Orange Sunshine Days

A neat little sell sheet popped up in my feed last month for 1962 Topps Stamp Gum or, as some guides and hobbyists like to call it, Famous Americans.  This 80 stamp set has always been a bit of a headscratcher to me.  After issuing large sets of Baseball Stamps in 1961 and 1962, both of which were pack inserts with the regular issue Baseball cards each season and then paired with standalone albums that sold for a dime, no album was ever created for Famous Americans. This has always seemed very strange to me but maybe those standalone albums didn't sell too well and Topps decided to take a different tack.

Here is the sell sheet, which is pretty detailed:

Maybe the hobby nomenclature should be Great Americans but I digress. Note the text indicates an album was never contemplated but also the weird numerical code running up from the bottom on the right edge:

That's either C46ZM10  or C462M10 and I'm not sure I've seen anything like that on sell sheets of this era.  It predates any commodity code system I'm aware of by about four years but it could just be a reference to the print order for the sheet. However, a smaller and more stamp-themed sheet exists and also has the exact same code:

So I'm really wondering that really is  some kind of primordial commodity code.

My additional interest in the set today has less to do with the subjects therein, which I admit can be interesting...

...but rather has more to do with the gum itself, which was orange flavored. Topps seems to have been experimenting in earnest with different artificial fruit flavors around this time:

Topps would use fruit flavors increasingly often as the Sixties wore on but usually as a standalone confectionery product. While Bazooka and (especially) Bozo offered orange bubble gum over the years, the next time they offered a sports-themed ride along was in packs of  "Sports Gum"  in 1981, with Thirst Break:

Each of those soft pieces had its own comic wrap:

As you can see, 56 of those Sports Facts comics were included in a set that was tested and then apparently discontinued due to lack of sales.  Gatorade had an orange sports gum product at this point that was readily available (and quite tasty) so I assume Topps was trying to copy their success.

The Thirst Break box bottom offers an object lesson in Topps commodity codes.  You can see on the comic the code ends in -0, which signifies 1980 in this case.  But the box, which also has a -0 code, is copyright 1981:

Here, 1980 is the year of product conception and that code means Topps started tracking specific costs associated with it in that calendar year.  With that 1981 copyright, this is a great example of how a product's year of issue can fall after the commodity code date. The code on the overwrap is in a format I've not seen previously, so some further cracking seems to be in order.

Sports Facts are not that easy to find and often found in rough shape, with product staining almost a given. I doubt they will ever be widely collected but it's a set loaded with Hall-of-Famers from various sports and a bit of an under the radar Topps collectible.

Riddle Me This

Following their move to Duryea, PA in the winter of 1966 and subsequent period of settling in, Topps started toying with the use of what are usually referred to as commodity or production codes toward the end of that year. These codes, documented, in a way, the vast majority of their output for decades thereafter.  I've shown and tried to explain these here several times - perhaps haphazardly - in the past but today I'm trying to sift through the origins of these little strings of numbers, which as we all know, generally followed this kind of pattern (example taken from 1972 Baseball): 0-401-90-01-2.

Here's a closeup of the code:

The first digit represents the medium (wrapper, box, sheet) and the second two the product number (which also covered pure confectionery products, somewhat reset every year and is loosely tied to the chronological order of release within that year as well). Sometimes the code for a product issued series-by-series could slightly change. The third set of digits is for the packaging format code, while the fourth batch represents an iteration number, documenting meaningful changes in some aspect of the release such as revised retail box or pack artwork. The last, single, digit is often said to represent the year of conception but that's not entirely true. This often does tie to the year of conception (and 95% of the time, release) and can never represent a date after the release year but sometimes (there's that 5%) can signify the one before. So a set with a final digit of -2 could have been released in 1973 but not 1971.Worth noting, the annual Baseball sets have this number matching the season of release, presumably tying to some form of contractual wording with the specific league and/or player's union regarding payment of royalties.  

As mentioned, thanks to another superb sussing out by Friend o'the Archive by Lonnie Cummins, this use of the commodity codes is well known in the hobby but does not match the packing date codes stamped on each shipping carton (the solution to which can be found here). So, the commodity code  represents an internal green light for production as it ultimately details a "Bill of Materials" code. This was assigned and authprized by the Topps Bill of Materials manager, who (possibly) oversaw and (definitely) coordinated with such disparate departments such as Manufacturing, Engineering and Shipping but also had to dovetail with others such as Woody Gelman's New Products and Ben Solomon's Art Departments.  In essence, the code was assigned when a project intended for full release was formally started and the costs associated with producing and distributing said product needed to be tracked, all of this happening once the BOM Manager gave it the thumbs up.

Some exceptions did occur. Test issues from some time in 1966 until 1973 or so were not always tracked via any kind of numbering system found on the issued boxes or wrappers.  After that, Topps began using using a much shorter T code for tests. In addition, most products that were imported from abroad, such as some of the metal pin issues, and merely repackaged (and sometimes rebranded) and then sold as a Topps release (i.e. not manufactured by Topps but merely distributed instead) had no codes at all. That simply meant these projects were tracked internally via some other system. Products that contained an insert, which was another 95% situation, did not have a separate code for them, although a handful of times even that was not the case.

Of utmost interest are the annual sports releases, primarily baseball, where, as noted above, the BOM code date matches the intended season of issue. This does not always apply to some of the myriad baseball test issues roughly running from 1967 to 1971; some of those have a BOM code that predates the year of issue. A non-recurring project, such as sets timed to Valentine's Day, would usually have a code also signifying the year prior to issue, as it took several months for most of these to be prepared, tested and then tweaked for general release.

I've tried to track down the start of these codes and it seems like they all may have started with the Batman Color Photo (aka Bat Laffs set):

 Check out this box bottom:

That's 454-06-1 snaking up from the bottom right corner.  The expected prefix indicator digit is missing, and it's unclear what 06 refers to (probably not the year, as we shall soon see). That trailing -1 could be the iteration number, in this case the first iteration. 

As for the wrappers, no code was imprinted on them. However, a revised box was used to sell the Riddler Back cards:

That's pretty much the greatest Topps box art ever! The bottom of some didn't have a code though, although to be fair it was a generic box bottom used that year for several releases:

There is a catch though-some of the Riddler Back box bottoms did show a code: 444-06-1-6

Throwing me a little, however is this wrapper for the Riddler Backs:

That code reads: 444-01-1-6.  This somewhat matches up with the cello box code for the series...

(Courtesy Lonnie Cummins)

... which reads 444-046-1-6. So that's not quite there yet.  By the way, there was a special Rak Pak header created for Bat Laffs:

The Riddler Backs also got one, a sure sign Topps was making bank on Batmania;  it's also a thing of beauty:

The green header has no coding but the yellow one does:  444-029-1-6. It seems like -029 could refer to the pricing; not sure if that a coincidence or not.

At least two other sets with non-conforming codes were issued in 1966:

Green Hornet Stickers
Display Box:    466-06-1-6
Wrapper:          466-01-1-6

Lost In Space
Shipping Case: 470-10-1-6

Topps seems to have fumbled around a bit in '66 looking for a consistent code but they nailed it pretty quickly. By the time Rat Patrol came around the system was set:

That code?  It reads:

The codes were also assigned to pure confectionery products so they are hard to fully track but Rat Patrol has to be one of the earliest ones to use the familiar cadence.

There's a lot more to unpack with these codes (and all the myriad others) but that's the 101/102 Level looksee.

Mystery Dating

Mile High Auctions recently featured a very scarce pack from either 1967 or '68 and while not quite a unicorn, it's pretty close.  I've posted here previously (click the 1967 Topps Baseball Punch-Out labels for more) about the 1967 Topps Baseball Punch-Outs  which were mostly sold in long cello packs containing two three card panels, a most unwieldy format:

Gotta love the ingenuity, although it seems to have been a limited release--not a test--but seemingly only issued in a few regions-one was around Baltimore, so these may have been printed by a specialty lithographer down there.

The commodity code reads 0-485-51-01-7. These codes commenced in the Spring of 1966, as Topps moved production to Duryea, PA while the top brass and non-production staff remained in Brooklyn and allowed tracking of the various product and components of same. Lonnie Cummins has decoded a good portion of what these strings of numbers mean (see The Wrapper issues #316 & 317 for a very detailed look) and using his method, we can decipher some of this:

0 represents the specific media, in this case the Wrapper

485 is the Product Line/Stock Number, which can be tricky.  These can be inconsistent within a specific issue that was issued over a long period of time (often in series) and would often be reused in later years for different products.  The first digit usually signifies the product line, with a 0 for a candy or gum issue (1 is used here instead for some sets). Generally a 4 is for Entertainment Cards, which includes Sports Cards, but oddball sets (and some regular ones) don't always follow the pattern and it's not clear why.  My own take is that it may represent which group within Topps was responsible for the set but I am not real solid on that. The last two digits are the project number, which reset every calendar year and was assigned once Topps brass gave the go ahead for a particular set or product.

51 is the Format, or Style and is thought by Lonnie to relate to the printing and/or packaging process, possibly even detailing the machinery used to wrap the packs.

01 is the revision number and starts at these two digits.  This means the first iteration.

7 is for the last digit of the year of conception (and likely copyright).  For the period of 1966-68-ish it's not uncommon for a test or oddball product to be issued the year after this digit indicates (or even later in a couple of cases).

Look, a code!

That reads: 1-485-35-01-7 and means:

Display Box-Entertainment/Sports Stock #-Format Code (unknown)-First issue (no revision)-approved 1967.

Now, here is where it gets intriguing.  I have long thought that the set was first issued in the above cello livery and then reissued in wax the following year after it was revised to remove some retired a handful of players that changed leagues or retired after the 1966 season (and seemingly Bob Gibson as well) but I think I got it backwards. Check out this sucker from Mile High:

The back tells the tale, as (almost) always:

The stock number is quite a bit earlier than 485, while the format number is not really decipherable it is different than 51 and this is a second revision wrapper, which is looking like it came out in 1967.

A proof for the wax box exists and it's dated (in pen, with illegible commodity number) on March 7, 1967

Given the sixteen product gap between issues I now think both versions came out in 1967 as the Topps stock numbers go into the 90's that year. The timing of the wax wrapped Punch-Outs looks like Spring Training or just after, then once the roster moves could be processed, the cello timing looks like mid-season.

I believe this is the only Topps set issued in this super elongated cello format. The wax likely held two "cards" as you need that many to play the game.  The auction listing stated the wax packs were not issued but I disagree as we are looking at a second revision wax pack. Maybe there wasn't enough profit there, or it was the test version but some escaped in wax and while the set is tough, there are enough out there that the extant subjects are slightly beyond normal test issue territory. The PSA pop report is sparse, which seemingly contradicts this, but a lot of the surviving cards have been "popped" and not graded.