Boom Goes The Dynamite!

OK, since I inadvertently published the Woody Gelman magazine spread six days early, this will be a sorta-short Saturday post today, a fishing expedition to boot.  Actually, I'm trying to gather more information and fill in checklists on the early Bazooka comics and trays before Bazooka Joe supplanted them all in 1954.

But first, some tray action as I was rolling through the always fun and informative Vintage Non-Sports Forum the other day when I happened upon a message from Jeff Forteza showing (quite clearly) 17 of the 18 tray cards from the very early (and crude) Story of the Atom Bomb (R709-3) tray set that cradled a five cent roll of Bazooka 70 odd years ago:

The missing card #6, which is why I am showing these.  Can anyone provide a scan or a title for it?

Speaking of early Bazooka, R414-1, is a Bazooka comic insert set that came in some of the earliest one cent packs of Bazooka. The set count, from what I have found reading through the scant documentation available, is 25.  I own a type example and they are difficult to find but a Pinterest page by Tracee Stewart gives us five more beyond the mine:

I have this one in my collection but I'll use her scan as the comic is in far better shape than mine:

So 24% of the checklist is now known.  Who else can help out with scans?

A related set is Sports Odditities, which I think is the one cent version of a nickel wrapper feature called Know Your Sports. I'm not 100% on that but there larger comic looks like it could be broken down quite easily into single panels.

Two penny singles are known to me:

These are clearly Willard Mullin pieces, just like Spalding Sports Show. His genius is on display with that boxing comic!

The nickel version may or may not add five additional subjects (and I also need nickel wrapper scans beyond this one):

Know Your Sports may, in turn, be part of a larger group of comics that don't seem to have any connection and which encompass puzzles, Daily News Comic Strips and DC comic characters, plus some stuff I probably don't even know about.  If you assume 25 penny size comics make up the set, like Spalding Sports Show, then five larger ones might be the entirety of the five cent wraps for this (sub) series. These could have been interspersed with SSS as well.

I'll have another request like this coming up in the near future but the 1947-54 pre-Joe period is hard to cipher and research is hampered by how few of these comics have survived since they were affixed to the interior of the foil wrappers until Topps started individually wrapping their famous bubble gum in the early 50's. The outside wrapper then protected the whole shebang. And don't get me going on the survival rate of the trays.....

Woody's Angels

Bonus content today kids, I fubar'ed the dating of this post!

I am sometimes surprised by various things that pop up concerning Topps and Woody Gelman but it's not often I am completely flabbergasted by them.  Well, friend o'the Archive Keith Olbermann has done it and then some.  It all lurks behind this cover:

I originally thought it was a "paperback" magazine but the staples indicate more of a digest-sized publication. A measurement I found on eBay seems to confirm this but, as always, the indicia tells us a lot, namely that this was distributed through three different paperback books clubs and through subscription:

About that "Collecting Baseball Cards" story....

Yup, it's Woody Gelman!  And pictured--probably in his basement-- very near the end of his life as this issue is from 1978 (he died on Feb. 9th that year). Here is some very basic information (it gets better, I promise) about Card Collectors Company:

I don't always like to show articles from old publications in full but am making an exception here as the next pages show items from Woody's personal collection, including the T206 Honus Wagner he displayed on To Tell The Truth three or four years earlier:

Next up we get a look at the inner sanctum of CCC, which I believe is Woody's garage in Malverne, New York (a stone's throw from Franklin Square, home of PO Box 293).  The roll in mailbags would seemingly indicate a ground-level operation as well:

I'm not positive but believe the woman at the upper left is his wife, Lillian. (UPDATE 4/12/24: It's not her) And the illustration at right looks like it could have been done by Art Spiegelman.  Love the mailbag and $180 check although it's probably not from a 12 year old; CCC was selling full Topps cases from years past when this magazine came out. From other research I am doing, if the photos were taken in 1977, $180 right then bought you 1,000 mint 1967 high numbers! And those library style file drawers were sold by CCC in their catalogs.  Like full vending cases of 12,000 cards, I suspect they got drop shipped from elsewhere given their weight and size.

Next, Woody's TV appearance gets some ink.  A nascent hobby and the referenced 1974 TV appearance probably led to this spread I'd imagine.

And that's it-the article itself is not too informative but how many pictures exist for the Card Collectors Company operation?! 

Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut Roll...Sometimes You Don't

I managed to snag a tough Topps Candy piece off the 'bay recently and thought I'd show a little parade of their hybrid Brooklyn-Chattanooga wrappers that appeared following their purchase of Bennett-Hubbard in 1943. A smaller procession of penny gum tab variants made in Brooklyn will close things out today.

The latest addition to the Archives is this impossibly pristine candy wrapper.  It looks like a pretty yummy candy bar if you ask me.  Note the 1943 Copyright:

I've been trying to determine if the Opera Bar below was originally a Topps product. Newspaper reports at the time of the Bennett-Hubbard acquisition indicated Topps would continue producing "their" product in Chattanooga at their new plant. Tempering that is the fact I've never seen a reference to Topps producing candy prior to the purchase, although it's only a four year period or so and one that included some WW2 paper drives.

This is another wrapper in amazing shape, I think it and the one above came from a sample stack used by salesmen.  Once again, a 1943 Copyright, obviously obtained for package redesign purposes after Benn-Hubb was in the fold:

Marshmallow could stretch scarce sugar supplies, which were about to be rationed in the U.S. as the war raged on (and probably spurred the acquisition) as this next piece, which looks to have actually been wrapped around a candy bar, attests:

I don't really like the look of that wrapper (it's even uglier in person) but imagine the yellow was thought to be snazzy enough to grab a kid's attention. At a guess I'd say Topps didn't bother waiting for a new copyright for the wrapper meaning this was likely a new product sold during World War 2 whereas the Caramel Nut Roll and Opera Bar could and likely did continue in production for several years after 1943.  Topps would eventually re-brand their candy production operations as Topps Candy Division, until the early 1950's when they just snugged it under the main Topps Chewing Gum umbrella.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Topps bought out Shapiro Candy Manufacturing in 1944 which netted them not only a better sugar ration and more manufacturing capability, it also presented access to waterborne transportation via the 4th Street Basin, right across the avenue and which connected to the Gowanus Canal and eventually the Atlantic Ocean.  A mere three miles from Topps HQ at 134 Broadway in Williamsburg at the time of the purchase, it became an additional warehouse for Topps after they moved all executive and manufacturing functions into Bush Terminal in mid-1946.  It appears all the prior Topps plants and offices in Brooklyn served such a purpose until the 1966 Duryea move, when only the executives and office staff remained behind.

This is a rare 1939 Topps Gum tab wrapper with Shapiro shown as the manufacturer and would have barely outlasted the war as Topps went for a slight redesign and new copyrights in 1946:

I suspect Topps still manufactured this product at their original Gretsch Building plant location at 60 Broadway but named Shapiro as manufacturer to allow for expanded sugar ration compliance.  The normal 1939 wrapper looked like this-I imagine amending the indicia slightly was no reason to obtain a new copyright.:

That little notch at the top is what leads me back to the Gretsch Building!

There's a 1939 Topps/Brooklyn variety as well.  I'm not sure which came first and this is actually BFF o'the Archive Jeff Shepherd's as I don't have this variant yet:

That'll "wrap' things up for today (groan)!

No Cards Just Gum...No Gum Just Cards

More catching up today lids as the new "deets" arriving at the Main Topps Archives Research Center continue unabated! As you may surmise from this post's title, this will be a far ranging piece today.

Friend o'the Archive Jason Rhodes has sent along a pair and a half of goodies, first up, a very old and wonderfully preserved Bazooka nickel roll wrapper with a "ride-along" bonus thrown in by the seller:

Nice freebie on that tray card Jason! I believe that "Award of Merit" wrapper debuted in mid-1949, replacing a Parents Magazine Seal,which could help date the World Famous Stamps Tray Card but that style may have persisted into 1952-53.

The reverse has a Peg comic, also possible from 1949-53 per my extant notes so a DC Comics/Topps timeline narrowing needs to be carried out!

Mr. Rhodes though was not even close to done as he alerted me to this lot over at The Sports Auction Co.  Check this bad boy out:

That is the first time I have seen a case for the Trading Card Guild Rak Paks, although I have seen the 1962 Civil War News raks before. That seems like a very small case for the Topps non-confectionery operation and I suspect it's more of a box component with several in a master case. CWN has been the subject of several finds over the years; it is quite abundant in nice shape as a result.

BFF o'the Archive Jeff Shepherd sent along a scan from an auction he ran on eBay with a 1970 Bazooka Twin-Pack (spoiler alert, I won the auction) that seems to be a successor to the 1969 Twin-Pack recently featured here:

As you can see, that's from a file book and it turns out it was sold by (and from, of course) the Topps Vault.  Seemingly, the confectionery only items were filed in a different manner than Woody Gelman's "Big Idea" sample card filing and reference system. My notion that the 1969 Twin-Pack wrapper was the latest sepia issue is therefore incorrect but both years' offerings are rare birds and the comics appear to be part of the same sequence as the 1969 wrapper ensconced #10 and here we have jumped to #17 a year later.

The distribution in packs of the 1973 Baseball Blue Team Checklists has been speculated upon in various forums and 10 cent wax is known to some as "being blue" on occasion, as this old Huggins & Scott description shows:

A thing of beauty is a joy forever, or so the poem goes....and "all 660" packs seem to hold the key to the blue checklists, which is eminently logical.

Here's the back of those packs, note the commodity code has a stock number of 401, which is correct for 1973:

However, a recent eBay auction revealed the bottom of the "blue checklist" wax box and there is a little twist-check out the commodity code, which is in red for some odd reason.

A 451 stock number is showing but what of those packs I pictured above? Compare to a "regular" 1973 10 cent wax box:

Black code there, as was usually the case and the same with the 401, which matches the wax packs. It makes sense the team checklists came in the "all 660" boxes and I suspect the red coding is related to that (and the little pop up tab on the front of the box). At first I thought it related to a long form, slap-dash test within the regular distribution since 1974's 15 cent long form test had a black commodity code, but Bill Haber explained it all (and then some) in the March 1973 issue of The Ballcard Collector revealing it was planned and rolled out from the get-go:

The cut down to 660 from 787 was assuredly due to the Topps IPO in March 1972 and the planning for 1973 Baseball would have commenced during the dog days of the '72 season. I do wonder though, if the renegotiated MLBPA CBA following the 1972 strike had anything to do with this, maybe with the union desiring to shuffle more revenue to more established major league players.

The stock number middle digit changed as well on that "all 660" box and 451 is not a number Topps trotted out often (the stock numbers would cycle through on roughly a two year basis most of the time). What does it all mean?  Maybe someday all will be revealed as more information is developed on Topps packaging ideosyncracies.

And to top it off, eBay recently had the almost unknown 1973 Team Checklist premium sheet, which went for a song (and which I missed seeing-rats!):

There were still interesting things happening as the 70's wore on!

Super Seventies (And Extra Eighties)

Last time out I posted a couple of Topps cello Super-Packs then belatedly realized Topps had sold them for a few more years than I initially thought.  After a little more digging, I've found what I hope is most of them.

Our saga begins in 1978, with a Football cello and cross-promotion:

The back had no added stiffening tray, it was au naturel:

As 1979 rolled around, a Baseball Super-Pack was created, with a penny dropped off the price:

The back shows a tray card we've seen on that 1980's Football Super Pack shown last time out:

1979 Football got the same treatment:

Same tray....

You can check last week;s thread for the 1980 Super-Packs but I was surprised to see the cross-selling continued into 1981, the year I re-entered the hobby.  I usually keep to a 1980 cutoff here and in my collecting but am rethinking that a bit noting, while I ponder, that I never saw these anywhere that year, that's for sure:

The gum went back to its sugary roots and the back went blank, perhaps fitting for the year of the big MLB strike.  I think Topps was still trying to fend off Bubble Yum at the time (an epic fail BTW) but there could be any number of reasons why this product was picked for '81. Note the 1980 code showing year of conception as the price went up by a dime, indicating the code was not for a 1980 wrapper rehash.

There could very well be variant wrappers and contents.  The commodity codes might shift around a little or even reused for a spell as well on some Super-Packs in the era.  The only decent insert came with the 1980 Baseball Super-Packs and it's not clear to me why say, a football scratch-off game wasn't included in the Football issue that year. Perhaps they were planning the widely issued 1981 Baseball Scratch-Off set and figured why not monetize things such a product if it took off.  Who knows?

I'm learning more about Topps packaging these days thanks to some Facebook groups, especially those from the Super Seventies!

Super Pack

I want to revisit a couple of items today, the first is Fun Packs, those little (usually) 1 or 2 card packs Topps worked up every Hallowe'en and Christmas for a couple of decades.  I've shown various wrappers from these before but they all seem to be from 1965 or later. A recent eBay sighting makes we wonder if a primordial version has finally surfaced:

There's no product code, so it's pre-1966 and it sure looks like the graphics could be 1963-64-ish.

Secondly, I posted about a fairly unknown Topps Scratch Off game from 1980 and at the time (May 12, 2009) noted Bob Lemke thought it came from Jumbo Packs:

He was pretty close as they came in Super-Packs:

I guess this is technically a test issue.  Here's our quarry, on the back, 931 matching code with the card, and all:

Dig the commodity code at the bottom:

Now I say this was probably a test because later in 1980, Topps released a Football version with two key differences. Topps went with the theme and used Super Bazooka for the gum:

But there would be no scratch off for gridiron fans, just a crummy tray card with an ad!

(UPDATE 7/13/20: Turns out there were Football Super Packs in 1978 and 1979 as well.  1978 had no backing of any type, 1979 had a similar ad card. 49 and 59 cent versions exist for 1979, the former was a carryover from the year prior. A 1979 Baseball Super Pack with the ad card backer is out there too.)

What a rip!