A Recount Is In Order

Following the solution of the 1967 Topps Baseball Punchouts player distribution a little while back, I have been pondering from time to time the prior year's set of uber-rare Punchboard prototypes. Given how the positional array of players in 1967 was so minutely worked out before fate intervened in the form of some interleague trades, it occured to me that 1966 might exhibit the same characteristics.

To refresh your memory, the 66's looked like this:




Each two player panel had nubs at various points, showing where they were attached to each other just before being separated at the factory. You can see two above Roseboro if you look closely. I did an analysis of these based upon the location of the nubs on each card and came up with a basic array that looked like this for the 14 known cards:



Those 5 in the lower right could be picking up some that should have been in the upper left corner (inverted, in other words) , which I noted in my original post. I suspect now that was the case as no other position has more than three cards showing. Let's come back to that momentarily.

The positional analysis, which was key in deciphering the 1967's, may also apply in 1966. Here is the array of known positions (2 players per card):

Position	NL	AL
P	2	2
C	2	1
1B	2	2
2B	0	2
3B	2	1
SS	2	1
OF	4	5

Excepting the outfielders, no more than two positions per league exist. Since the 67's counted each OF position separately, despite not identifying who played left, center or right, the number of outfielders were triple that of any other position on the diamond (five players per position, per league). If that applies in 1966 and we assume the two per position theory holds, then there should be six outfielders per league. Therefore, we are missing an AL catcher, two NL second baseman, third and short from the AL , two NL outfielders and one from the AL. That's eight holes, which fit on four full cards. Adding it all up (2 players known on 14 cards) yields 36 players on 18 cards.

If you look at the "nub array" and assume each place on it holds three cards (signaling three small sheets of six each) then you get 18 cards. All conjecture but based upon the 67's, I think it possible the final count of cards in this set will be prove to be 18 someday. Now, who are the eight men out.......

The Secret Origins Of The American Leaf Tobacco Company

This post will be part shameless plug and part history lesson. I've been digging deep into the history of the Shorin family and the early days of Topps and their predecessor companies, American Leaf Tobacco Company and American Gas Stations, of late. I'll save my discourse about the latter, much more obscure gas station chain for another day in order to look at the tobacco firm, which I'll dub ALTC for short. First though, my plug for issue #257 of The Wrapper, wherein Les Davis granted me far too much space for a look at these same subjects in an article titled Before Bazooka.



I don't intend to trample on the Wrapper article just yet to allow Les a chance to sell the issue but do want to add some to the back story as I have found out quite a bit more about ALTC since submitting my piece. I'll also save the ancillary stories attaching to the other surprises revealed in the article for another day but suffice to say the early stories of Topps' founding have been greatly burnished.

The standard story goes like this (and does so on about 200 different sites and in dozens of articles):

"Topps itself was founded in 1938, but the company can trace its roots back to an earlier firm, American Leaf Tobacco. Founded in 1890 by Morris Shorin, the American Leaf Tobacco Co. imported tobacco to the United States and sold it to other tobacco companies. (American Leaf Tobacco should not be confused with the American Tobacco Company, which monopolized US-grown tobacco during this period.)

American Leaf Tobacco encountered difficulties as World War I cut off Turkish supplies of tobacco to the United States, and later as a result of the Great Depression. Shorin's sons, Abram, Ira, Philip, and Joseph, decided to focus on a new product but take advantage of the company's existing distribution channels. To do this, they relaunched the company as Topps, with the name meant to indicate that it would be "tops" in its field. The chosen field was the manufacture of chewing gum, selected after going into the produce business was considered and rejected."

Well, not really as each paragraph above is about half true. I suspect this official story was a creation of Topps' publicity department, created when stories about baseball cards started popping up in newspapers and magazines in the early days of the hobby and the company needed some kind of narrative to supply to the various writers who contacted them. For a couple of reasons, I believe this official narrative to date to the early 1960's but again, that's a tale for another time. Let's go back to the beginning then, shall we?

I have spent the last three months wading through all sorts of genealogy webs, news archives and Google Books sites in search of the primordial Shorin's and can tell you I have not found a single factual reference to the actual founding of the company relating to Morris Shorin. Oh, Morris was real enough and I am certain the ALTC was founded in 1890 but the first problem I encountered was that he immigrated to the United States from Russia in 1892, or two years after the founding date of the company and four years after some accounts indicated he made the Atlantic crossing.

The earliest reference I did find about the company was a commerce directory that showed an address at either No. 22 or 23 Central Wharf (the discrepancy is likely due to the Google OCR software) in Boston and listing a Mr. S. Salomon, late of New York, as proprietor. Further notations revealed the company was indeed founded in 1890 but by the same S. Salomon.

A little more digging yielded a major clue. In January of 1888 there was a spectacular failure of a tobacco importer in New York City called M&E Salomon. Among the 13 preferred creditors whose firms were affected was a Mr. Gustave Salomon. The more I looked, the more Salomon's I found and further digging found a story about the failure of a tobacco wholesaler, also of New York City, called Simon Salomon and Son, which was related to the M&E Salomon meltdown. Simon Salomon's son had the first name of Solomon and it seems probable his full name was Solomon Simon Salomon (wow!).

Maddeningly, I can't yet locate the Salomon family genealogy or reliable census records, primarily due to the 1890 U.S. Census archive being virtually destroyed by fire in 1921. I believe with about 95% certainty that Solomon S. Salomon is the same S. Salomon shown in Boston in 1892, that he is the the likely son of Simon Salomon and was the true founder of American Leaf Tobacco Company.

The Salomon's seem to have been major figures in the New York City tobacco business following the Civil War and their roots extend back even farther than that. I cannot fully determine what happened to send our young Mr. S. Salomon off to Boston following the M&E Salomon crash but he may have wanted to get away from the family mess in NYC for a bit. There is also some anecdotal evidence the family had relatives in Boston so more research is going the be required on that front.

Solomon Salomon was back in New York City by 1895 and 1897 is the first year I can find a citation showing the ALTC domiciled in Brooklyn, where they are listed in a City Directory as being on Throop Avenue, regrettably without a street number shown. I have to think Morris owned, or was at least heavily involved with the company by this time as Throop is exactly one block over from Tompkins Avenue, where the family (who were not called the Shorin's at the time--and no, they were not originally Salomon's) lived. Since all of the Salomon's tobacco business seems to have been conducted in Manhattan and not Brooklyn in the 1880's and 90's, I would estimate Morris could have acquired the ALTC or at least was running it by 1895 when Solomon Salomon was back in New York. There is also some evidence Morris Shorin did not have full control though until 1908; still digging there but the date may just refer to a major incorporation or reincorporation of the firm.

Morris, for reasons that will be explained another day, was not lacking for funds from what I have uncovered so his purchase of another company would not surprise me one bit, especially given the later patterns in business of the Shorin family. The deliberate blurring of the ALTC timeline also fits these patterns.

I was unable to find a picture of any buildings housing American Leaf Tobacco anywhere and considering the company eventually had a global presence, this is another quest I will maintain. I managed to unearth scans showing the Central Wharf well before it was destroyed to make room for a rebuilding project though. Two of the best are shown below.

The first is taken from a stereoscopic view that may predate 1892 but could show #22 or 23 (off to the left of the central cupola, probably within the framework of the two ship's masts in the foreground).

(From the collection of Robert N. Dennis)

Another view, from a 1906 print, shows a colorized Central Wharf but is skewed too far to the right to show the ALTC address (numbering is consecutive, each chimney represents a different address). I can't recall where I nicked this scan from but it's nice, no?

Pretty neat! Much more to come come on the early days as 2011 progresses.

The Duke of Flatbush RIP

Duke Snider passed away today at age 84 and with him went some of the last, quiet dignity associated with baseball and its golden age. To quote Dylan Thomas, by way of the Great American Flipping, Trading & Bubblegum Book:

I see the boys of summer in their ruin
Lay the gold tithings barren

RIP Duke

Left,Right,Left,Right,Left,Right

I thought it would be fun today to take a look at the three high number double prints Topps sold to the youth of America in the late summer of 1952. It's not well known but in addition to the oft-documented left pointing or right pointing stitching on the "baseballs" containing the card number on the backs, there are differences on the fronts of these as well. First things first though. The stitches on the baseballs point left and right on other cards in the set. I have no idea if this varies from player to player (i.e. if any other players can be found with the stitches going both directions) and frankly don't have the stamina to find out! The one exception to this is #20, Billy Loes, whose stitches are rotated 90 degrees for some reason and appear side-to-side:

 

Let's take a look at our three high number double prints, #311 Mantle, #312 Robinson and #313 Thomson, with left pointing stitches shown first in each instance (different resolutions on each, so don't read too much into line thickness):

 

 

The fronts though, show signs of not being exact duplicates of each other. Here is the Mick on a card where the stitches face left:

   

Take a look below the autograph plate (under the row of stars) as there is a distinct yellow line showing. The high numbers were thrown together so quickly that compositional errors arose that were not corrected. Here is a close-up:

   

The yellow line looks straight but the plate and logo were masked or pasted a little crooked! Speaking of crooked, take a look at the autograph plate on the Mantle with right pointing stitches:

   

The yellow line is gone but the cut on top of the upper row of stars is really crooked:

   

Also, the top black frame line of the card has extra "wings" left and right of the intersections with the side frame lines:

   

Sy Berger has confessed the high numbers were practically slapped together at the last minute and the evidence on the Mantle's certainly supports his statement. Next in line is #312, Jackie Robinson. The obverse differences are much harder to discern on his two flavors of cards but they do exist. Here is a look at Jackie's card with left pointing stitches:

   

I trimmed the top a little close so you can see just how skewed the autograph plate looks. A closer look reveals a green line under the left two-thirds or so of the bottom row of stars and quite a bit of yellow off the right border of the stars:

   

On the right stitched Robinson, things look pretty similar at arm's length:

   

But the name plate is a lot cleaner, albeit still crooked, without all the extraneous color under and to the side:

   

Next we have the Staten Island Scot, #313 Bobby Thomson. His left stitch card is thus:

   

He looks happy, no? Well having hit the shot heard around the world would do such a thing but I believe all of the 1952 Topps cards featured photos from 1951, so he had yet to hit the legendary homer. The easiest way to tell from the obverse that this is a left stitched card is to look at his left eyelid, as facing the card, right in the fold on the left, which should be blemish free:

   

 His right pointing stitched card tells a different story though:

   

Close up you can see two little white dots, which are either a blemish on his eyelid or a compositional defect:

 

Not to pick on Bobby but here is an even more extreme closeup:

   

This is all just an exercise in observation as the back of the card has such an obvious variation in each instance but it shows part of the production process in 1952 and reveals just how madcap the rush was to get out the '52 highs.

Three Men In?

I managed to sneak a post in on some soccer stickers last time out instead of finishing my look at the 1952 Topps high numbers. So it goes on a lazy three day weekend.....plus I had a chance to think it out a little more.

I found an interview with Sy Berger where he indicated the 1952 highs were definitely a last minute effort, which I think supports my theory they had pictures already in hand from the 1951 season for all the players to appear in the 1952 set. I also consider that the high numbers should have totaled 100 cards in number as all prior series were divisible by 10 when counting subjects.

In fact, from 1952-56, which covers their entire span of Giant Sized cards, the evidence is compelling that Topps always planned each baseball series to be divisible by 10. That applies to any issued Giant Sized set in that span the more I think about it, not just baseball. I'm sure Sy Berger could have scraped up three more players considering the selections that made the cut for the 97 issued subjects, so it seems highly probable outside forces intervened. So who else could have been in, then out? Here are three viable candidates:



Well, Ralph Kiner fits the bill. He was in two 1951 Topps sets (Major League All Stars and Red Backs) and in 1953 would appear on both a Topps and Bowman card, so he is a ripe candidate to my mind as he may not have been a Bowman exclusive.

Hal Newhouser is also a good possibility. He did not have a great 1951 season but bounced back in 1952 and would certainly have been a guy with a mug shot or two lying around. He never was on a Bowman card and was a well known name.

Johnny Logan is another potential future garbage scow candidate. Logan had a decent 1951 rookie season for the Boston Braves and looks like he was on the roster all year so unless he missed picture day on any the Braves half dozen or so visits to New York City that year, he should have been a guy with a photo on file. He has a rookie card in the 1953 Topps set and in '54 was on both Topps and Bowman cards and given Bowman's propensity to only issue cards of proven players in 1952 (starters mostly) would have been a good choice for Topps as he does not seem like a Bowman exclusive.

Now, if Bowman was not able to contest these three players, perhaps they were involved with some kind of local promotion that precluded their appearing in the 1952 Topps high numbers. I would think that more of a possibility with Kiner than the other two but who knows?

Soccer? I Hardly Even Know Her

Well, one thing we strive for here at the ol' Archive is completeness, although it can take a while to achieve . Alan Jenkins of Wales added a comment recently to an old post on the 1979 Topps Soccer Stickers, a bizarre little set that is largely unknown to the outside world. As you will recall, these very orange stickers were pretty blah, even for Topps in 1979:



Alan has sussed out a full checklist, which is presented below. If you add the six 4-on-1 stickers, there are 33 stickers in the set, although there may be different backs for each. As Topps would use iterations of 33 four times on a 132 card half sheet, I would think up to four backs styles are possible for each front but that has yet to be determined as there may be no variation on the backs at all.'

Many thanks to Alan for providing this checklist.

1979 Topps Soccer Stickers Checklist

1. NASL logo
2. Star Ball symbol
3. Atlanta Chiefs
4. California Surf
5. Chicago Sting
6. Dallas Tornado
7. Detroit Express
8. San Diego Sockers
9. Strikers
10. Hurricane
11. Los Angelkes Aztecs
12. Rogues
13. Minnesota Kick
14. New England Tea Men
15. New York Cosmos
16. Philadelphia Fury
17. Portland Timbers
18. Rochester Lancers
19. Toronto Blizzard
20. Edmonton Drillers
21. Seattle Sounders
22. Tampa Bay Rowdies
23. San Jose Earthquakes
24. Tulsa Roughnecks
25. Vancouver Whitecaps
26. Washinton Diplomats
27. Soccer is a Kick in the Grass
NN. Hurricane / Strikers / Kicks / Chiefs
NN. Aztecs / Sounders / Whitecaps / Lancers
NN. Diplomats / Cosmos / Earthquakes / Surf
NN. Tornado / Rogues / Blizzard / Drillers
NN. Sockers / Express / Sting / Rowdies
NN. Timbers / Roughnecks / Fury / Tea Men

Three Men Out

One of the things that occupy my idle thoughts are uncut Topps sheets. I guess it's kind of like a mental default setting that dials to "Topps" and not "blank" but I'll leave that for my psychotherapy sessions down the road. Last night then, my mind turned to the 1952 high number half sheet. Famously, it contains three double prints, one each from the Yankees, Dodgers and Giants, the "hometown" teams for Topps (even though the Shorin's were Dodgers fans), consecutively numbered as 311, 312 and 313 and giving them a real solid launch for the high numbers:



I have posted only a little about this sheet here and like all other known 1952 sheets, consists of reconstructed quadrants, one of which is still inferred. This schematic from the 3rd edition of the Sport Americana Baseball Card Price Guide will show you the two possibilities regarding setup of the high number sheet (there would have been another sheet, theoretically identical to this one forming the other half sheet), the lower left quadrant is the one that remains a mystery:



My Corel Paint Shop program is not letting me color in the double prints on the left edge of the left schematic but they are five columns over, hard on the border, in the same rows as the highlighted ones. I plan to look at the differences between the double prints shortly but today am contemplating which three players could have been pulled as it would seem highly probable that the set was to have been complete at 410 cards and not 407.

Topps had won their initial legal skirmish in 1951 with Bowman over players selected for baseball cards after a less than stellar debut that year, as we all know. With the departure of Warren Bowman from his namesake company in the spring of 1951 Topps would have been empowered to go after Bowman full tilt in 1952 with their broad player selection and Giant Size cards. Bowman though, was not without their own legal beagles and may have had three players under contract that Topps had intended to include with the high numbers (or, more properly, second series as it was commonly referred to at the time) but were forced to pull. We can eliminate rookies who debuted in 1952 as there would not have been any photos available for Topps and players exclusive to Bowman at the time (big stars usually). So who then?

One thought that occurs to me is that one player apiece from the hometown teams were originally slated to appear in the slots duplicated on the sheet. The nameplates used on the three DP's seem even more slapdash than the ones on the non-DP cards and while I am assuming they would have had the team logos already in place, it's an educated assumption. The question then is, which players were pulled? A couple of obvious candidates, Carl Furillo and Casey Stengel were Bowman exclusives until Topps bought their main competitor in 1956 so they are out, as is Sal Maglie for the same reason. Vic Raschi? Bowman all the way. OK, time to narrow things down starting with the Yankees.

Whitey Ford seems like a good candidate as he was in the '51 Bowman set, then nowhere at all in '52 before resurfacing with Topps in '53. If there was no Topps or Bowman card for Ford in 1952 then he seems like a player whose contract was either being litigated. However, he was in the military during the 1951 and 1952 seasons so he's probably not our missing Bronx Bomber. Topps stretched their player rosters but not for a guy who had missed the year prior and was slated to be out in '52, although there is precedent as Joe Page did not pitch at all in 1951 (or '52 for that matter). So we look to the season roster.

A few guys are not on any '52 cards; Jim McDonald, Jim Brideweser and Bob Cerv all saw limited action with the Yanks in '52, with Cerv leading the way with 12 games played. But Cerv's rookie card is in 1953 (Topps) so he's probably not our guy, the others only played a couple of games. Charlie Keller looked promising but he was released by the Tigers very late in 1951 and the Yankees did not pick him up again until September 1952, so it's not ol' King Kong. That pretty much leaves us with Art Schallock, who debuted in July of 1951 and had a solid half year on the mound for the Yanks.

The Dodgers, after you eliminate Furillo (who was the only Dodger in '52 to be a Bowman exclusive from what I can see, with the possible exception of Don Newcombe) and all the rookies who debuted that year, had two guys (Joe Landrum and Steve Lembo) who did not play in '51 but debuted in 1950 and had their last season in 1952. They are certainly possibilities as was Don Newcombe, who appeared with Bowman commencing in 1950 then was theirs exclusively excluding his absence in 1953 due to military service but could have been a ripe candidate to be poached. Still, he feels like a Bowman exclusive when you look at it a little.

Nobody else who played for Brooklyn in 1952 fits the bill and Topps had already included four coaches, three guys who did not play at all for the Bums in '52 and another player who was in the military to stretch things out so it could have been either Lembo or Landrum. I am going to go with Landrum, based upon his stellar prep career and despite the fact he served in the military for 1951, as Lembo was sent down for the 1952 season, playing in Fort Worth. If you click the Landrum link above, you will see the guy was considered a stud in '52.

As for our missing Giant, again after eliminating the rookies we have some candidates. The one guy who I am sure Topps would have loved to depict on cardboard, Roger Bowman did not get a card at all until 1955 when he appeared on his namesake brand, so I say no to him. George Bamberger pitched two really lousy games at the end of his rookie season in 1951 so no to him too. Ray Noble is a possibility as the catcher had a solid rookie season in '51 and was in the '51 Bowman set and '52 Berk-Ross set (Berk-Ross is a dark horse for contract exclusivity). After that, there's really nobody so I will go with Noble.

So were Art Schallock (#408), Joe Landrum (#409) and Ray Noble (#410) the three missing players? For Topps, those were exactly the types of players they filled out the high numbers with but they are obviously not in the set. So what happened? Well, darned if I can figure it out but I think it eliminates the possibility of the three missing players being from the hometown NYC teams.

One other non-NY possibility is someone from the White Sox as there are none at all in the high numbers I 'll take a closer look at some other possibilities next time.