Fresh Prints

It looks like we have another entrant or two in the list of firms that printed cards for Topps back in the 1960's.  In re-reading one of Keith Olbermann's Sports Collectors Digest posts about the 1967 Roger Maris Yankees card, I happened to notice a comment about some uncut proof sheets made up by a printer in Connecticut. I did a double take as I had missed this information the last time I had read Keith's article, which came out in 2008.

The Olbermann story is thus: a house being remodeled in Connecticut is found to have sheets of old cards being used as insulation in a false ceiling; in addition aluminum printer plates from some Topps sets were found in the void space as well; 1962 being the "year-zero" for aluminum Topps plates, this piqued my interest even more. It would turn out the previous owner had worked for a company that printed cards for Topps.

I still need to do a deep dive into the printing of 1962 Baseball Green Tints but there is a great article by Pete Putman that appeared on the PSA website a while back that delivers an in depth look you should go an check out. Pete mentions within his article the Rochester firm of Stecher-Traung, which I believe did overflow work for Topps in the early 1960's after Zabel Brothers of Philadelphia took over for Lord Baltimore Press (LPB). LBP was bought out by International Paper in 1958 and slowly transitioned out of commercial printing thereafter resulting in Topps utilizing Zabel Brothers, which had produced some of the best Bowman sets, as their main printers for decades (this comes straight from Irv Lerner, who used to do Zabel's tax work).

Stecher-Traung likely printed the green tint second series baseball cards in 1962 but this has not been definitively proven.  Pete also mentions they may have printed some 1952 Baseball high numbers, at least the ones that ended up in Canada and that theory makes a whole lot of sense to me. Anyway poking around after re-reading the KO piece, I stumbled upon a very, very interesting auction on eBay that concluded last month and has shed some additional light on this Connecticut firm, although a name has not yet presented itself.  What has presented itself is intriguing, namely a bootleg 1966 Batman Black Bat series Cinderella card featuring the Caped Crusader on the commode:

It's a little blurry obviously but I suspect that was a Norm Saunders creation:

 The back has some bleed through:

This creation, along with some cut up proof cards from the 1966 Batman Bat Laffs series were found together and originated with the family of an employee of the Connecticut firm.  Now get this, the family member's relative auctioning off this piece is domiciled in, you guessed it, Rochester, NY!

Stecher-Traung did have a corporate presence in Connecticut but I can't decipher if that was before their merger with Schmidt Lithographic of San Francisco (likely printer of Obaks) or after (merger was March 1, 1966) so there is more work to do. But there is no way the Rochester connection is meaningless or random.

Now, for a bigger issue.  It has long been suspected within the hobby that numerous test issues produced for Topps in the 1960's and 70's were specifically printed for sale via the Card Collectors Company and/or Bill Haber (long time Topps employee and early card dealer).  There are numerous black & white test issues from the mid 1960's that I have long felt were not produced by Zabel Brothers so I wonder if our mysterious Connecticut firm had a hand.

It gets even better-I have found some old news stories online suggesting another Baltimore firm also did some work for Topps, one A. Hoen & Company. Whether they did some overflow in the 1950's or other work is an open question but one I hope to answer as they were in business from before the Civil War until 1981.  That is a tantalizing thread to follow as it has been offered up by other writers and researchers that the 1967-68 Topps Action All Star Stickers saw limited distribution in the Chesapeake Bay area.

And we get into even another possible connection or two, namely a Grand Rapids, Michigan subsidiary of Stecher-Traung Schmidt called Wheeler-Van Label Company.  Let's not forget Michigan was a main distribution area for the 1975 Topps Mini Baseball cards, as was California (Schmidt's original base). So how many wheels-within-wheels are we dealing with? More to come...

Where The Action Is

You want Action? You got Action! Action All Stars that is...

Not only was 1968 a landmark year for Topps oddball issues, it was a huge year for test issues even if you only look at baseball. In addition to one of the best pack inserts ever, the 33 strong game cards (also a limited release of its own accord), the ultra large Player Posters and the 3-D set, there were Plaks and Discs and even leftover Punchouts. And Action Stickers Baby!

Sold in (very) long strips of three, sixteen numbered, three-paneled stickers comprise the set. At ten cents a throw, you could have put together a set for $1.60 back in '68. Nowadays, mid four figures would be needed.

Here is a full panel; all follow the same format:



The strip is about 15 3/4" tall, 3 1/4" wide and very hard to scan or photograph properly. Numbering and indicia are below the main subject in the center panel. The full strip was folded twice along very prominent score lines:



and sold in a vivid red pack:



The actual name of the set is clearly Baseball Action Stickers. Action All Stars is just hobby idiom. A box just popped up in a Heritage auction that confirms this point:



It is uncommon for a photo of a player in uniform to appear on a limited release in this era. The fact that it is Mickey Mantle makes this even more of a holy grail type piece.

We get a product code on the bottom definitively identifying 1968 as the year of issue:



Proofs have popped up over the years, many from the Topps vault. Here is one I picked up a while ago:



You can see there is no scoring at the top or bottom on the proof. The reverse features tasty period sticker backing:



While there are 16 three-panel stickers, only 12 are different. Stickers from #13-16 mix and match previously used panels.

Here is two-thirds of the set from (I think) an old REA auction, with proof marks and notations made by the Topps brass:



You can find individual panels, sometimes with one sticker missing on Ebay pretty easily but the intact strips are fairly difficult. They are not impossible though but storage and/or display would be interesting.

More peeks at 1968 coming your way soon!