Let's Make Believe

All sorts of great things are popping up lately kids!  In addition to the bounty of Topps (and other) goodness in the latest REA auction, all manner of offerings have been incoming to the Topps Archives Research Complex these past few weeks.  Today's entry is courtesy of BFF o'the Archive, Jeff Shepherd, who sent a link and also went to the auction in person and snapped some very relevant pix. Thanks Shep!

JMW Auction Gallery had a sketchbook from Woody Gelman's daughter's collection offered recently, which seems like it contained a lot of very early work, some pre-Topps (and further, some post-Fleischer/Famous Studios):

This first batch dates to 1931-35.  Cicero, anyone?

This would be a hundred year peek into the future at his his high school and seems like something that would be published in the yearbook, so that could be the year he graduated, 1932 that is:

A year later he drew some awesome playing cards:

Three years later when Woody was attending college in New York City (City University of New York, Cooper Union and The Pratt Institute were his schools), he came up with these next two:

Woody's inimitable later ALL CAPS handwriting is featured at the top of these pages, juxtaposed with his very neat contemporary writing below his drawings, which had evolved from four years earlier at the time he drew this couple. From the looks of things, they are going to end up back at the dorm!

Holiday themed pipe dreams:

Here's some slightly later promotional work, I suspect accomplished as a freelancer:

Within two years he would be off to Fleischer Studios, eventually working on cartoons directed by future Topps Art Director Ben Solomon.  But there was other work to be done.  This looks like a commissioned book cover, possibly inspired by the earlier playing card illustrations but I'm not sure of the year here. Actually I'm not even sure it's for a book.  Woody seemed to be quite taken with the Tales of the Arabian Nights.

:

I'll leave off with a bit of a later family portrait, in pencil, and from 1956 by which time Woody was well integrated at Topps.  His handwriting had gone off the rails by then:

Richie was (and is) Richard Gelman, who ran the Card Collectors Company for a good length of time after Woody's passing and also did the hobby a huge solid in the late 80's by reissuing the American Card Catalog. His daughter Barbara does not look to be present. She was an author of sorts and did some brief work for Topps in the 60's.

Package Deal

Here's a look at some tougher Topps boxes, packs and the like I've seen this year on eBay.  Some really neat items here.

Here'a a great idea, why not mix real wood with bubble gum?  In 1963 you could:

Ever wonder how cello packs were sold until the mid 60's?  For the most part it was in boxes like these:

This particular box held the "1966" Monster Laffs:

No gum in these packs when sold under the rubric of Trading Card Guild. Good way to avoid splinters, LOL.

Another gumless wonder, these Letraset licensed Magic Rub Offs from 1970 are tough, tough, tough to find, let alone the wrapper:

Speaking of tough, how about a 1971 Nasty Valentine Notes pack:

Love the instructions:

See ya next week!

Young America's Favorite Way To Fly

Bazooka was famous for its comics once Bazooka Joe got into the mix in 1954 and on those comics were almost always those crazy premium offers.  Some were cheesy, some were not but I have to say a recent eBay auction featuring the "Bazooka Airfleet" from 1974-75 may take the cake.

Check THIS out:

Eastern was still a major airline in the mid 1970's so I presume Topps got a good deal on the whole shebang. The cardboard airport was probably an item they sold in their terminal gift shops and knowing Topps they took advantage of an overstock situation. The planes are styrofoam and meant to glide when thrown. The terminal graphics look to me like they could be a fanciful rendering of their space at LaGuardia Airport but really could represent any of their airport homes.

That pamphlet has some good information on assembly and basic aeronautics for both 70's kids and modern collectors (and researchers):

Check out this miscut comic from the fabulous Bazooka Joe Comics Website:

I love miscuts as they reveal all sorts of information.  Here we see Topps was mixing in some larger premium offers along with their usual comics.  The sting of not having the normal comic was thought by Topps to be alleviated by doubling the value of the insert vs a regular comic I guess.  I've seen others that are only worth one comic so your experience may vary.

The mail in address (Woodbury, NY) is the only time I have seen that particular town, which is located only a couple of miles from Westbury, where a large number of premiums (and me!) came from in the 1970's.  In addition, there is no number number assigned to the premium.  It's all a bit mysterious but the larger "comic" would have been useful showing how big the airfleet was.

This is even neater than the infamous Exploding Battleship premium!

Solid Gold

One of the fun parts of writing this blog is that I'm often rewarded when I keep my eyes peeled for new or unusual items related to the history of Topps.  This can be a previously known card set, some kind of mockup or in-house test or even just a fact or two I never knew about.  Recently, I acquired an item that really made me look at the early Topps sets in a different light.

If you ever pulled a prize out of a cereal box or mailed away for a premium or two, then you have brushed up against greatness. Those little items you treasured as a kid (and some of you to this day) have their origins with a company called American Advertising & Research Corporation and a man called Sam Gold.

Gold founded his firm in Chicago in the early 1920's after a stint at Whitman Publishing, where he developed children's books and hit upon a novel idea, namely that the biggest influencers among adult consumers were children. Sam's company was a "vertical and horizontal" marketing juggernaut.  Cereal box inserts and premium offers were his bread and butter and one of his projects that would be well know to readers of this blog would be the buttons included inside boxes of Kellogg's Pep cereal in the mid to late 40's.

It appears that from this world of cereal promotions, Topps first card issue, properly known as Hocus Focus but referred to in the hobby as Magic Photo to avoid mixing it up with a very similar set issued in 1955, sprung.

Faithful readers of this blog know that Topps issued their first novelty set, Tatoo, in 1948 but it was merely vegetable dye printed on a wrapper interior. Hot on its heels was Magic Photo, which was out by the summer of 1948 and saw success well into 1949.  Where Tatoo was simple, Magic Photo was complex.

The concept for Magic Photo featured, of all things, a card with a blank front. This was because a quiz on the back of the card had instructions directing the young un's to refer to the wrapper, which in turn directed them to dip the card in water and rub the front of the card against the underside of the very same wrapper, which had a developing agent baked in, to make the "magic photo" appear.

Well, given its importance as the ur Topps card set, when I saw a very interesting lot in a recent catalog auction, I pounced. There are several components to it but this draft of a promotional banner really caught my eye:

Looks familiar right?  That Lou Gehrig image is different that the one used in the issued set but it's a real link between the concept in the poster and final product.

Remember back in the day, almost everything was done by hand.  Backs first:

Note the different categories, just like Magic Photo but a bit more erudite! Shakespeare anyone?! See the "F" numbering pencilled in?   The "cards" in the lot were six in number, although I suspect that a 7th existed and was possibly the Gehrig, long ago removed and sold. The poster displays an "F8" so what indeed was no. 7?  I certainly don't have it!  Fronts now:

Like I said, erudite.  Interestingly, Natural Bridge made an appearance in both the 1949 and 1950 Topps License Plates sets.

See that glue residue atop each mockup?  It came from these:

One more shy but oh well!  The "cards" and "flappers" measure 1 7/8" x 2 1/2" which is quite a bit larger than the issued set at  7/8" x 1 7/16".  You can compare and contrast:

I'm not sure how Topps and Sam Gold got together but my guess is at one of the huge marketing conventions that were often held in Chicago in the 40's.  A particularly raucous one occurred in 1947 and maybe the Shorins saw the very banner from this lot and converted a cereal premium to an insert.

Doubling Up

Welcome to our third in a series of posts covering the first eleven issues of "The Card Collector", Woody Gelman's sorta-catalog-sorta-not newsletter of the late 50's and early 60's. Things were really picking up in the hobby in mid-1960 and TCC was all over it.

Right off the bat, the Card Collectors Co. Checklist Book is discussed.  It was hinted at in previous issues but was by now a reality. 

The Topps album being described was this bad boy, which was state of the art for the times:

Here now, is a very, very interesting Card Chatter. It says that seven copies each of the three famous 1960 "proof" errors made it into circulation.  You might need a salt shaker but given how rare these cards are, I guess it's possible.  It's funny what contemporary accounts can provide. There's also an article on the large cards issued by Post Cereal in 1960 and a blurb on the 1960 Fleer All Time Greats cards.

Bazooka gets a blast as well and also the first series of 1960 Leaf Baseball.  I'm not sure how many adult collectors would have known about such things if not for these puff pieces:

Lionel Carter, represent:

This was the last of the four page issues; it would be eight pages (amid a plea from the editor) going forward:

Gotta hand it to Woody, he would reference competitor's to Topps:

Things get a little reflective with a discussion of the 1960 Metallic Football Emblems inserts but then matter get downright funky with White Sox tickets!

Non-sports and Canadian cards are mentioned. Surprisingly, Parkhurst gets props while Topps partner O-Pee-Chee is frozen out:

Early on Woody promised articles on Exhibits.  He made good:

Programs, get your programs....

If rare regionals or checklists were your thing, TCC was the place for you:

 And now, a bit of a showstopper.  I had no idea Card Collctors Company sold uncut sheets of cards, or in this case panels.  Makes you wonder where those rare variations came from that were discussed in issue 7......

OK, I have to stop now, I'm giving myself the vapors!

Woody Tells A Whopper Or Two

Picking up from our last post, the fourth issue of The Card Collector was a more varied affair then the previous number. A prominently featured reader's letter pointed out that issue #3's 1959 Baseball checklist had two errors.  The checklist had #482 as Art Houtteman, a hard luck player who had last pitched in the majors with Cleveland in 1957 and was washed up by age 27.  To be fair, he debuted with the Tigers at the age of 17 in 1945 but in 1959 was pitching in the PCL. The actual card issued at #482, as pointed out, was of Russ Meyer (sic).

And #489 John Powers, who while nondescript, would be appearing in the middle of a personal three Topps card run. But he wasn't Jake Striker, who was listed by Woody. Striker appeared in a single, late September game with the Indians in 1959 (a win!) before his more extensive two game outing with  the White Sox in 1960 and his only Topps card would come when he was with the Pale Hose.  At 10.1 career innings pitched, he must be at or near the top of the heap for a MLB win with fewest innings pitched.  Two pitchers have managed to appear in 80 games without a win, but Striker did the opposite the easy way.

Here is Mr. Striker, who it must be admitted, had an awesome name for a flamethrower:

The observations on Basketball are, frankly, hysterical given the resounding failure of the sole Topps issue at the time for that sport (in 1957-58).  Nice to see Jack Davis get some props though, even though they came from Woody Gelman's teen protege -- and Topps employee at the time -- Len (Lenny) Brown:

Obscurity seems to be the theme in issue #5.  Interesting comment about the bulk of Bowman's 1949 PCL cards being destroyed.  Topps would have had access to Bowman's records, so it's possible, although as we shall soon see, TCC was not always truthful in explaining why some cards or sets were scarce:

OK, nobody "forgot" about pictures for four semi-high's in 1958.  Instead, they pulled them to make room for the overprinted Stan Musial and Mickey Mantle All Star cards that year, after signing Stan the Man following a period of Rawlings exclusivity.  My guess is that one half sheet of 132 on the semi high press sheet had the triple printed AS cards while the other had the four "missing" numbers.

Armour coins get a nice write up by hobby legend Buck Barker, as Woody started featuring more guest columnists.  1959 Bazooka Football also gets its due, as does the regular issue set as the promotional tie-ins with Topps continue unabated. Nice detail on the Canadian only status of 1960 Hockey cards as well and some competitor's products also get a nod:

All in all, the best issue yet.

Issue #5 led off with a pitch for The American Card Catalog and notice about an office move for Card Collectors Company. This presumably was when Woody moved all the old inventory from his late father in law's office in Manhattan to his storage or warehouse facility in Franklin Square, which I suspect was a couple of rooms in a friend or relative's house or space in a garage (Woody lived one town over in Malverne):

1952 Topps high number scarcity has been covered ad nauseum over the years, here and elsewhere, but it's worth pointing out that by 1959 Card Collectors Co. had run out of them but would restock at some point in 1960, right around the time of the alleged dumping at sea of two truckload's worth.  Hmmmmm....

I'll skip page three, which is all '52 Topps checklist and get right to the good stuff on page four, namely the 14 cards in the second series of Bazooka Baseball, seemingly issued after the Football Bazooka's!

Lionel Carter joined the newsletter for 1960 as Woody's somewhat erratic publishing schedule  indicates he must have been very busy at Topps (production of all sets at Topps probably peaked in 1959-60) but kudos for going back to pre-war issues:

Regional issues look like they are hitting the radar:

A full page of letters from early hobbyists covered a lot of different sets:

While page four gave yet another checklist, albeit one mentioned on the main letters page:

It appears this issue also came with an insert offering the 1960 Baseball cards and a bonus.

1960 would bring a few changes to The Card Collector, which we will get into next time.