Production Error

Well campers, sometimes things are not as they seem. A few clicks ago guesses were made as to the identity of Woody Gelman on a 1970 Topps vanity issue. Well, it was all so horribly wrong!

First of all, it turns out Woody Gelman, while he may have been the Art Director at one time, was head of the Product Development Dept. and not the Art Dept. when these cards were made and was for the Non-Sports side of things. The Art Department was a separate group that worked under Ben Solomon and toiled on the baseball sets (and presumably other sports as well). Mr. Solomon was responsible for final proofing and packaging of cards.

Second, that means Woody is not depicted on the Art Dept. card. Well, rats!

Third, we do have some detail on two denizens of the Art Dept. Here is a numbered scan:



The prior guess was that #9 was Woody Gelman. Not so, obviously and he remains a mystery. Ben Solomon is #12 according to his daughter and # 3 might be a fellow named Ted Moskowitz, who like Mr. Solomon looks to have been an animator before he came to Topps. If anyone has other ideas or some guesses as to who's who, let me know.

As it turns out, the Product Development and Art Departments remained behind in Brooklyn after the move of production facilities to Duryea in 1965. There were clear reasons for Topps to do so, both from a talent persepctive (starving artists did not live in Duryea, PA in the numbers needed by Topps) and business one (connections to Major League Baseball and presumably other sports leagues, Wall St., media and ad outlets).

I am starting to find a connection between the worlds of animation, golden age comics, MAD magazine, underground comics and Topps that all comes to a nexus at the behest of one man: Woody Gelman. More to come on this as the picture develops.

Proof Positive

Last fall I did a short post on some 1967 Paper Baseball proofs that had come from the Woody Gelman collection. These were printed on high quality white paper and featured four low numbered 67's. There has since been an informative thread on Net54baseball.com that shows a few more of these style proofs and since I'm always happy to use the scans of others, it makes perfect fodder for Opening Day (sorry, I do not like opening night-as far as I am concerned the season opener should always be in Cincinnati).

The earliest proof shown across the way is from 1957. Other than a 1956 Topps Pin Proof of Gus Zernial, it is the earliest proof I am aware of from Topps, so it's a neat little item:



If you can link to the Net54 site above, you will see these came from a Richard Gelman ad in a 1979 issue of the Trader Speaks. This would have been just after his Dad Woody passed away so clearly a treasure trove existed. You will see as we go on that the Groth card also has a printed reverse, unseen among the paper proofs I have seen so far.



The Groth is from the collection of Mark Rios, who kindly granted permission for me to post the images here. All of the offered paper proofs in the TTS ad were from the 1957 high numbers. Of course, you could have purchased 1970 Cloth Sticker proofs from the same ad!

Next we get to annoy some Mantle completists with a '66 Mick (#50), from the collection of Steve B (thanks Steve!):



We may have some more cool proofs from Steve a little bit down the road. That Mantle is #50 and blank backed here.

Super Topps collector Al Richter has a '67 paper proof sheet that is a sibling of mine:



Once again, these, like mine, are from the first series sheet and blank backed.

I find the '67 set endlessly fascinating. The cards look great, the photography is outstanding and the graphics just kill me. Plus, there's the crazy high numbers that year. Without a doubt, 1967 is one of the top five classic Topps baseball sets in my mind.

Proofs are one of the final Topps frontiers-many are in ungraded form and salted away in older collections. There must be a ton more of them out there; if they show up we'll post 'em here in some update threads.

Production Era

This is no April Fool's joke, kids-today we take a solid look at Duryea, PA home of Topps Chewing Gum for about 30 years commencing in 1965, after the move of most production of cards and confections from their Brooklyn base at Bush Terminal, although some corporate presence would remain behind.

From the May 17, 2009 edition of the Pittston Dispatch:

"The Topps Gum Plant in Duryea was to be dedicated on May 18 of 1965. Some 500 people indicated they planned to attend the ceremony including then Governor William Scranton and Attorney William Shea, the man responsible for the construction of Shea Stadium for the New York Mets. Rumors swirled about Topps bringing in workers from their Brooklyn plant, but a major part of the labor force was to be recruited from this region."

The Shea connection is intriguing as he was one of the prime movers in bringing National league baseball back to New York in 1962. This also gives us a timeline for pruduction in Duryea and it sure looks like the first major sports set produced there would have been the '65 "tall boy" Football. Pittston, by the way, is essentially the next town west of Duryea.

In addition to the football set, I show the following sets produced in '65:

32 MINI STICKERS

BATTLE (PLUS EMBLEM INSERTS)

BONANZA (PROOF)

DANIEL BOONE (PROOF)

FIGHTER PLANES

FLYING THINGS

GILLIGAN'S ISLAND

HOT RODS

KING KONG (PROOF)

KOOKIE PLAKS

MONSTER GREETING CARDS

PRESIDENTS & FAMOUS AMERICANS

PUSH/PULL

RAT FINK GREETING CARDS

SOUPY SALES

SUPERMAN

TOM & JERRY TATTOOS

UGLY STICKERS

WISE GUY BUTTONS

To that list you can probably add Bewitched and Flash Gordon, both essentially proof sets. The Bonanza and Daniel Boone cards above are very hard to find and as I have stated before, I believe Bonanza to be the toughest of any Topps set, issued or not. I am working on a unifying theory for most of these style of B&W cards (there are others as well) but need to do more work in the lab.

That is a big increase from the 1964 issues, which understandably enough centered around Beatlemania and was indicative of Topps' production big push going into 1966. But I digress.

Topps built their facility at 401 York Avenue in Duryea:


View Larger Map

You can click away the balloon and see the bird's eye view in all its glory. I beleive Topps leased some space in the plant even from the beginning. Now, we have lucked out here today as Jeff Shepherd, a Friend o'the Archive if there ever was one, was able to snap some pictures there in 1999:



Here's a similar sign elsewhere on the property:



Jeff also shot the Topps entrance but cautions it looked completely different than it had on his first visit in the 80's:



I'll delve into this subject more deeply but Topps' diminished presence was likely the result of their selling the plant in the mid-90's and then leasing back less space than they had previously used. This had to do with a lot of things but they moved their HQ back to New York City around this time ,leasing floors at One Whitehall Street in Manhattan, where they reside to this day.

Much more to come on the inner workings of Topps, stay tuned!

Yaz-a-ma-taz

Friend o' the Archive John Moran was kind enough to send along a Red Sox wrapper from the 1967 Sticker issue recently discussed here. Where the Pirates wrapper showed a pretty good likeness of Bill Mazeroski, the Red Sox pack displayed an unmistakable Carl Yastrzemski who was playing the last Triple Crown season MLB has seen.



It's got a bit of a tilt to it, doesn't it? I really like the poetic license taken with Maz and Yaz for the two wrappers!

While we are on a Yastrzemski kick, does anyone out there know what this came from? I don't think it matches any known Topps images but I'm horrible at looking at raw photos and projecting what they looked like when actually used on a card. This appears to e an engraving:



The back has Don Schwall scrawled on it but I think it looks like Yaz. So did the guy who sent the scans to me years ago (forgot your name buddy, sorry).



Don Schwall looked like this when he was on the Bosox:



I don't think that's our man. By the way, Don Schwall was one heck of an athlete, was the 1961 AL Rookie of the Year and won the first game in Atlanta Braves history. Click on the link, you'll see!

So is the "Yaz" a red herring? I don't think he is but if you know what the engraving is, drop the Archive a line.

Slipped Discs

We are going to (almost) wrap up the Topps Baseball Discs folks but a funny thing happened on the way to this post-I discovered the 1967's were probably proofed and printed up in late 1966. This follows a pattern found with the 1967 Punchouts, another set that went through what seems like a two year proofing process. The 68 Discs in turn look to have been proofed in 1967.

The 1967 set is comprised of 24 subjects and is sometime known as the "Silver Foil" set as the waste area beyond the circle with the player photo and information is silver reflective paper. Almost certainly designed to be pinbacks, these were to have been manufactured in Japan from Topps artwork and then imported into the US, a key bit of detail we will return to later.

A full proof sheet of 67's is known, although it has almost certainly been cut up:



Here is a '67 Mays:



You can clearly see the word JAPAN in the upper left quadrant. The back looks like this:



The '67 San Francisco Giants team discs also have the same back. The 1968 Discs, which add four subject to the mix for a total of 28, can be found with both Silver Foil and Plain White backgrounds, the latter of which usually sometimes have a horizontal fold that may indicate a sheet being saved by a dumpster diver of decades past.

Here is a Silver Foil '68 from the collection of Bob Fisk:



I am not sure if the back is the same brown cardboard found on the 67's but suspect it is. That's one of the things about the 68's-they are appreciably rarer than the 67's, despite what PSA and Beckett say and I have not been able to find scans of either a full proof sheet nor all of the individual discs from 1968. As you will see below, they have the JAPAN notation as well.

Having said that, the Monday disc really convinces me the All Stars were designed to be one set issued in 1967 as the A's were still in KC that year. The 68's should really be thought of as a second run of proofs. There's a little more on the production cycle further below but I will continue to use the commonly accepted dates for these two sets.

Here is a '68 Alley I have shown previously, front:



And back (look closely):



A few progressive proofs are known for the 68's. Here is a scan of a Cepeda series from that year I nabbed from Ebay:



Compare those and the Alley above to a very interesting Cepeda scan from an unknown source that looks to have had a thin plastic film overlaid in addition to a ring showing where the pin would be cropped. The clear overlay seems to have stripped off in spots. Note the fold line is similar to the one on Alley and JAPAN would have been rolled over the rim and oriented correctly on the reverse of the pin:



I will warn you that the next scan is a fake, merely a fantasy concoction sometimes sold on Ebay but it gives a good idea of what a completed pin or button would have looked like, using a '67 Torre:



Here is a combined list of both 67's and the 68's and you can see that only one player, Willie Mays, appears in all three disc sets:

1967	AS	AARON	HANK
1968	AS	AARON	HANK
1968	AS	ALLEN	RICHIE
1968	AS	ALLEY	GENE
1967	SFG	ALOU	JESUS
1967	SFG	BOLIN	BOB
1967	SFG	BROWN	OLLIE
1967	AS	CALLISON	JOHNNY
1967	AS	CAMPANERIS	BERT
1967	AS	CARDENAS	LEO
1968	AS	CAREW	ROD
1967	AS	CEPEDA	ORLANDO
1968	AS	CEPEDA	ORLANDO
1968	AS	CHANCE	DEAN
1967	AS	CLEMENTE	ROBERTO
1968	AS	CLEMENTE	ROBERTO
1967	SFG	DAVENPORT	JIM
1968	AS	DAVIS	TOMMY
1967	SFG	FRANKS	HERMAN
1968	AS	FREEHAN	BILL
1968	AS	FREGOSI	JIM
1967	SFG	GABRIELSON	LEN
1967	SFG	GIBBON	JOE
1967	SFG	HALLER	TOM
1968	AS	HARGAN	STEVE
1967	SFG	HART	JIM RAY
1967	SFG	HERBEL	RON
1967	AS	HOWARD	FRANK
1968	AS	HOWARD	FRANK
1967	AS	JONES	CLEON
1968	AS	KALINE	AL
1968	AS	KILLEBREW	HARMON
1967	AS	KNOOP	BOBBY
1967	AS	KOUFAX	SANDY
1967	SFG	LANIER	HAL
1967	SFG	LINZY	FRANK
1967	AS	MANTLE	MICKEY
1968	AS	MANTLE	MICKEY
1967	AS	MARICHAL	JUAN
1967	SFG	MARICHAL	JUAN
1967	AS	MAYS	WILLIE
1967	SFG	MAYS	WILLIE
1967	SFG	MAYS	WILLIE	FOR MAYOR
1968	AS	MAYS	WILLIE
1968	AS	McCORMICK	MIKE
1967	SFG	McCOVEY	WILLIE
1967	SFG	McDANIEL	LINDY
1967	AS	McDOWELL	SAM
1967	AS	McLAIN	DENNY
1968	AS	MONDAY	RICK
1967	AS	MORGAN	JOE
1967	AS	OLIVA	TONY
1968	AS	OSTEEN	CLAUDE
1967	SFG	PERRY	GAYLORD
1968	AS	PETERS	GARY
1967	SFG	PETERSON	CAP
1967	AS	POWELL	BOOG
1967	SFG	PRIDDY	BOB
1967	AS	ROBINSON	BROOKS
1968	AS	ROBINSON	BROOKS
1967	AS	ROBINSON	FRANK
1968	AS	ROBINSON	FRANK
1967	AS	ROMANO	JOHNNY
1968	AS	ROSE	PETE
1967	AS	SANTO	RON
1968	AS	SANTO	RON
1968	AS	STAUB	RUSTY
1967	AS	TORRE	JOE
1968	AS	TORRE	JOE
1968	AS	VEALE	BOB
1967	AS	YASTRZEMSKI	CARL
1968	AS	YASTRZEMSKI	CARL
1967	SFG	HAPPINESS IS A GIANT WIN
1967	SFG	I LOVE THE GIANTS
1967	SFG	LET'S GO GIANTS
1967	SFG	SF GIANTS	LOGO

In order to simplify matters, here is another list showing just the All Stars from both years with their team affiliations. Eleven players appear in both sets and a further post will try to differentiate years for these players as I do not have scans for all the doubled up 68's. I'll also show how the photos used on the discs tie in to the 1967 Punchouts and 1968 Baseball Plaks Checklists among other things when that post gets written.

1967 AND 1968 ALL STARS COMPARED (52 TOTAL)
AARON	HANK	BRAVES	67	68
ALLEN	RICHIE	PHILLIES		68
ALLEY	GENE	PIRATES		68
CALLISON	JOHNNY	PHILLIES	67
CAMPANERIS	BERT	ATHLETICS	67
CARDENAS	LEO	REDS	67
CAREW	ROD	TWINS		68
CEPEDA	ORLANDO	CARDINALS	67	68
CHANCE	DEAN	TWINS		68
CLEMENTE	ROBERTO	PIRATES	67	68
DAVIS	TOMMY	METS *		68
FREEHAN	BILL	TIGERS		68
FREGOSI	JIM	ANGELS		68
HARGAN	STEVE	INDIANS		68
HOWARD	FRANK	SENATORS	67	68
JONES	CLEON	METS	67
KALINE	AL	TIGERS		68
KILLEBREW	HARMON	TWINS		68
KNOOP	BOBBY	ANGELS	67
KOUFAX	SANDY	DODGERS	67
MANTLE	MICKEY	YANKEES	67	68
MARICHAL	JUAN	GIANTS	67
MAYS	WILLIE	GIANTS	67	68
McCORMICK	MIKE	GIANTS		68
McDOWELL	SAM	INDIANS	67
McLAIN	DENNY	TIGERS	67
MONDAY	RICK	ATHLETICS		68
MORGAN	JOE	ASTROS	67
OLIVA	TONY	TWINS	67
OSTEEN	CLAUDE	DODGERS		68
PETERS	GARY	WHITE SOX		68
POWELL	BOOG	ORIOLES	67
ROBINSON	BROOKS	ORIOLES	67	68
ROBINSON	FRANK	ORIOLES	67	68
ROMANO	JOHNNY	WHITE SOX **	67
ROSE	PETE	REDS		68
SANTO	RON	CUBS	67	68
STAUB	RUSTY	ASTROS		68
TORRE	JOE	BRAVES	67	68
VEALE	BOB	PIRATES		68
YASTRZEMSKI	CARL	RED SOX	67	68

* Tommy Davis should be with the Mets in the '68 set as he would be the only one in that set and each team has at least one representative. He was traded by the Mets to the White Sox on 12/15/67. See further comments below on last possible production date.

** Johnny Romano was traded from the White Sox to the Cardinals on 12/14/66. This indicates the first batch of proofs were almost certainly prepared prior to that date.

The production cycle for both sets looks to have less than a full year as the A's were given permission to move to Oakland by the American League on 10/18/67. A set that was in process in December of 1966 was certainly intended for release at the start of the '67 baseball season in any event and would seemingly have concluded production by the time the A's were given the go ahead to relocate just after the end of the 1967 World Series.

If you are counting teams the AL and NL had 12 discs each in the 67 All Stars and 14 in the 68's, color coded Red (AL) and Blue (NL). As noted above with the 1968 Tommy Davis Disc, each team had at least one player in each set. In 1967 the Orioles had a total of three players shown in the AL and the Braves and Giants each had an extra representative on the NL side. In 1968 The Orioles and Tigers each had an extra man while the Twins had two more than most. The '68 NL squad had the Braves and Giants again with an extra player each and the Pirates had a surplus of two. I am calling the players All Stars but it doesn't mean they made the mid-season classic in '66, some guys did it before, during and after that season. A few were only one time All Stars and the "scrubinee" player selection seems a bit odd. Perhaps more players would have been added later.

So with all this effort,what happened, why did the pin sets never materialize? Well, I found an old reference to import duty suit filed by Topps to try to have the pins classified as "buttons" vs their being labeled "novelties" (don't quote me on that, I may have it reversed). I lost the link but seem to recall a 10% import duty for one category vs 35% on the other hanging in the balance. I believe Topps finally lost the case in 1971 and have to think the difference in nomenclature was enough to kill any potential profit margin on products imported from Japan for sale in the US under the more expensive duty assessment. If I find the link again, I'll post it down the road.

Topps had produced metal coin inserts in 1964 and would do so again in 1971, presumably in the US, so I wonder if this was an attempt on their part to manufacture certain items more cheaply in Japan. I believe a couple of non-sports pin sets were made in Japan around this time but would have to dig a bit to determine which ones.

If you have any 1968 disc scans of any of the eleven repeated players, please send 'em along!

San Francisco Treat

Last time out I took a look at the 1967 Pirates and Red Sox Stickers that Topps was marketing to see if team-oriented products would sell. Obviously the answer was no but the stickers were well made and thought out. So well thought out that there was, in fact, a third team oriented set on the drawing board in '67. Some background is in order first though.

Most oddball Topps collectors are familiar with the little 2 1/4" diameter "discs", or "silver paper"" proofs that were intended to be made into pin sets. The plan was for them to be manufactured in Japan and then imported into the US. The two All Star sets are fairly well known, generally referred to as 1967 (24 subjects) and 1968 (28 subjects) issues, with the 68's being quite rare (not that the 67's are easy, mind you). Here is a look at one of each, '67 first:



The scan does the waste area an injustice-it is shiny and foil-like and the reason for the "silver paper" moniker. Here is a 1968 Disc:



I'll save details for the next post but the 68's can be found in various states of production with different backgrounds to boot.

Going back a year, in '67 Topps also produced proofs for a 24 pin San Francisco Giants team set that greatly resembled the two sticker sets from that year. Here is a disc of SF manager Herman Franks:



We again have a "silver foil" background with an incomplete color process (Herman would be green on the final proof run). By the way, Franks had a strange career as player and manager, showing almost a pattern of punctuated equilibrium in his playing and managerial records. He even managed to hit for a career average below the Mendoza Line.

A look at the full set reveals the similarities to the Red Sox and Pirates stickers on this scan I probably nailed from a major auction catalog:



Just look at the bottom right corner where there are five "fun" discs that mirror similar mirthful fare in the sticker sets. Since the set is only sporadically checklisted in the major hobby references, here is the full lineup of Giants discs:

ALOU	JESUS
BOLIN	BOB
BROWN	OLLIE
DAVENPORT	JIM
FRANKS	HERMAN
GABRIELSON	LEN
GIBBON	JOE
HALLER	TOM
HART	JIM RAY
HERBEL	RON
LANIER	HAL
LINZY	FRANK
MARICHAL	JUAN
MAYS	WILLIE
McCOVEY	WILLIE
McDANIEL	LINDY
PERRY	GAYLORD
PETERSON	CAP
PRIDDY	BOB
HAPPINESS IS A GIANT WIN
I LOVE THE GIANTS
LET'S GO GIANTS
SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS LOGO
WILLIE MAYS FOR MAYOR

At least one color process proof is also know, although I think this was from a different auction:



Unlike the stickers, the SF Giants discs were never sold at retail and are very difficult to find these days. I count four hall of famers in the set and you also have the extra Willie Mays for Mayor disc to make sure a bunch of high end items end up on HOF collectors wantlists. Too bad these never made it to the store shelves.

Buying Local

1967 was the year that Topps really started pouring it on. Whether it was due to their purchase of Fleer's baseball player contracts the year earlier or having run through a full production cycle at their new Duryea, PA plant, baseball related sets or planned sets were numerous in the Summer of Love. They also started heavy experimentation with the medium of the product itself across all lines of cards.

But back to baseball. The regular issue cards from '67 are quite well done and it is an extremely popular set to collect. The All Star Pinup poster inserts are attractive, albeit printed on cheap stock, and there were a ton of supplemental sets and even a couple of attempts to market on a local basis. I count the following sets or attempts in 1967 (*= proof or test issue):

Regular Issue
All Star Pinups
Punchouts
Pirates Stickers
Red Sox Stickers
Giant Stand Ups *
All Star Discs *
San Francisco Giants Discs *

Also in the mix were four players in the Who Am I? set and a Babe Ruth Comic Book Foldee appearance. There is also the matter of the mysterious Roberto Clemente Poster Sticker. Whew! Today though, let's briefly focus on the two sticker sets.

Now most collectors are familiar with the Pirates and Red Sox Stickers. Consisting of 33 stickers each, these were intended to be sold in Pittsburgh and Boston, almost certainly as a test to see if there was interest in locally focused sets. The stickers are quite well done, standard sized and printed on sturdy stock, Here's a Red Sox Sticker:



A Bucco:



And so nobody gets hoodwinked on Ebay, this is how the backs look, with their brown paper backs, slit about 60% of the way down:



While not common, since I suspect leftover stickers were sold through the Card Collector's Company, the stickers are getting a bit tougher to find these days, like many mid 60's Topps small sets and inserts. Don't get me wrong, these still are out there but they exist in reasonably small numbers compared to the regular baseball cards.

The stickers came three for a nickel and were sold in normal wax, not white test, wrappers (which may not yet have existed):


(From the collection of Bob Fisk)

I have a wavy scan of the Red Sox box (side view) from Net54baseball.com:



I would like to get some more box scans up but they are scarce, with the wrappers not too far behind.

The Stickers featured either 24 players and coaches (Pirates) or 26 (Red Sox) and then rounded out their numbers with some logo, slogan and fun cards, which I will get into next time for reasons that will be made apparent. Sorry to be a tease!