Sale-A-Bration Time

Friend o'the Archive Jason Rhodes recently alerted me to a really sweet display box he picked up last month; he snagged a real toughie and the bottom on this particular piece of Topps history revealed something of interest to me (and Jason) as well.  The item in question is a 1967 Funny Travel Posters five cent retail display box:

In addition to showcasing some of Wally Wood's finest work, Funny Travel Posters (click here to see what I mean) the box bottom has a Topps Sale-A-Bration Deal stamp prominently displayed, albeit not quite driven fully home by some poor schlep at Topps' Duryea plant:

We've seen this stamp before on 1968's Batty Book Covers:

Once again, here is the stamped box bottom:

I've re-found a third one, on a 1968 Planet Of The Apes box, thanks to a massive hard drive organization project I've been concentrating on during the pandemic and, while I'll probably still be at it until the end of my days, it will be no doubt help with enhancing future endeavors here:

Here she is:

There must be more of these out there from the late 60's.  The POTA movie premiered on February 8, 1968 and based upon that I would say the Sale-A-Bration deals seen here probably hail from 1968, as the unsold stock came back from various jobbers and the overstock was out out to pasture. Of course it could have run for a time before and after. I would say these were precursors to the X-Out boxes Topps sold later on, so marked as to prevent any further returns on what would have been discounted and discontinued products.

If anyone out there has more examples, please let me know.

Driven Batty

I started delving into 1968's Batty Book Covers a few posts ago when discussing some Basil Wolverton original art used by Topps in that set and also the same year's Ugly Hang-Ups. 1967-69 was the era of very large Topps products and Batty Book Covers are no exception, coming in at 11 1/16" x 18 13/16".

Obviously designed to be used to cover textbooks, the set was clearly a 1968 issue as detailed on the box:

Looks like Topps had a promotional deal going on ("Sale-A-Bration") with this box, possibly indicative of poor sales.

The wrapper is, well, batty:

The checklist is handy but inaccurate:

No. 5 is listed as "Wacky Packages" but it ended up being something called "Topps Is What's Happening" presumably because of worries over potential legal issues with the former's intended subject:

(Courtesy The Sport Americana Price Guide to the Non-Sports Cards Number 4 by Chris Benjamin)

Intriguingly, you can see the baseball card depicted is a fair approximation of the burlapped 68's. No less than 13 Topps products are shown, including Bozo gumballs, which is helpful to me as I have been trying for ages to track when they went from bulk wholesale product to retail packaging. I like the checklist appearing on the product itself as well.

Here are a few others, it's a great (and very tough) set and the covers are quite fragile as these examples from an old Legendary auction show:

That looks like Paul Coker artwork on the left panel (UPDATE 11/11/23-It's not-Mark Newgarden advises it's in Art Spiegelman's hand) and I see Jack Davis's hand on the main part of the cover above.  The whole set is peppered with art from MAD artists and it's amazing.  Look at the ad section from the above example (click to blow it up):

Here is more Davis, look at this tableaux!

The left panel has the instructions and they are classic-check out no. 4:

Legendary also had a concept sketch from the set:

Topps had some great artwork early on (1950-51) but it's got nothing on their late 60's output.

The Ol' Stinkeye

I was toying around with ideas for a Christmas themed post but could not findy any material I had not shared before. Instead, I decided to go "oppo".

The 1968 Topps Ugly Hang-Ups set has been discussed here once before, about three and a half years ago. I don't have a lot of new information but did track down two additional pieces of original Basil Wolverton art from an old Heritage auction. The first was designed to be poster #9; note the lettered suffix after the number, in this case "C". The suffixes seem to follow the numbering, I'm guessing in in groups of three.

Next up is 11D. It's a pretty intricate drawing but not even close to Wolverton's top work for this set that was tested but never issued at full retail. I dub thee Stinkeye:

Maybe that was to be called something like "Spaghettihead"?  I have no idea about 16F:

I mean, what on earth would you call that?!

Heritage also had an original Wolverton attributed to Batty Book Covers, also from 1968 but a product that actually made it to store shelves.  #5 in that set is listed in a checklist appearing on the wrapper as Wacky Packages but it's actually a Topps product montage.  

Here's another:

Still, there is another Wolverton original described in an auction listing as "Luntz Armstrong" in Batty Book Covers, amazingly also destined to be #5:

I'm wasn't sure where there two potential #5's, but this subject ended up as one of of the "Classroom Creeps" (there were 3) covers in the set, so one cover could have two numbers on the original art I guess. The name though, is nowhere to be seen:

  

That takes care of the drawing below as well!

The above and below drawings do not seem to match up with any Batty Book Cover Titles except possibly a series of three "Classroom Creeps" in the series.  It's hard to tell as issued examples are few and far between.

If you are interested, most Wolverton line art such as the above examples, routinely sells for about five grand! So as always, a bit more sleuthing is in order.