Bonus Bazooka Blast!

It's a grab bag of Bazooka this week kids!  Here's some Bazooka eye candy I think you will all enjoy.

Wesley Morse drew Bazooka Joe comics for Topps for less than a decade (1954 debut) and then they figured out how to stretch is work even more after he died in 1963-his drawings ran until 1982!  It looks like he did some other work for Topps as well, take a gander at the line work and style on this envelope:

(courtesy Jeff Shepherd)

I'm not positive but I think the 2 cents US postage metered rate ended sometime in 1958, so this looks like a mid 50's envelope.  That traffic cop looks just like an amalgamation of Sarge and Herman from Bazooka Joe,  doesn't it?

I recently found a true date attribution for the Bazooka U.S. Presidents package design set.  It was described in Woody Gelman's Card Collector as a 1962 issue and I think in the few guides that covered it over the years but it's from 1960. That makes total sense given it was a presidential election year.

In 1969 Topps experimented with a foil Bazooka wrapper on what may have been a test of a nickel roll twin-pack (dig the markdown from Grant's), harkening back to the product launch in 1947:

I have no idea why they did this, nor why they brought back the sepia comics of yore:

Finally, on the heels of last week's waxy insert post, I thought I'd revisit this 1973 Bazooka comic inserts showing how Topps would sometimes gyp the kids with an ad instead of Bazooka Joe and His Gang:

Stay safe out there folks!

How Irregular

Well it's been just over a year since my last post on The Card Collector and now that I've dusted off some more issues, I thought I'd share some additional fun facts.

I don't have a full run of issues but I did note that sometime between issue 11 (5/15/61) and 16 (12/30/61) Woody Gelman turned over the editorship to Jim Zak of Cicero, Illinois, although it remained essentially a house organ for Gelman's Card Collectors Company, which still published the little 'zine.

First up, from number 19 (3/30/62) we get an issue date for the Bazooka Presidents set, namely 1962.
(UPDATE 6/23/20: It turns out it's from 1960 after all):

Previously attributed for the most part to 1960, this 33 card sets runs through Eisenhower.  These were issued in the familiar 3 panel package designs.  Here's old Zachary Taylor:

Later in the same issue we see that the 1962 Topps Baseball Stamps were being issued 40 at a time, at least in the beginning.

The Stamps did clock in at 200 subjects, although Roy Sievers is shown with two teams (Athletics and Phillies) as Topps corrected a mistake as he was never on the A's. This little hiccup meant 201 stamps were actually issued!

Anyhoo......Fleer's FTC complaint against Topps makes news.  Fleer would win one of their arguments in 1965 before the decision was overturned and they sold all their player contracts to Topps in '66. Topps had 414 of 421 major leaguers locked up and Fleer took exception.

Things pick up a bit in the next issue, dated 4/20/62, check out the CCC ad:

1949 Bowman PCL cards are one thing but 1956 (really 1955) small Hocus Focus cards in uncut sheet form for $2.00???!!!  The $1.00 price point for the PCL cards is intriguing as the recently reappeared 1952 Baseball high numbers (garbage scow, my ass) were going for the same rate.  As it has turned out, the former are a good bit harder to find that the latter.  And I've never seen an uncut sheet of the Hocus Focus cards-the mind reels at what that would be worth today.  Other ho-hum items include T205's, Hopalong Cassidy foils and the rare #68 Fleer Ted Williams card. Jim Zak had some deals too, no?

In issue 22 (6/20/62)  we get one of the first inklings of the 1962 Baseball green tints:

Meanwhile issue #24 (8/20/.62) brings 1949 Bowman misprint sheets and 1952 Topps highs. Woody was really turning up some goodies!

I hope to fill in the missing issues (I have about half of the run) but these seem a little harder to find than some other hobby mags of the day. Some are also very mundane but the hobby was visibly nascent for two decades and the Card Collector was a vital early publication that helped fuel the wide-ranging world of cards that exists today.