Blony At The Malt Shop?

After Bazooka Joe, the next most iconic character Topps memorialized in comic form would have to be Archie Andrews (with apologies to Henry).  As a result of their early 1956 acquisition of Bowman, Topps inherited the Blony bubble gum brand. Blony had been a major brand for Bowman and must have had its adherents for Topps to keep it around.  Instead of cross promoting Bazooka Joe And His Gang, Topps went with two series of Archie And His Pals comics instead in 1957-58.

I only own one of these (1 '57) and they are far, far less abundant than Bazooka Joe's of the period:

That comic measures 2 13/16" x 3 5/8", it's a big boy!  The code reads 1A-57-25.  Here's another, just on eBay (which I missed), same series but #38:

I would surmise then that there are 42 in the series, that being a common number for the Bazooka Joe runs. Betty also got some face time and I'm sure Veronica, Jughead and mean ol' Reggie did too:

She's also a '57 but I can't make out the number.  I believe the below style was from '58 as it is slightly smaller (not mine, from eBay) but am not 100% sure as I can't make out any code:

A nice foldup Bazooka-Blony premium catalog also came out around this time.  This one from the 'bay  is red but I have a blue one as well. It's definitely from 1958 or later as "The Atom" is no longer on the Bazooka tab.  The blue catalog seems to be a year older than this one as a different Blony design was used. Here's red, then an extract of my blue:

This blue version extract does not mention Blony in the text above the gum tab illustrations.  Weird.

A code (which I can't decipher) has been added as well. BFF o'the Archive Jeff Shepherd is not positive the striped Blony wrapper was marketed.  I wonder instead if the flavored Blony tabs used it and the regular version kept the rainbow version seen on the red catalog.

Here's more detail from the red version.  Archie looks like a real geek:

Archie comics were advertised on at least one 1957 Topps wrapper, this one housed Isolation Booth, despite the Gee Whiz Quiz moniker::

Blony was always the poor cousin to Bazooka but it lived on at least until the 1970's, sometimes tweaked into a twist wrap, sometimes not. Later comics actually appeared on the outside of the Blony wrapper but that's a tale for another day.

Target: Moon Date

Back in 2012 I had an article appear in The Wrapper #265 that compared the vastly similar Space Cards and Target: Moon issues and attempted to date each set as the conventional hobby wisdom had them both coming out at the same time in 1957 or '58.  I was able to determine Space Cards had been issued in 1957 and Target: Moon (the blue backed edition) had come out sometime after mid-1958 due to differences in the Bazooka advertising on the wrappers. My conclusion on Target: Moon was that is had likely been issued in 1962 but that there was a possible date range of mid-1958 to mid-1963. I won't bore you with the details but you can read all about it here.

Thanks to a Target: Moon penny box proof being offered in the latest Legendary auction, another piece of the puzzle has been revealed.  This proof gives us a good look at the box bottom, which along with the indicia on many period wrappers, is often the best way to glean information about the peculiarities of certain sets.  The proof is magnificent:

I'll flip it around so you can read it but the red copyright strip on what would be the box bottom is a big clue as to possible time frame, as is the inclusion of a Blony "hint" on the back panel. The first thing to notice though is that the Bazooka gum tab shown states "Topps" and not "The Atom" on the red triangle portion, which confirms the mid 1958 or later date of issue.

Blony will be revisited in a minute but lets check out the copyright strip up close:

The address is our quarry here as it states Brooklyn 32, N.Y., which is proper since it should predate the use of ZIP codes which came into use on July 1, 1963. The colored bar of copyright, and manufacturing information first saw use by Topps in 1955 and stopped in 1963.  Here are some other box bottoms for comparison.  First 1957 Baseball:

An exact match (not always the case). Here is a 1962 Baseball Bucks box:

It's blurry but there is a "32" postal designation in the color bar.  By 1963 the color bar was gone as a new style was introduced but the "32" was still there, at least in the beginning of the year as this 1963 Baseball box shows:

1963's Beverly Hillbillies was similar to the above:

Not all issues follow these patterns.  There is a 1961 Baseball box with no color bar and no "32" and some 1964 Baseball boxes have no indicia on the bottom at all (possibly due to the ZIP code changeover) and to further confuse things a 1965 Outer Limits box still has the "32" plus a PO Box number as it identifies Topps alter-ego Bubbles, Inc. but I think you get my drift; the color bar disappears in 1963, so Target: Moon would have been issued before then.  The "32" slowly faded away and a Brooklyn, N.Y. address without it or a ZIP code followed.  Around the time of the move to Duryea in 1966 a 11232 ZIP code came into play until Brooklyn itself was banished in mid-1969 as Topps abandoned their roots for good.

Now what about that furshlugginer Blony ad? As we know, Topps acquired the brand when it bought Bowman in 1956.  I don't know when Blony ads featuring the "rainbow" bubble shown on the Target: Moon box started showing up in earnest once Topps redesigned that brand's wrapper so that's no help, although it was identified as a "twin" pack (2 pieces) in some 1957 product ads (the rainbow pack is not a twin pack I don't think). Blony continued on, spasmodically, into the 1970's but underwent another redesign in 1969.  

As of now, I am wavering on my 1962 estimated issue date for Target: Moon and hoping to develop a little more information on the Blony graphics to nail the date down better.  Jeff Shepherd has a huge amount of his collection featured in a new book about Bazooka Joe (go buy it-trust me) and he has some dating on Blony wrappers I want to think about and discuss with him. As always, readers thoughts are appreciated.

(UPDATE May 30, 2013: As usual, Shep comes through-the rainbow design on Blony was used in 1957-58  (when a major redesign occurred) while the "Topps" version of Bazooka replaced the "Atom" version in mid 1958.  So Target: Moon must have been a reissue of Space Cards a year after the original issue. This reissue was missed by the American Card Catalog compilers in the 1960 (and last) version of that guide.)

Checking In

Today will be the day you read more about unnumbered 1957 Topps Baseball Checklists than you ever thought possible.

As we know, Topps issued some unnumbered checklists with their 1956 baseball and football cards. They started seeding in contest cards as well in the football packs and then in '57, amid shrinking their cards to standard size, there was a riotous frenzy of checklists, contests and premium cards added to the packs. I'll address the contest cards in my next post as this one is going to be long enough but you can see the premium card insert here.

Still actively promoting Blony, the gum brand that came to Topps with the Bowman purchase in February of 1956, the '57 baseball checklists had ads for that brand and Bazooka as well. I have to think Blony was a still big seller for Topps, likely in the Philadelphia area, since they were going into warp drive promoting Bazooka otherwise.

First we will look at the fronts. As you can see below, there were four checklists issued covering five series in total: 1/2, 2/3, 3/4, 4/5. Each checklist covered two consecutive series as Topps continued to work in previews of what was coming next, a meme that would grow and grow in the future.









You can see the blue/red/blue/red alternating header block pattern which appears to be consistent all year long but there are also three different style fronts; only the second and fourth series obverses look close to the same and even there they swap secondary colors. By the way, all the scans in this post are either culled from Ebay, Mike Wheat Cards or 707 Sportscards.

Those first two up top have wavy or off cuts which leads me to believe the checklists were cut at high speed from vertical strips. 1957 uncut sheets have been seen and while they are the first to be made up of two 132 card half sheets - a sacrosanct array for Topps stretching across four decades) - none have been seen with checklists on them so once again these cards were pushed into the nickel wax and whatever cello packs were sold that year.

The reverses carry either Bazooka or Blony ads. Here we go with Bazooka first:









While the ads don't change, the cardboard stock seems to, although it's always hard to tell from scans. The final Fifth Series header is also in Blue, matching the color on the front designating the Fourth Series while the prior three were Red, also matching their front Series designator. There seems to be no difference between Bazooka and Blony fronts but there is some variation with the Blony backs and if you look at all of the 2/3 fronts and backs together, that series does seem to have been printed on white stock whereas the others are gray:









Even the "Twin" goes to blue for the last series! The 4/5 checklists seems to be appreciably harder to finds than those from the earlier series. I can only speculate as to how they were seeded into the packs but the 4/5's could have coincided with the scarcer semi high number (4th series) cards in '57. Notice how Big Blony appears on the first two and Twin Blony on the final two. I wonder how the rough and tumble boys of 1957 liked the "made of...sugar 'n' spice 'n' ...everything nice" line?!

In case you are into symbolic gestures, note how the 1957 set matches the 1952 with 407 subjects, and includes team cards once again but also two multi-player cards of the Yankees and Dodgers (almost a first if you discount the 1954 O'Brien twins card) plus a combo of the league presidents, a sure fire bicycle spoke candidate. The first four series in '57 have 88 cards, which means each would have been printed three times over two 132 card sheets and a final series of 55, a number which seems to lead to short prints in the Topps universe (along with 77). I'll post a 1957 Topps Baseball set overview someday that delves into this more deeply.

For some reason the 1956 checklists seem to be in greater supply than the 57's. I find this odd as the normal Topps trendline is increasing production for each successive year but maybe more 56's were simply printed. The price guides seem to price the 3/4 checklist at about double the level of the previous two but supply of all three seems pretty similar. As noted above, the 4/5 checklist is the toughest by far.

Hang tight-a look at the 1957 contest cards will be coming up right quick! Meanwhile, we'll see if any of our eagle-eyed readers can find some further checklist variations.

Tasty Blony

I've covered Bowman's Blony Bubble Gum before in these parts, mostly focusing on the multi-year Archie Comics that inner-wrapped their (by-then-Topps) gum in the late 50's, but today I'm pleased to showcase a number of their earlier comics thanks to a wealth of scans recently provided by BFF o'the Archive Jeff Shepherd.

Blony was originally marketed for the better part of the decade preceding World War 2 and was manufactured by Warren Bowman's aboriginal confectionery company Gum Inc.  He mostly or completely suspended production during the war and got things going again with the brand around 1947, at which time he had already turned his concern into Bowman Gum, Inc with a mid-war rebranding four years prior.  Blony was a big seller and had presumably included some rudimentary inner wraps with their penny tabs and/or twists prior to the war, although like many things associated with the brand, they remain hard to document. This was from a retail box end and it gives you an idea of how things were pasted up for Blony around 1952-53:

So Shep sent me scans of several dozen Blony "comics" that look to fall into the period between 1947 and the purchase of Bowman by Topps in 1956.  These are, by and large, inferior to what Bazooka was giving the kiddies as you will see.

These appear to be the earliest example in the group, which is pretty obvious given the graphics and (very helpful) numbering scheme.  I think this was from a twist wrap:

Pretty boring, I'd wager sure the kiddies didn't think much of the quiz format.  Here's a couple from a little later, check out how lame the 3rd question is on the Hidden Metals quiz in the second example:

The Wild West was a big theme but man, the production values are pretty much sub-par. Still, this seems to be where more than one spot color was introduced:

Looks like the color bleed problem went away as the series progressed.  I seem to recall Bowman offering wrapper premiums previously but don't seem to have a scan of anything offering same. 

In the below example, an older, larger example appears on the right but it's the insert on the left I'm looking at.  It's a bit of a reversion color-wise, so maybe these were produced independently to a degree but I really don't know. Note the Cincinnati address, just like Topps different locales provided premium redemptions:

Furthering the "independently produced" theory, the pencils from the above left make a reappearance:

None of these are scaled, so who knows how things actually went down but maybe twists had one style and tabs the other.

Here's that heart story, rotated:

Pretty gruesome, just the thing for the kids who were voraciously lapping up EC Comics and such!

It's plain, to me at least, that Bazooka featured much better comics and premiums but I doubt that had anything much to do with sales.  Besides, Bowman also was able to offer this in Blony's stead:

 Thanks to an opened wrapper over at Tick Tock Toys, we can get a peek at some indicia:

Hard to see but Haelan Laboratories are detailed and that became a business entity as of April 28, 1952 so Uncle Miltie was issued after that date. I suspect 1952 was indeed the year of issue as the Milton Berle Show (really Texaco Star Theatre) was peaking that year, with an average rating around 50%!

Now, all I need is a scan of the inside of that wrapper!

Full of Blony

Before your webmaster decided to go checklist-centric, he posted a while back on the 1957 Lucky Penny inserts. At the time that post was written I did not have a scan of the back of the insert card but thanks to the yeoman efforts of Doug Goodman that has changed:



I left the scan so you can see rough cut on the bottom.

Archie, Veronica & Betty were part of an effort by Topps to make the kids from Riverdale as iconic on Blony bubble gum comics as Bazooka Joe and His Gang were on their turf. In fact, in 1957-58 Blony comics featured the Archie comics gang but it would be another decade or so before Archie became a TV star and despite Topps' best efforts, Blony Gum would not last as a brand past the early 60's (save for a later attempt to market it as a twist wrap in the 70's, also a failure).

Field Guide To Dating Topps Wrappers

One of the things that drives me batty about eBay is the fact so many items are incorrectly described and dated. Sometimes this is intentional but often it is not and merely results from a lack of understanding on the part of the seller.  Misdating happens with third party graders and in catalog auctions as well but it's especially prevalent on eBay and sometimes there is not enough in the descriptions or scans to figure out what you are looking at.  So I thought a little guide to various identifiers on many Topps wrappers might be helpful. This post mostly covers wax wrappers post 1956 but some of the graphic elements discussed below can be found on Cello and Rak Paks in many instances.

GIANT SIZE ERA AND EARLIER 

Some very early Topps wrappers (and a number of retail box bottoms) carry a date and some do not; generally the earliest gum tab packs and five cent packs that held panelized issues such as Magic Photo and Fightin' Marines from 1950-52 carry a copyright date.  Here is a five cent Magic Photo pack back with a 1948 copyright in the lower right corner, courtesy of Friend o'the Archive Al Richter:

Given that there are not many wrappers from this era that can't be identified by date just from their look (and general hobby references) and the small amount of reissued sets, there's not much I can say that is helpful.  I know that sounds like a copout but it's the truth!  Still, there are some things worth knowing.

Differences in the three earliest Tatoo issues (1948, 1949, 1953) can be seen in detail here. The 1948 and 1949 series of Magic Photo each have dated penny wrappers and the 1955 penny (small) Hocus Focus cards come in a similar wrapper but carry a 1955 date. Some more on that can be found here. 1949 and 1955 Funny Foldees could have different packaging but nobody knows which is which or even if there is a difference.

The one issue that most collectors don't realize as misdated is the Doubles reissue of the 1951 Red Backs and Blue Backs, which came out in 1952.  The Doubles packs had two cards and no candy, while the original issues came in in 1951 under the Baseball Candy rubric.  No change in the cards was made but the packaging was different. Here, take a look at this Doubles box bottom showing a 1952 copyright:

There possibly was a Golden Coin reissue in 1952 (originally a 1948-49 release) that may be worth knowing about as the different Golden Coins between the two sets could exhibit some slight differences. The problem is no 1952 issue of the set has been confirmed, although it is highly likely it occurred. More information is here as to why.

World on Wheels has wrappers that reference either 1954 or 1955, the latter containing the higher (and more valuable) numbers. Have a look here.

STANDARD SIZE ERA

Topps went to a standard size of 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" for most of their releases starting with Elvis Presley in late 1956.  Dating some issues by the wrapper can be tough but for most it's not a problem as the year and cards are well known. Wrappers from 1957 to mid 1958 can be identified by two different methods.

If there is a Bazooka ad and penny piece graphic on the wrapper,the upper left red triangle of the Bazooka pack will state "The Atom" on these packs.  "The Atom" phrasing was part of the Bazooka launch in 1947 so it had a long life! From mid-1958 on Bazooka graphics will state "Topps" in the upper left triangle. Here is a Space Cards wrapper from '57 followed by a Target: Moon wrapper proof from what I now believe to be 1958 showing the different Bazooka packaging:

Here are the two Bazooka graphics, isolated:

If it's a Blony ad (a brand Topps acquired with the Bowman purchase in February 1956 and which dates back to 1930), graphics from sometime in 1957 onward have a rainbow look to them:

.

Blony would go dormant (or very, very quiet for a time) until being revived as a twist wrap product around 1968 but it was not the well-marketed product that Bazooka was.  Bowman had also marketed Blony as a twist but in more of an elongated shape (Topps' had a rounder look to theirs).

For Baseball from 1952-55 Topps did a slight modification of the font for their brand name and briefly had a premium offer on the wrapper in '52:

But by the time Baseball and All American Football arrived in '55, the logo was a blast from the past, mimicing the designs of the 30's and 40's:

Yes, that's a Canadian All-American Football wrapper!

1957 brought changes to Baseball yet again as this scan from www.sportscardradio.com shows the font losing some of it's earlier pizazz:
:

This Topps logo will appear on some but not all pack fronts from 1957 on but it morphed into something less appealing in 1958.  This 1958 and forward logo is very plain looking and is just the word "Topps" in all capital letters. Baseball and Football display this bland "Post-Sputnik" logo almost without fail but Non Sports wrappers often do not, either because licensing information appears or a controversial set might have used the Bubbles, Inc. name instead. And sometimes Topps wanted to advertise Bazooka or Blony and did not use a Topps logo (no idea why as this seems backwards). So some wrappers have no pertinent graphics on the front and the side panel must be examined for clues. Here is the "bland" logo on a 1960 Football pack:

Side panels will have the Topps (or Bubbles Inc.) address displayed in almost all instances and prior to mid-1963 ZIP codes were not used (they were introduced on July 1 of that year).  Some address lines might display the old "Brooklyn 32" style (almost all do not but I haven't seen all of them) but if there is a premium offer you will see it in the relevant text.

The 1957 and 1958 styles would be mixed and matched through the early and mid 60's Here is a 1963 Baseball wrapper that goes back to the '57 design (tight loops on the p's are the giveaway):

In this detail of the indicia, you will see there is no postal or ZIP code:

It;s a little harder to see but the premium offer on the opposite flap has a "B'klyn 32" address:

It is worth noting many (but not all) retail box bottoms from this era are dated and have similar designations as well.  The '63 Baseball box clearly shows "Brooklyn 32":

However, the use of "32" on some premium offers went well into 1965 so while a ZIP code is definitely post-1963, a two digit code is not always pre-1963! Still, as there are not too many reissues or anomalies prior to 1966, looking for the plain Topps logos will usually be enough to see what's what.

Penny packs of 1965 Baseball were produced but by the time Football came out, the practice had ended, so you can't have a one cent pack any later than 1965, except for penny tattoo issues, which were much smaller in size at this time anyway than the standard sized issues..

In 1966, roughly coincident with their move of confectionery production, packaging and warehousing facilities from Brooklyn to Duryea, Pennsylvania, Topps created a new, lower case curved "Topps" logo that was the most well known version.  1966 Baseball, the first card/gum set produced in Duryea had this new logo, although the Topps manufacturing address on the packaging would remain as Brooklyn until about the middle of 1969.

The Baseball wrapper in '66 has a weird perspective, so here's a Football that shows off the new design:

This closeup gives a really good look at the logo:

The Duryea move also brought about production codes,which helped the Topps brass back in Brooklyn keep track of each set or product being manufactured.  The majority of these codes will have the last digit representing the year of production (it is a single digit, not a double so one ending in 7 would mean 1967 on a  five cent pack).  These were not applied to all materials originally but by 1968 virtually all packs and retail boxes, not to mention other packaging, had a code.  Most times these were nine digits, with four dashes separating various groupings of numbers, all of which had meaning to Topps.  Even this scarce Baseball Plaks wrapper form 1967 (not 1968, check the last digit) has the code in the lower right corner which reads 0-490-94-01-7. Most card packaging from this time has a code starting with a zero while some non-confectionery products such as Flying Things or other more toy-like issues would use a different style of production code.

The box bottom for the packs has a little different code but the link is the 490 product code.  It starts with 1, meaning wax box I believe.  I am still trying to determine if the toys produced in Japan such as Pop Guns had their own system, so stay tuned.The full box code below for Baseball Plaks is 1-490-35-01-7:

The original curved Topps logo started out with no Trademark Registration symbol but it would show up by 1967, below and to the right of the logo normally but it was still a nickel per pack:

It's hard to make out but the registered trademark sign is below and to the right of the Topps logo.

It would move sometimes to above and to the right of the logo as on this 1970 Super Football wrapper: 

Topps filed for their new trademark on March 17, 1966 and it was "published for opposition" on March 7, 1967 with an official registration date of May 23, 1967. Topps probably banked on there being no opposition and started using it immediately on their best selling product.  Some 1967 issues have the symbol and some don't so it was a transition year.  

Five cent wax continued to be produced until late 1969 when ten cent pricing became the norm. (EDIT 7/2/16-I should have stated that certain card and sticker and sets, such as Wacky Packages and Ugly Stickers, would still be sold in 5 cent wax through at least 1976; these would often only have two stickers per pack. Some other offbeat items may also have been sold in five cent packs into the 1970's but for the most part ten cent wax was the norm from 1970 until prices went up again.). Many packs of the period have no pricing on them though, as it was shown on the retail box. Also, in mid 1969 (first on an experimental ten cent cello Baseball pack that mimicked the five cent wax) the manufacturing address finally flipped to Duryea but the changeover was sporadic during this year. By the time Football appeared in the fall, 10 cents and Duryea were the norm:

Then around 1978 Topps would occasionally add a little box around the logo, sometimes with color added, sometimes not:

The curved logo would survive until 1980-81 before it was replaced with this:

1981 Topps Baseball was the first packaging to use this new logo I believe but some products in '81 still had the curved one.

Another handy thing to know was where the premium fulfillment warehouses were located. Exterior premium offers began reappearing sporadically in 1959 after a hiatus, prior to that they had been mostly printed on pack inserts.  On '59 Baseball pack and for a few years hence on many products, the address is one of a number of PO Boxes in Brooklyn:

Depending upon what was being ordered, some differing addresses can appear but most premiums of the era were ordered from Brooklyn. Not all offers had expiration dates though. Then in 1965 St. Paul, Minn. started appearing in the premium offers, as this Beatles Color Photos wrapper shows:

But you could still get premiums from Brooklyn at this time; it seemed to depend upon the age of the premium. Older ones came out of Brooklyn while newer ones, such as the famous Exploding Battleship, came from Minnesota. Once Topps got production up and running in Duryea though and shed a lot of their Brooklyn warehouse space, St. Paul became the norm around 1967. By this time the premium fulfillment was likely exclusively contracted to third parties.

Occasionally some special offer would be struck by Topps and a random city would pop up but St. Paul would last until about 1973-74, when Westbury, NY began appearing as the mailing address (and which operation was, unbeknownst to me at the time, housed in an industrial area mere blocks from my childhood home).  You can see it on this 1974 Wacky Packages wrapper:

Westbury would remain through the end of the decade and beyond. I'll stop here as post-1981 packaging is well-documented elsewhere and my focus also ends at the end of the 70's.

As always with Topps, there are exceptions to the rule but what I have outlined above is a handy, quick guide to identifying issues where you can't fully inspect the packaging up close or only a part is visible.  At some point I will delve into the intricacies of the Production Codes but that is a truly epic project. Meanwhile, know that you can use the code (geez, I sound like Dexter Morgan) for dating --as long as it's visible-- to easily decipher Topps dates in addition to the less obvious clues on the wrappers.