3DBB Meets 2FB

OK, it appears I managed to completely miss a truly epic Topps 3D prototype in the latest Huggins & Scott auction. Forgive me for repeating myself a bit here but what I believe to be a third example of the ultra-rare Brooks Robinson prototype was gaveled recently and it's a sight to behold:

Looks like Brooksie has a mouthful of crease, no?  There is also a scuff running at 45 degree downward angle from the E in Orioles toward the right border plus a dog eared lower left corner and a few other assorted scrapes and bruises.  The SGC 20 grade certainly appears accurate. I think the dog ear is the easiest was to ID this particular example:

To refresh your collective memories, here are the other two Robinson prototypes, the first an SCG AUTH and the second an example that was probably the first one to be seen:

 

The AUTH example at top is the cleanest of the three while the one at the bottom has a wavy little crack going through the La nd E of Orioles.  The back is known for the AUTH version and is clean but with a lot of foxing, just like the Dog Ear version, which I will show here:

The AUTH back is here and it's a little cleaner:

The Wavy prototype's back is unknown, which is important since there is at least one out there with a Xograph stamped back as shown in The Standard Catalog:

I can't tell if that is the same card as the Wavy one, so it's unclear if three or four examples are now known. I'm going to name them now:

1) Wavy

2) Clean (The SGC AUTH)

3) Dog Ear

4) Stamped Back* (asterisk as it could be the same as #1 but I don't necessarily think so).

In addition to the soccer card prototype previously discussed here, there are two other prototypes from the world of Football, albeit American style.  Friend o'the Archive Mike Blaisdell has sent along a couple of righteous scans, the first of Bart Starr and the second of Tucker Frederickson, which would date from around the 1967-68 era I think:

I'm not sure on sizing but Starr seems more square than ol' Tucker (who in turn appears handcut).  Keith Olbermann's authoritative article on the 3D cards in an SCD article dated March 23, 2007 does not mention the two cards of Starr and Frederickson but does mention the Cane (soccer) prototype.  Frederiskon is in an SGC AUTH holder so the registry over there should hold some additional information. I wonder if more are out there waiting to be found?

Ripple Effect

Spring is in the air and we all know what that means-REA's annual auction has blasted off and as always presents many wondrous things to bid and behold.  As longtime readers of this blog know, REA has long been a honey hole of Topps test issues and this time around there is a really neat piece that is related to the prototype 3-D cards used to develop 1968's 3-D Baseball.

There is a well known Brooks Robinson prototype card that you can see in the links linked above but Xograph/Visual Panographics also created a Football (Soccer) prototype that is equally as rare:

Love that team font!  The player depicted is actually a Brazilian named Jarbas Faustinho who player for Napoli from 1962-63 through 1968-69 before departing for three years. The back is blank but stamped in similar fashion to may baseball 3-D's:

Compare that to the stamps on the baseball versions (which are pre-production and not a prototype like the Robinson, which is unstamped):

As you can plainly see, the stamp is contained within the dimensions of the baseball version but not so on the soccer card.  Ergo, it must be a tad tinier but I'm not so sure. It also appears that the back of the soccer card uses a font made  up of dots, possibly from a dot matrix printer, while the blurriness of the baseball example above looks like a true rubber stamp was used.

It's a neat piece and like the Robinson prototype the number of extant examples can surely be counted on one hand.  Both the Robinson prototype and this card are said to come from an old Xograph employee so it looks some examples were returned to them after all!

Sheer Strength

I finally got around to securing a solid scan from the Huggins & Scott site of the 1968 Topps 3D Prototype card of Brooks Robinson, thanks to an intervention from friend o'the archive Neal Kane.  The card sold for $27,500 without factoring in the buyer's premium and frankly I think it went a bit low, a sentiment echoed by a lot of other folks.  Still, almost $30K for a baseball card is pretty impressive!  Here is a real clear view of Brooksie:

The scans help clear up a little mystery I was poking around last time I posted on this card. It appeared the back was so sheer that it was either skinned or very transparent.  However, after seeing the catalog pictures and examining the back scan, it appears the harsh lighting at the National really allowed the card to seem like less than it was:

There is some foxing, especially along the bottom but the back looks pretty white.  I also took a closer look at the example shown in the Standard Catalog, as detailed here, and I think it is uncracked, meaning there are at least three examples out there.

In case you missed it, Jon over at the always excellent Fleer Sticker blog found the original source photo, which is as common as the prototype is rare.  Click on through to see.

Back & Forth

I've had a little bit of time to do some more digging on the 1968 Topps 3-D prototype card of Brooks Robinson, discussed most recently here.  Of note, Friend O'the Archive Ted Boyd has advised that the type of Orioles patch on Brooksie's sleeve dates the photo to 1962 or earlier. This is not an unheard of date spread for Topps.  My guess is that the prototype was originally developed in the winter of 1966-67, a period where Topps was focusing intently on non-traditional products, so that's a 4 or 5 year gap between photo and production.

A digital photo of the back, courtesy of Josh Alpert, showing the Huggins & Scott prototype proves it is very sheer:

It almost seems like the back was skinned off but it's probably just a different material than the backing of an issued 3-D card.  More than one material may have been tested or pitched to Topps. Here is the front again, in another photo provided by Josh:

The above example is the uncracked one, of course. The material of the card with the crack is unknown at present, although I am working on finding out its composition.  However, there may b ea third example out there and it's one that helps tie the cards in to Xograph, producers of the 3-D cards that actually amde it into packs. Bob Lemke alerted me to the fact a picture of a version with a stamped reverse is shown in the 2011 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards.  Sure enough, it is:

It's a little faint but you can see the word XOGRAPH stamped atop some wording similar to that found on the back of some later production proofs.  It's also hard to see but I don't think that is the cracked version of the card, which I recall had a Beckett connection and would not necessarily have been in the competing Standard Catalog. Rob Lifson of Robert Edward Auctions also passed along his opinion as to provenance:

I have never had this card myself but have seen images and heard of it. I think the description as a prototype for 1968 Topps 3D sounds reasonable, and that description carries a very broad brush. Xograph in Texas produced the 1968 Topps 3Ds for Topps and it is likely they made prototypes prior to their small production run. It is speculative, but it certainly seems reasonable that this is what this card is. The fact that the photo is earlier would not preclude them from using it in 1967 or 1968, so that all alone wouldn’t bother me. I’d like to know the provenance, as I’m sure that would answer all the questions, but my best guess is that this really was produced by Xograph (I don’t know if they were the only ones producing this “3D’ product at the time, or just the only one producing cards – if they were the only ones offering this product due to technology patents etc that could probably be looked up and if that is the case would also be extremely supportive). Whatever it is, it does not appear to be intended to be a finished product at all (and that is why there is no Xograph company attribution; even the 1968 Topps 3D cards say Xograph, not Topps, except when hand ink stamped on reverse identifying them as samples). The borders on Robinson look fairly narrow and of course the corners are square. I wonder if this is even machine cut (I can’t tell from the image but if it is not machine cut that would also be consistent with it being a prototype.

The projection on the Standard Catalog card matches the cracked one, i.e. "Nessie" does not have a tail (see my prior posts for this part of discussion).  I plan to revisit the projection comparisons at some point but will wait a little bit until I can obtain higher resolution scans, hopefully once Huggins & Scott gets their auction up.

All of this means that there are potentially three versions of the card:

1) Cracked
2) Standard Catalog
3) Huggins & Scott

where 3) is a distinct variation from 1), with 2)'s category presently unattributable.

That's (Proto) Typical

I am really sorry to have missed this year's National in Chicago.  I went to Baltimore last year and had a blast, visiting in person with online buddies I had never met before and wandering the convention hall in search of various treasures.  There are so many great cards on display it's hard to suck it all in.

This year one of the true rarities being showcased is something previously looked at here, a 1968 Topps 3-D prototype of Brooks Robinson, which Huggins & Scott will be auctioning soon.  I was lucky enough to receive an iPhone photo of it from Friend O'the Archive Josh Adams and after a close look-see, I believe it is a second example of this elusive card.

Produced as a prototype for what became the '68 3-D set, the Robinson card looks something like an inverted '67 regular issue card.  I'll show the previously known copy first and then the new one. Ignore the brightness as I have no idea of the camera or scan settings used originally.

In addition to the crack that's on the previously known example (it runs at a 45 degree angle between the O and L before cutting horizontally across the L and into the middle of the E, then turns 45 degrees again and exits onto the right border parallel to the brim on Brooksie's batting helmet), there are some cropping differences.  The most noticeable ones are the distance between the bottom of his belt buckle and the bottom edge of the card (there's more, uh, length on the newly found version) and the little blob to the left of the bat just below where the label would be if you could see it.

Rather than give you a couple of crotch shots, I'll show the blob, which I have christened Nessie, for reasons that will soon be clear:

Looks like the Loch Ness Monster, right? That's from the version with the crack. The outside border on this card is thin in the scan but it's there. Now check out the other card's Nessie:

It's grown a tail, stretching left to the border!  There are other cropping differences as well but I don't have high-res versions of either card and they are hard to show here.

I am hoping for a back scan to make its way here, it may have some more information on it.  Wish I was there to see it in person!

Baseball In Three Dimensions

Maybe it's because the regular 1968 baseball set was so drab or because some of them were still circulating in my neighborhood a year later (the first year I bought Topps cards) but for some reason the inserts and test issues from '68 have always grabbed my attention. From Discs to Action All Star Stickers to Game Cards to Plaks, it's my favorite year of Topps oddness. And there is no set I like better than the 1968 3-D cards.

Now the fact that I like them does not mean I have a stellar collection of them. I only have one, purchased in 2004 for a price I still can't believe, in an Ebay auction that everyone else apparently forgot to bid in. I thought at the time the Maloney was common (one version of it is) and that I had bought a kid-damaged card but as we shall see, it ain't necessarily so. Here is my Maloney (No Dugout background)-note the cloudy area by his throwing hand and the two vertical slash marks, or notches, on the lower left (likely "pull" marks from the production process), both of which we will revisit in a minute:



Every other scan is this article is not mine and I must confess I do not know the source for most as I have been tracking this set for a very long time and have hijacked many images along the way. Now, for some history first.

The '68 3D's are lenticular cards, which means they have an image that changes or moves depending upon the viewing angle. They use linier technology (linier is not a typo, it essentially means "wrinkled") to give the illusion of movement by printing a meld of finely interlaced images on the underside of a clear, ribbed plastic coating, and affixed to a backing image. The process was perfected by Vari-Vue Corporation in the 1940's and there are hundreds of examples of lenticular items available from their roughly twenty year heyday. The 1968 Topps 3D cards use a stereoscopic verson of this technology.

The available information is confusing but it seems Vari-Vue technology was at some point in the mid 60's licensed to Cowles Communications (Look Magazine) which somehow came up with a similar technology called Visual Panographics (also made into the name of a Cowles subsidiary) which seems to be more adaptable to wide field images. I bring all this up for a reason.


If you look closely at Maloney, alongside the leftmost "gash" you will see the word Xograph:



As it turns out, this is a trade name for a lithographed lenticular print made by Visual Panagraphics that identifies who produced the 3D cards for Topps. Xograph can also be identified as the producer of early Kellogg's cards. At some point in the mid 70's the Xograph notation on Kellogg's cards changed to Visual Panographics, in case you were wondering, and the company was later known as Optigraphics, which I believe produced Sportflics cards in the mid 80's.

Before you can print up a premium card set (and that's what these were intended to be) you first need to create a proof version. Only one of these is known and it looks like an upside down '67 Topps card in a way:



The Robinson is said to measure 2 1/4" x 3 1/4" which is slightly shorter than the issued version, which had 1/4" of height on ol' Brooks.

In a masterful article written for Sports Collectors Digest (March 23, 2007 - unfortunately not online) and followup on January 8, 2008, Keith Olbermann revealed a lot of previously unknown information about the 3D's, including the existence of a card showing a soccer player (from Napoli) described as similar to the Robinson but showing the name "Cane" in the upper left corner. This (I speculate) was likely a sales tool, created by Xograph/Visual Panographics to show lenticular technology to Topps executives and the image was probably taken from the Look magazine archives.

A number of proofs have shown up over the years. Here we see two uncut panels of nine cards each, including some mingled unissued players strangely missing any identifying information :





The three unissued players are Rick Monday and John O'Donoghue on the top panel and Tommy Davis with a different O'Donoghue on the bottom one. These are shown here with their rounded corners, indicating they almost made the final cut or perhaps were to have a back identifier (a common Topps trick at the time) instead of cluttering up the front:



Square cornered proofs also exist, regrettably I do not have any scans of them except this Clemente:



I am not sure if all square proofs are handcut like "Bob" is.

Before we proceed any further, here is the checklist of the twelve issued players:

Clemente, Bob
Davis, Willie
Fairly, Ron
Flood, Curt
Maloney, Jim
Perez, Tony
Powell, Boog
Robinson, Bill
Staub, Rusty
Stottlemyre, Mel
Swoboda, Ron



There is much, much more to it though. Early production pieces, almost certainly proofs, exist with a rubber stamp on back in either red or black ink:



Frontal variations also exist of almost half of the issued cards (excepting Clemente, Lonborg, Bill Robinson, Stottlemyre and Swoboda).

Fairly can be found with his hat either touching or not touching his last name above; Flood has a bald fan either in or removed from the background; Maloney features box seats or not (No Dugout which always seems to feature the two notches) and you can see on the above proof sheets both versions are present; Powell is either braining a fan or missing him with his bat, Willie Davis has or is missing the Xograph name and black around the team name circle and Staub has a clear or blurry background. All but Willie Davis seemingly come with each variety of backs (blank, red stamp, black stamp).

While the Olbermann article is missing the Perez cards in the checklist for some reason, it lists 53 different possible variations/combinations. (not counting the Brooks Robinson prototype). As his followup article on frontal variations does not include a mention of Perez but mentions the three different backs, I'm assuming there are at least four, if not six versions possible of Tony (there is a known variation with another player in background on either his left or right, then the blank back, red stamp, black stamp varieties, thereby bringing a master set to 57 or 59 cards depending on the Perez combinations, 60 if you count Brooks Robinson. That's a lot for a set with a mere dozen issued cards!

There are also some apparent short prints. Powell is widely recognized as the toughest, allegedly due to production problems, Staub is thought to be difficult, as are Flood and Stottlemyre and possibly the Maloney "No Dugout" variation, potentially pulled by Topps due to the notching. Recent sales figures indicate Perez may be scarcer than some others as well.

The cards came two to a pack (test version only it seems) with an insert:



As for the insert, a Rob Lifson ad from January 31, 1986 lists for sale (along with a wrapper) an "unpunched stand up insert which came in each pack". I call this an easel but have never seen one and that Lifson ad is the only extant reference I can find. These cards were meant to be proudly displayed by their owners! UPDATE 11/1/08: The Easel has been located, see end of post.

There also allegedly exists a salesman's ring with a rounded picture of Sam McDowell (or more likely O'Donoghue) but I have no idea if that is real or not.

It appears the cards were only sold near Topps headquarters in Brooklyn. While a proof box exists, it is far from certain the packs were sold in it as the possibility is there that the cards were "sold off" instead of tested due to high production costs and quality control issues.



The box shows a five cent price but I have always labored under the impression a pack cost a dime.

I hate discussing prices but before you get any crazy ideas, most of these cards routinely sell for four figures, with Clemente easily in five figure range. If you want an example or two, shoot for the Bill Robinson, Maloney with dugout or Jim Lonborg in mid grade for high three figures. They are out there but a lot of collectors go after them, keeping prices sky high.

UPDATE 11/1/08-Rob Lifson was kind enough to send a scan of the easel: