Holy Postage Stamp Corners Batman!

Slight detour today kids. Real world issues with family and work have delayed part three of our look at the Boys of Winter for a few days but have no fear, The Batman is here!

As anyone reading this post undoubtedly knows, the 1966 ABC series Batman was a huge cultural phenomenon that rode a wave of baby boomers to the top of the kiddie TV time slot that once was 7:30 PM here in the States. Tell me you can't hear the narrator intoning the details of one evening's adventure while Neil Hefti's theme spins around when you see this:



Of course the show was huge in many other countries, one of them being England. While the show, maddeningly, is still not available on DVD, numerous card sets exist proclaiming its glories. Some have pictures from the show (or more properly, TV Movie) and others are more like the comic book. One of the latter was a 55 card set issued here (US) there (England) and everywhere (Canada, the Netherlands to name as couple more). It is referred to as the Black Bat set generally, sometimes with Orange Back added on for clarity:



As it turns out the A&BC set had a companion album, quite rare, that popped up on Ebay this week and it's a great little item:



The first page had a single slot for the card shown above:



Then a more traditional format ensued:



You will note the album was bound at the top. The back cover has a killer Bazooka Joe logo:



I am not sure if other series warranted an album; it's a topic for another day--same bat time, same bat channel!

El Cuento de un Invierno

Last time out we covered the first two Venezuelan Topps sets, which probably lulled everybody down that way into thinking these sets would be annual events. Well, there was no 1961 set, perhaps due to the uncertainties associated with expansion or maybe just because no license was issued for that year. 1960's set must have sold better than the 59's merely based upon surviving examples so it remains a bit mysterious why '61 was skipped with sales ascendant.

The hiatus allowed for a bit of a retooling as well. 1962 saw the implementation of Spanish to the backs, thus making identification a lot easier. Once again 198 cards were issued but it seems they all came out at once and since they came from the first two American series' the the darker tone wood grain fronts of the second series also were on display in the Venezuelan set. As you would expect though, some particular twists were introduced.

Here is a series 1 card of a shell-shocked looking Don Larsen, with a first series Topps card following (the bottom border missed the scan on the latter):



The Venezuelan example lacks the "punch" of the US version but the lighter grain is more pronounced as a result.

The backs tell the story in two languages when compared side by side:



You can see the background color of the stats area is much pinker on the Venezuelan card. That little blob of paper is common on '62 Venezuelans by the way; it is from the wrapper and production problems during sealing led to the back card in each pack of four having some leftover residue come along for the ride. Fronts can also display this streak.

The cards from series 2 show the darker grained wood is much richer and deeper on the US version (right, or bottom depending upon your browser and screen):



The back from South America is also pinker in tone again (same order):



I think the pinker tones look much better than the muted salmon, don't you?

The last two cards of the "second" US series, 197 and 198 were not issued (Daryl Spencer and Johnny Keane got the heave-ho); instead two Venezuelan born players, Elio Chacon and Luis Aparicio were assigned numbers 199 and 200 and imported from the US 3rd series (Chacon was #256) and 4th series (Aparicio is #325 in the Topps set). Josh's Yahoogroup writeup for this set indicates cropping differences exist between the North and South American cards for these two players. But wait-there is more to the story.

1962 was the second year Topps included checklists in their sets as numbered cards. As a way of previewing their upcoming series (which did not match the checklists and was generally off by either 22 or 11 cards), Topps started putting a checklist from that series on the sheet with the prior series cards, essentially reducing 110 card series to 109 cards as printed and 88 card series to 87 on the sheets. Therefore, the second batch print run ended at #196 in 1962 but there were almost certainly two holes created when the extra checklist was pulled from each print run in Venezuela. Hence Chacon and Aparicio appeared in a neat solution to a mundane problem.

I realize I have to finish my series on the Theories of Checklist Relativity and the Series Previews soon ad they don't cover the post 1960 period!

1964 brought major changes to the Venezuelan set as a whopping 370 cards were issued. Using the same solution as in '62, the print series of 109+87+87+87 add to 370. If there is a likely year where one style was sold to cover two seasons, my guess is it would have occurred in 1964-65 but that's only idle speculation.

An album was introduced for the Venezuelan market in 1964 as well (once again, Josh has a scan) and this was when gluing of the cards, somewhat traditional in Central and South America, started in earnest. The card stock is pretty poor in '64, gloss is a distant memory and the card sizing can vary about 1/8" from the US cards sometimes. More cards probably resulted in a slight weakening of quality control.

Here are the comparative 1964 scans, fronts V to U, then backs:



There seems to be more orange in the Venezuelan color tones, frontwise.



The Spanish has disappeared but those black backs make it easy to identify a Venezuelan issue. Loco!

Another 370 card set came out in 1966, once again without Spanish backs. Organized and sold in similar fashion to the 64's, the gloss shortage has eased just ever-so-slightly but the off sized cuts remain. Thankfully, so does the excess orange in the mix as the backs make identification easy.

Fronts, then backs, South to North each time:





Josh has the intel on other differences, so go check out his Yahoogroup for more.

Next time we'll look at one of the best baseball sets ever issued in any hemisphere or country, the 1967 Venezuelan Topps set; a three-in-one killer of an issue. Estar allí o ser cuadrado!

Los Muchachos Del Invierno

The Venezuelan Professional Baseball League was formed in January 1946 and after a four team tournament crowned the Sabios del Vargas squad champions, a split schedule format was introduced in October of that year and a regular season was played through Christmas with the top teams advancing to a tournament round (or two sometimes) in the new year. The tournament winner would then yield Venezuela's Caribbean World Series representative.

The timing of the season allowed North and Central American ballplayers to participate and the split season ensured high quality ball was played throughout the winter. Fan interest was high in Venezuela and around 1959 (more on imprecise dating to follow) Topps issued a 198 card set that followed the first two series issued in the US. Topps printed 110 cards in the first series and 88 cards in the second,so the Venezuelan version was issued in series as well.

Here is a Harry Anderson card from Venezuela with a US counterpart:



The 1959 Anderson image (as is the image below) is taken from the fabulous Topps Venezuela Yahoogroup moderated by Josh Alpert, a major collector of these babies. These are often found in quite grungy condition and are tough to find. It's hard to tell from the scans but the Topps cards have lots of gloss and richer colors; the Venezuelan cards not so much on either front. I'll not get into the vagaries of distribution and scarcity as there is a truckload of details on Josh's site (sign up required I believe) but it is worth noting a few things about the reverses.

Gray and cream backs exist, just like the Topps cards but are not as lustrous, much like the fronts are essentially gloss free; additionally while the first series Topps cards in the US were cream backed, the Venezuelan first series is a mix of both types. Here is a handy guide to the differences in the cream backs when the US and Venezuelan cards are compared:



The gray backs are compared to cream here, although they mimic the US grays:



Two different countries of origin are referenced and some cards can be found with a PRINTED IN USA line while other states IMPRESO EN VENEZUELA POR BENCO C.A. Here is a closeup of the latter:



The team cards show no country of origin for some reason. It gets worse too; the team cards issued in Venezuala had numerical checklists on their backs and would take the set count past 198, which must have been confusing to the local kids.

Again, go to Josh's site for many, many more details.

1960 saw another Topps set converted for Venezuelan use, again with two series issued. Here is one now on the left (or top, depending upon your browser), vs. a vibrant US card on the right, or bottom if your screen is small. Compare the yellows in the names:



These are all mine now; I pickled up almost a full run at the National. The backs are duller than the US reverses, same order as before left to right, or top to bottom:



First series Venezuelan's from '60 are all gray backed while the US versions are all white. Second series cards are harder to ID and I'll not steal Josh's thunder but again direct you to his site. There is no Venezuelan production note this year but the Topps USA production is noted on some cards. Second series cards cards can look very, very similar to their US cousins. It's crazy I tell you! 1960's are easier to find when compared to the prior year.

We will get into the next batch of Venezuelan cards in a few days as the years resemble a kangaroo straight: 62-64-66. However, as noted dealer John Rumierz (my source for these cards) told me, the split season may have taken advantage of say, a 1960 style card being issued in the fall of 1959 or winter of 1960 so the issue date of some cards as identified by the front style is not a 100% certainty.

Trust me, it gets more confusing as we proceed!

Gonna Catch The First Thing Smokin'

A Muddy Waters song and this blog do not often cross paths unless I have Itunes playing as I type. The title above is from "Rollin' Stone" a 1948 composition by Muddy and, as well documented pretty much anywhere you may care to look, is the song which gave the Rolling Stones their name. I must confess to being a bigger Muddy fan; I like the Brian Jones and Mick Taylor era Stones, especially the latter part of the 60's but the lengthy Ron Wood years leave me flat, although his work with The Faces was aces.

In '48 Muddy was really starting to take off in Chicago, although the non-African American community would not really hear of him for a good decade more. Having gone electric a couple of years earlier, Muddy was cresting toward a creative peak starting about late 1951 that he would ride through the decade and beyond. Don't believe me? Check out this spjne tingler with Junior Wells on Harmonica circa 1952.

No worries, I have not switched to a musical format!

In 1965, after having massive success with their Beatles trading cards, A&BC Gum, which was Topps' UK licensee but also created their own sets, issued a 40 card set of The Rolling Stones that seems like it should have been solid gold. However, the cards either were not marketed properly or simply did not sell and while not truly scarce are now reasonably difficult to track down. Nigel, over at his English Football site, believes the cards were a test issue and distributed to a select group of 20 stores in South London and South Wales to see how things would go.

I would think the Stones fans overall were slightly older than those of the Beatles and that may explain the lack of success as they had passed the "event horizon" for this set. Whatever the reason, David Halpen (another Anglophile collector) believes the cards were sold in South Wales on a limited basis. Here is David's image of a wrapper that held three cards, sort of the British version of a penny pack:



Only a handful of these wrappers exist in the wild apparently. You will see the cards sold for two Pence ("d" for denarius is how that is shown) and I think that was around a penny and a half US at the time, using 2.8 dollars per Pound, with 240 Pence to the Pound). This was all prior to decimal day in 1971!

The cards are really sharp with excellent photography, although why Bill Wyman posed with a cactus is beyond me on this scan of David's:



Backs are sparse, as was common at the time with the entertainment sets of both Topps and A&BC and give no clue as to subject matter beyond the basics (not the same card by the way):



Too bad they are so hard to find; they are very collectible.

Tattoo Beat

Didn't think I would be able to post anything on tattoos again any time soon but a bunch of Ebay auctions featuring some very distressed 1960 OPC Football Tattoos has changed things. In addition to the 1960 Baseball Tattoos Topps/OPC issued a companion set featuring NFL players and logos of pro and college teams, together with the usual generic tattoos.

There are only ten known NFL players in the Topps set: Walt Anderson, Jimmy Brown, Rick Casares, Howard Cassady, Frank Gifford, Paul Hornung, Bobby Layne, Y.A. Tittle, Johnny Unitas and Bill Wade.

Logos and generic plays dominate but to what degree it is hard to say as a complete checklist of this set is elusive. At least 76 tattoos are known but only ten logos from the NFL have been identified, when 13 teams plied the gridiron that season so the checklists that are out there may be incomplete.

Forgive the rough scans but these show some OPC tattoos; Topps had their own set that would have been identical save for the small line of type identifying the manufacturer and country of origin:



Fortunately a better scan exists of an unopened pack:



It looks like Elroy Jetson, no? Wonder if the cartoon stole the look? Here is a player tattoo:



And wonder of wonders, a strip of four:



These are far harder to find that the Baseball version and any additions to the set count in the Beckett Football Guide are welcomed.

Here's To You, Mrs. Rockfeld

Much to my surprise, a gaggle of the 1970 Topps Teamates cards (aka Grow Power) showed up as BIN's on Ebay recently. While the condition was low and the prices high, four additional cards can now be revealed. Leading off with card # 1 we have the bean counters from Accounting & Budget:




Card No. 2 is a solo act; call it a rookie card even. Anne Rockfeld, here's to you!




Coming in at #5, Credit:




Very important to Topps, Marketing Management comes along at #12:




We now have one-third of the fronts checklisted and five of the backs. Your intrepid blogmaster will keep scouring the dustbins of the internet for more of these.

Album Oriented (W)rap

A football and hockey connection by way of Canada has now been found to the previously-posted-about Topps Hobby Card Album. "Found" is perhaps the wrong word; basically I just noticed this!

The 1960 Topps NFL Wrapper provides the first clue in this scan I nicked from Ebay:



If you look at the detail, you can see that you needed 35 cents and five Bazooka or Blony wrappers to a Brooklyn address to obtain an album:



So this was a premium from a Topps retail product that required wrappers from another product for fulfillment. This also explains the Blony connection to the album. The other panel from the wrapper has both US manufacturing and Canadian distribution (via O-Pee-Chee) information, so Topps was distributing the 1960 NFL cards in Canada as well.

It gets interesting from here on out though as Topps also issued a CFL set in Canada in 1960 with a similar wrapper as compared to the US version :





(Images taken from Collecting Canadian Football by Andy Malycky, well worth ordering -and quickly at that- if you are at all interested in CFL cards)

In Canada only Bazooka wrappers would work. as I believe Bozo brand bubblegum and not Blony was the second brand in Canada. Note the London, Ontario address for premium purposes.

Once football season ended, hockey fans could also get in on the fun:



(Image taken from Bobby Burrell's Vintage Hockey Collector Guide, still for my money the best visual trading card guide ever published).

If you click the hockey wrapper you will see the cards were imported into Canada from the US (as was the custom at the time) and and the Ontario address is still indicated as the place where your Bazooka wrappers could be sent.

We have a 1960-61 time frame potentially for production of the album but Topps was sending them from a St. Paul, Minnesota address later on so the supply clearly exceeded demand for many years.

I will be on the prowl for more Hobby Card Album ads and post my findings here as appropriate. I also want to get a timeline going for Brooklyn, St. Paul and Westbury NY (70's) premium distribution addresses.