Distress Call

We have a bit of a mystery today folks, and an unprecedented one at that. Over the years, all sorts of strange and wonderful things have come into my mailboxes thanks to this blog. Some turn out to be nothing, while others offer something new and unknown.  Today it's time to look at a weird offshoot of the 1968 Baseball Game, one I'm really scratching my head over and presumed (presently at least) to originate at Topps around then.

Blank-backed copies of eighteen subjects have turned up, with fronts that lack any color other than black. Here is Gene Alley, in his black-and-white glory:

I've been able to examine this card in person and the beveled corners match up one hundred percent to the issued cards. Another (very) interesting thing is that what looks like a series of creases across Alley's face and in a couple of other spots are, in, fact, images of creases; it was designed to look distressed without actually being distressed.  There is some legitimate wear around the perimeter, not unexpected on an object with some age to it.

Here's the back:

The surface is pebbled, like old spiral flip-up notebook covers used to be. As such, it's difficult to determine how much of the reverse was also made to look distressed or if it's just picked up dirt over the years.

I mentioned eighteen subjects. They are:

Aaron

Alley

M. Alou

Cepeda

Fregosi

Howard

Killebrew

Lonborg

Mays

McCarver

Peters

B. Robinson

F. Robinson

Rose

Santo

Scott

Staub

Wynn

That's seven Hall-of-Famers plus one more player that could get in some day (Rose) and another from the roster of honored broadcasting nominees (McCarver). Presently, it's not clear if the remaining fifteen subjects were contemplated, or even exist.

EDIT 6/10/25: It now seems all examples have only retained the head portion, and not the shoulders, for each subject: 

So, any thoughts out there? I'm really not sure what to make of all this, it's just so strange. I am sure these would appeal to just about any variety of player, team, oddball, or Hall-of-Fame collector and understand many or possibly all of these will be offered for sale soon (not by me). Maybe some of the new owners will be able to discern additional clues. 

Wax On, Wax Off

It's funny what's turned up in Topps packs over the years: plain white gum separators through the mid-50's, cello wrapped caramel in 1951 and a string of contest and premium offer cards in the late 50's into 1960.  Topps then moved into more familiar inserts starting with the 1960 Football cards, which for the most part ended in 1971 for Baseball and Football. In retrospect these were clearly sales stimulators so long as costs allowed. In 1967-69 though, something else made an appearance that not too many folks know about.

Ads, specifically in-house ads for upcoming inserts and sets, are what came in certain wax packs these three years. The first one I'm aware of is this little bit of wax paper from 1967, roughly the size of the era's penny Bazooka comics:

Love the Tigers player and his knowing look!  My research, which is admittedly a bit limited as I am just in the training wheels stage when it comes to the series-by series specifics of vintage Topps wax packs, shows the Pin-Ups were issued throughout the season (they are known in 2nd, 5th, 6th and 7th series cello packs for sure), so I'd imagine these were found in 1st series packs.

QUICK SAME DAY UPDATE:  I found this commencing with the Classified Ads in the March 1972 Issue of The Trader Speaks.  Same pitcher, slightly altered facially and on the uniform and I suspect Woody Gelman had a hand. He appeared, along with his battery mate, in TTS until the last Dan Dischley published issue came out in September 1983, save one or two occasions):

1968 brought an ad for the Game cards, complete with cursory instructions:

From Mantle, Mays and Aaron to Campy, who was a helluva player but not in the same zip code as those guys, and I suspect at least one other player, if not more, was named (see batter's ankles and feet at the top). The Game cards seem to have started showing up in 4th series packs, so these would be from the 3rd series. However, that wasn't all. The 6th and 7th series wax packs carried two tones of Football preview:

These are noticeably larger (much taller) than the Baseball waxy inserts and according to Darren Prince's 1993 Wrapper and Pack Guide, came in 6th and 7th series packs. Dig the commodity codes and fold lines - were these printed and actually folded in with the wrappers?! 1968 was the first combined NFL/AFL set issued by Topps and they clearly intended to make a big splash.

1969 seems to be the end year for the waxy inserts, possibly due to rising costs; remember, ten cent "cello" packs debuted this year to mimic the Baseball wax in a large scale pricing experiment and the dime wax pack debuted for real with the '69 Football release (and some Non-Sports issues).  Friend o'the Archive Dave Schmidt sent me a scan of the installment from '69 as I have not yet found one of these (the others are from my collection):

The Deckles debuted in Series 3 but there were also the Decal inserts in 1969 so it's possible another  ad insert exists for those.  Prince has the Decals ("Magic Rub-Offs" actually) as appearing in 2nd and 5th series packs so I'm not sure what's going on with that.

I've also just gotten this one in from across the pond, it's from Topps UK:

That little, oddly-fonted ID number off to the right says "UK 24" which didn't help with dating but I found a Footballer wrapper from 1979-80 over at the awesome Nigel's Webspace that helped zero in on it:

Sorry for the murk, I found a better scan of the offer, which is not an exact match to the insert but fairly close:

While being fairly non-conversant with the ins-and-outs-of the English First Division teams of the time, I did know Celtic & Rangers were both from the Scottish League so I had to do a little research. The last season Topps issued Scottish League cards was 1979-80 (in their own set) and the English League teams (first and second division) were in the set this wrapper enclosed. so the timing fit. I then found 21 of the 22 first division teams that played that season on the insert, missing only Bolton, which was by far the worst team in the league and ended up relegated (and likely just ignored by Topps UK) along with Bristol City and Stoke, both of which made the scarf cut as a booby prize I guess. This waxy insert must have part of the Bazooka Joe comic series over in the UK in either 1979-80 then, or the next season if they were burning off excess premiums.

Batter Up, Up And Away!

I've been tracking a few different things of late, almost all of them packaging related.  I usually semi-rehash things when I start looking at broader cross sections of things but dem's da breaks with this!  Anyhoo, 1968 Topps Batter Up is today's subject.

Everybody, presumably, is familiar with the 33 card insert Game cards Topps included in their wax and cello packs in 1968. What is less familiar, but known to some of us, is that Topps tried to market the complete set in boxed form as well; see here for much more detail.  I believe these were only test products, based upon this box flat proof:

I can't swear I've seen a 10 cent variety in box form (update, I now have, see end of post) but the 15 cent versions do pop up from time to time.  There's more to it than that, hence this post, but this seems like an early example of Topps trying out two price points on a test product, a practice that became more prevalent in the 70's but had to start somewhere.

The 15 cent boxes are difficult but not impossible. Here's a real nice one:

As you may or may not be able to see, the proof does seem to carry commodity codes on a box flap but I can't make it out.  I presume it ends in an "8" and suspect these were marketed around the time of the World Series or if they waited, the start of spring training and/or the regular season in 1969.

It's pretty cool of Topps to have marketed the full set but they must have had a ton of the insert cards on their hands as they are ubiquitous in the hobby.

Now what came next, presumably next that is, would seem to indicate either some sort of product dump or a complete erasure of the ten cent pricing.  I've seen these versions as well in a few different spots over the years:

The blacked out price, given the fact these exist in multiples, was probably effected by Topps.  Did they flood the tertiary market with these, market them in Fun Packs, decide a dime was too cheap, or just repurpose them some other way?  I don't know, it could even be all four.

And what of this anomaly, from an old REA auction:

By the time this stickered over version came around it seems like a dumping of product for resale at some deeply discounted rate was contemplated or perhaps actually occurred.  I've seen at least one other like that as well. The plain black circles on some boxes could indicate the white sticker has fallen off, I'm really not sure.

We should not forget that Topps actually stole this idea from Ed-U-Cards, who sold these in the late 40's and early 50's:

The quotes around "Batter Up" by Topps may have been an attempt to avoid a trademark issue. The Ed-U-Cards set was also used as a premium by a beverage company called Cott.  The whole story is here, along with details about how Topps also used a design for a paper baseball diamond/scoresheet that came in the Ed-U-Cards box in the bagged set of Red Backs that burned off excess stock in 1952 or thereabouts. It would have been a neat thing to include such an item here but they didn't, so far as I can tell.

Play Ball!

UPDATE 7/18/19-Al Richter has provided a scan of a 10 cent box that was issued.  I still think the 10 centers eventually had their prices covered but this is a neat find-thanks Al!

Game On

It's a lazy Boxing Day around the Main Topps Archives Research Complex kids (I write in advance usually) and I decided to do some maintenance on the blog. This mainly consists of fixing incorrect tags and little typos as I find them.  In the midst of this very low-level work I realized I had never devoted a full post to one of my favorite Topps insert sets of all time - the 1968 Baseball Game cards, which should really be referred to as Batter Up cards. I've touched on this set in a couple of "overview" posts, namely one on rewraps and another on the link between Topps and Ed-U-Cards but never on its own.

The set is widely known and collected of course, with Mantle and Clemente being the key cards in a set of 33 that features well composed color portraits of each player. One card was inserted into mid-series wax and cello packs:

Is it just me or does that look like Yogi Berra?  The game is pretty self explanatory but just in case...

You were on your own with the rules if you got your cards in the cello packs:

I'm sure many cello packs have the card inserted face out but that seems to be the prevalent side from what I can tell.

Great look to these:

I chose Davis as my example for a reason, which we will get to momentarily. You can see how the game worked just by looking at the card. You can also see the typical Topps funky cut at what is almost the apex of the card.  Centering issues plagued Topps for decades and their insert sets were even worse in this regard than the regular issues.  You can see the Davis is well off center, the reverse tells the tale too, although it's quite interesting in any event:

I love the little Topps baseballs.  The design resembles but does not mimic the 1951 Blue Backs. 

I linked above to the Batter Up game that Topps sold as a standalone set but will show the box proof here again as it's a beaut:

Yes, two different price points on the same sheet! Either is difficult, I think the 10 cent variety is the tougher of the two but it's quite hard to find either. I don't have the box myself but Friend o'the Archive Bob Fisk sent me a scan of one yonks ago, 15 cent variety:

The box back indicates it was printed no later than 1969, given the Brooklyn address and we can narrow it even further as you will see below:

My guess is the game just collected unused inserts and was test marketed in late in the 1968 season, which ties in to one of two reasons why I chose Tommy Davis as a representative example.  He was traded by the Mets to the White Sox on December 15, 1967 for Tommie Agee and Al Weis in a move that would ultimately cement the 1969 Mets championship, so technically speaking, Davis was a member of the White Sox when the set was issued, although he's clearly in Mets duds on the card. If you look at the team checklist below, you will see the Mets are the only team without a player in the set. (Correction 1/14/17: The ever vigilant Keith Olbermann advises Davis is in Dodger duds)You could make an argument for Rusty Staub as an Expo and even Davis as a Pilot if the set was boxed for resale in 1969 since both were capless, but there were really no players shown who could have been Royals or Padres so I say the Batter Up set is definitely from 1968.

It's a great little set, easy to collect as it's remarkably plentiful and the rounded corners a thick gloss help protect these babies.

Here are alphabetical and team checklists for your viewing pleasure:

1	ALOU	MATTY	PITTSBURGH PIRATES
2	MANTLE	MICKEY	NEW YORK YANKEES
3	YASTRZEMSKI	CARL	BOSTON RED SOX
4	AARON	HANK	ATLANTA BRAVES
5	KILLEBREW	HARMON	MINNESOTA TWINS
6	CLEMENTE	ROBERTO	PITTSBURGH PIRATES
7	ROBINSON	FRANK	BALTIMORE ORIOLES
8	MAYS	WILLIE	SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS
9	ROBINSON	BROOKS	BALTIMORE ORIOLES
10	DAVIS	TOMMY	CHICAGO WHITE SOX
11	FREEHAN	BILL	DETROIT TIGERS
12	OSTEEN	CLAUDE	LOS ANGELES DODGERS
13	PETERS	GARY	CHICAGO WHITE SOX
14	LONBORG	JIM	BOSTON RED SOX
15	HARGAN	STEVE	CLEVELAND INDIANS
16	CHANCE	DEAN	MINNESOTA TWINS
17	McCORMICK	MIKE	SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS
18	McCARVER	TIM	ST. LOUIS CARDINALS
19	SANTO	RON	CHICAGO CUBS
20	GONZALEZ	TONY	PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES
21	HOWARD	FRANK	WASHINGTON SENATORS
22	SCOTT	GEORGE	BOSTON RED SOX
23	ALLEN	RICHIE	PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES
24	WYNN	JIM	HOUSTON ASTROS
25	ALLEY	GENE	PITTSBURGH PIRATES
26	MONDAY	RICK	OAKLAND ATHLETICS
27	KALINE	AL	DETROIT TIGERS
28	STAUB	RUSTY	HOUSTON ASTROS
29	CAREW	ROD	MINNESOTA TWINS
30	ROSE	PETE	CINCINNATI REDS
31	TORRE	JOE	ATLANTA BRAVES
32	CEPEDA	ORLANDO	ST. LOUIS CARDINALS
33	FREGOSI	JIM	CALIFORNIA ANGELS

Alphabetical:

4	AARON	HANK	ATLANTA BRAVES
31	TORRE	JOE	ATLANTA BRAVES
9	ROBINSON	BROOKS	BALTIMORE ORIOLES
7	ROBINSON	FRANK	BALTIMORE ORIOLES
3	YASTRZEMSKI	CARL	BOSTON RED SOX
22	SCOTT	GEORGE	BOSTON RED SOX
14	LONBORG	JIM	BOSTON RED SOX
33	FREGOSI	JIM	CALIFORNIA ANGELS
19	SANTO	RON	CHICAGO CUBS
13	PETERS	GARY	CHICAGO WHITE SOX
10	DAVIS	TOMMY	CHICAGO WHITE SOX
30	ROSE	PETE	CINCINNATI REDS
15	HARGAN	STEVE	CLEVELAND INDIANS
27	KALINE	AL	DETROIT TIGERS
11	FREEHAN	BILL	DETROIT TIGERS
24	WYNN	JIM	HOUSTON ASTROS
28	STAUB	RUSTY	HOUSTON ASTROS
12	OSTEEN	CLAUDE	LOS ANGELES DODGERS
16	CHANCE	DEAN	MINNESOTA TWINS
5	KILLEBREW	HARMON	MINNESOTA TWINS
29	CAREW	ROD	MINNESOTA TWINS
2	MANTLE	MICKEY	NEW YORK YANKEES
26	MONDAY	RICK	OAKLAND ATHLETICS
23	ALLEN	RICHIE	PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES
20	GONZALEZ	TONY	PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES
25	ALLEY	GENE	PITTSBURGH PIRATES
1	ALOU	MATTY	PITTSBURGH PIRATES
6	CLEMENTE	ROBERTO	PITTSBURGH PIRATES
17	McCORMICK	MIKE	SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS
8	MAYS	WILLIE	SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS
32	CEPEDA	ORLANDO	ST. LOUIS CARDINALS
18	McCARVER	TIM	ST. LOUIS CARDINALS
21	HOWARD	FRANK	WASHINGTON SENATORS