Space Patrol

Of late I have been looking into various third party printers and manufacturers used by Topps over the years. In addition to their two main printers for mainstream sets (Lord Baltimore Press from the late 40's through the early 60's and Zabel Brothers from the early 60's through the 90's) they used at least one "overflow" printer, especially in the 1960's as the baby boomers were buying cards faster than Topps could make them. The evidence points to Stecher-Traung Lithograph Corporation (later Stecher-Traung Schmidt Corporation) of Rochester, New York as the overflow printer and they seemingly also printed cards for Topps in a Connecticut branch as well.

Here's an interesting hobby side note-Schmidt was the printer of the 1909-11 Obak baseball cards, which are some of the most beautiful cards ever made, and certainly printed a host of other sets before and between World Wars 1 and 2. Stecher-Traung was known more for their seed packets and fruit crate labels, which were also works of art. One of the places we frequent on vacation in Vero Beach has a large display of their labels in the lobby.  Here is a good example of one:

(courtesy www.cerebro.com)

The Osborne Register Company did some "minting" for Topps from about 1948-52, especially the earliest versions of the Golden Coin issue.

Topps had a Japanese manufacturer for certain novelty items in the 1960's and early 70's but some U.S. Customs issues may have curtailed that relationship. That is definitely a work in progress on my end,  However, I have seen many references to a Canadian Manufacturer Topps used to make its 1964 and 1971 Baseball Coins, a firm called Space Magic Ltd. of Don Mills, Toronto, Ontario. This would be fairly close to where O-Pee-Chee was headquartered in London and it would make sense that Topp's Canadian partner would have been able to source a manufacturer for them.

Pretty much any baseball collectors knows about these colorful coins, which are printed on light aluminum, have rolled edges and came inserted in packs of Baseball.  Here's the 64's:

The 1964 coins were printed on large 255 coin sheets, as this Leland's auction from February 7, 1992 shows:

You will note there is no reference to Space Magic, so it's a bit of a leap of faith that they were manufactured by them,  However, I think it's correct once you look at this next item.  For instance, this largely uncatalogued set of 20 Batman coins from 1966 bears the Space Magic Ltd. name:

There was no second series incidentally. That blueish color looks like a dead match to me.  The coins are pretty pedestrian and used the very mundane comics artwork of the time to cash in on the TV series but the shields used to house the coins are spectacular:

Holy crap Batman!

The 1971 Baseball Coins were probably issued in three groups, each having 51 coins.  51 is interesting because it divides evenly into 255, so five complete series could be run on a full sheet. Here is one of the 51 coin series sheets in proof form

There are a number of other aluminum coin sets out there, most from the 1960's.  The 1962-63 Salada Football Coins, the 1963 version of Salada's Baseball Coins, 1962-63 Shirriff  Hockey Coins (Shirriff was owned by Salada), 1965 Old London Baseball Coins, and probably a few others I am missing.  I suspect Space Magic Ltd. made them all, even though not every one divides neatly into a 255 coin production sheet.

I have not found too much on Space Magic Ltd. so maybe one of our Canadian readers can provide some insights.  I will keep looking though.

Flipping A Coin

Well, as you can see from a comment to the previous post, there is still another pattern to be discerned in the 1971 Topps baseball coins. We'll let our anonymous tipster tell the tale:

"I believe the rim colors were based on the division alignments of the NL and AL. Blue rims for the NL and AL East Divisions, Copper for the NL West and Gold for the AL West. That may explain the Sizemore exception. He was traded from the Dodgers (green circles with copper rims) to the Cardinals (blue circles with blue rims). They probably were only able to change his rim from copper to blue, but kept his circle green."

Well, the rim/circle theory checks out but my semiotic abilites maxed out last time!

Here is the Sizemore coin:



He should have had a copper rim as a Dodger (NL West) but his trade to St. Loo (NL East at the time) on October 5, 1970 changed things. His interior color ring of green would not have changed due to happenstance (NL East rings are not blue) but Topps corrected his rim color to that used for the NL East teams. The pattern in 4 pocket rows is disrupted but the overall color scheme remained intact. Wow!

Post Pattern

1971 Topps Baseball Coins

If pressed to give an answer to the question "what is your favorite year?" 1971 would be near the top of my list both personally and in terms of Topps' aesthetics. The regular issue cards with their black borders and modern fonts look great and there were a couple of fabulous interactive inserts to herald the end of the "extra" era, including the hugely popular baseball coins which are the subject of today's post. In some ways 1971 was the end of a Topps marketing era, a subject that will be examined here some day.

Issued early in the season, the baseball coins have quite a few nuances to them, not the least of which is that they merit their own checklist in the regular issue's 2nd series, the first and only time a baseball insert set was treated this way (the '69 Deckles had to share a checklist but that's not quite the same, is it?):





The coins were stamped from thin aluminum that was dyed front and back in different colors and then had a small circular border and photo added to the fronts and some brief text and vitals to the backs before the rims were rolled. They were then inserted, one per pack, into ten cent wax product and hit the streets.



If you were a kid in the summer of '71 you will never forget the distinctive sound these made in your pockets; not quite a "clink" and not really a "clank" but right in an acoustic sweet spot all their own. They also have slowly revealed patterns to their production.

The most obvious pattern is that there are three different back colors, produced in discrete groups of 51 coins. The coins from #1 - #51 have a golden color, described by some as bronze but I think that's a bit darker than these:



From #52 - #102 we have silver backs for our viewing pleasure:



The last tranche runs from #103 - #151 and is blue, baby:



Regretfully I cannot quite get the deep blue back to scan properly but the inner ring above gives a bit of a hint. My scanner is like Pat Boone in that it isn't good with metal. These groupings give insight into production of the set and indeed, it was produced on three 51 coin sheets:



These proof sheets might have been from an old Ebay auction, can't really recall. The full top one is printed on metallic looking material but it may be cardboard and not metal (can't suss it out). The bottom proof showing detail is on a more regular cardboard stock it seems and indeed there are single proofs floating around out there that seem to be from a stage between these two:





The proofs have a diameter of 1 3/4" or just a fraction larger, while the finished coins are slightly smaller at 1 7/16" no doubt due to the rolled rims. Next in the pattern parade is the interior border on the front. It's green for NL players and red for AL'ers. Here's a finished version of ol' Cleon showing green:



Here is Jim Rooker in red:



You will note the rim colors are different when compared to each other. Well, therein hangs a tale....

When I started scanning the coins for this post I looked past the interior color and focused on the rims. It turns out they are, with one exception, in a lockstep pattern that also works in the AL and NL colors. Here's a page from my album:



If they weren't arrayed four across I doubt I would have noticed it but the green and red circles alternate while the outer rims go Copper (or, bronze, if you prefer) and NL, Blue and AL, Blue and NL, Gold and AL. The only exception is #65, Ted Sizemore who exhibits a blue rim out of sequence (leftmost in the picture below):




I assume this could have a production quirk but that's just a guess, it may have just been an honest mistake. Here's a look at the other two combinations:





I am in a little bit of awe over the design and layout of the coins, as well as how Topps generally produced some other sets that do not display obvious patterns on their proof or production sheets but follow a strict order when regrouped numerically.

Other quirks in the set seem to be production related as the second tranche of 51 coins seems to have grainier photos and the last tranche has centering issues in my experience. And there is one more NL player than AL, appropriately it is Willie Mays at #153, nearing the end of a glorious run as was Topps with their golden age inserts.



Say hey!