondary item to house an insert is intriguing and Topps did it again in 1962 but I'm not sure how many candy stores and retailers would have bothered with the albums.

Topps did a horrible job promoting the stamps on the wax box but managed to tie in Shlabotnick, so there's that:

The wax wrapper did a much better job advertising the Stamps and album:

As you can see, you could even order the album directly from Topps:

I guess Topps ate the postage!

The "separate pages" for each team are orderly and informative and i like the all-time leaders stats:

Good to see Lu Blue get some respect!