Freshman Orientation

The early days of Topps continue to bring surprises. Their first really wide-release, multiple series cards were issued in late 1948 into 1949 and included the 252 card strong Magic Photos, a set oft-blogged about in these parts. These "wet and develop" cards were issued in two 126 card series and deemed worthy of two separate albums, so the set was obviously a stellar seller for Topps. One way we know this is that we can determine at least two, possibly even three print runs for the first series, which if you are up on your sub-setting skills, you would know has eight distinct sub-series, alphabetically identified from A-H.

It has been known for some time that the boxing subset of 24 and some of the wrestling subset of 25 have two different backs. The regularly accepted Magic Photos back has directions on developing the card. Here is a Primo Carnera reverse that shows this:



However, an alternate version exists as well:



As you can plainly see, the instruction to SEE DIRECTIONS INSIDE WRAP is gone and the card and series numbering has been moved to the bottom of the card from the left side.

The fronts look identical, so far as I can see-"Directions" version first, then the alternate wording without:



All of the above scans are courtesy of Rhett Yeakley by the way. Rhett sent along other scans as well which show the more sepia leaning photos are distributed among both backs, so no help there in terms of possible reasons for alternate printings. It does look like however, that the font on the back of the cards without instruction is slightly finer and clearer than the one used on the SEE DIRECTIONS backs.

Well, Stars of Stage and Screen also have the alternate back:



and same holds true for not only the boxers but apparently all of the first series of 126 cards. Look at these mixed series of back scans from Ebay, American Dogs (Series G first, then the full Series F Stars of Stage and Screen:





Both types are presented and may have resided in the same scrap book.

I am still searching for alternate backs in the second series, which runs from J-T subset-wise (no "I" series was printed). Also, there do not seem to be nearly as many second series cards and grouping are not sighted nearly as often. The second series album, which features the same cover as the one from series one, is also harder to find than the first. But wait, there's more!

One of the boxing cards, Jack Johnson, exists with two different obverses, a normal white border and an esoteric gray border. Here, look:



I am not aware of any other gray borders in the set, so it's a headscratcher; possibly this was the result of a liberal application of developer but there is allegedly a lone front variation with the boxers so this could very well be it. The back of the white bordered card has the standard FOR DIRECTIONS back but I do not know the back of the gray border, although it is described by the seller as part of the Magic Photos set, so it must have one of the two know backs as he was heavily trumpeting the gray bordered front and would, IMHO, certainly have mentioned a strange back.

But wait, there;s STILL more!

Second series cards can be found with perforations:



but I have yet to see perforations on a first series card. Look at the group scans above, no perforations anywhere. Now second series cards are known in panel form:



You can see score lines on this panel, which is second series in flavor and would have come in the uber-scarce 5 card pack (or wrapper), click and scroll to see one. The perforations would have been from panelized cards,although I have to confess I thought the panels were scored and not perforated.

First series cards often seem to have either chipped front borders or super straight edges on their long sides. I have hear rumors of cards with rounded (at the factory) edges; if they exist I suspect they are from the first series.

It look like each series would have gone through two printings at least, with a possible third one to explain the gray border Jack Johnson:

Series 1 SEE DIRECTIONS INSIDE WRAP
Series 1 No Instructions
Series 1 Gray bordered Jack Johnson?
Series 2 Unperforated
Series 2 Perforated

You could order 20 cards direct from Topps for a dime and one Bazooka wrapper and while I have shown this 1949 comic book ad before, it bears repeating here:



Cards from both 126 card series are listed in the ad.

Here is a look at a penny wrapper from 1948 which seems to be the year of copyright:



The fulfillment address was in the Flatiron District of Manhattan, just south of midtown and the fact it was not in Brooklyn supports, at least to my mind, the theory vending boxes were utilized. 1949 is seemingly the year of issue according to standard hobby wisdom but I am not so certain that is correct, look at the November 1948 date on this sell sheet to see what I mean:



Yikes! The cards look ready in November '48 and really the photo must have been shot earlier than that. Perhaps the 1948 and 1949 versions differ, explaining the variations above. Still, it would seem the backs without instructions were either pulled from vending boxes or sold where instructions were posted elsewhere, like on a gumball machine. It's even possible the "No Instruction" backs were sold with the pictures already developed.

The again, perhaps not! I am hoping there is more information out there on these cards; they get more mysterious as each year passes. Would I be shocked to see rule breakers? No sir, I would not!

Come Fly With Me

Ah, the heady days of the Jet Set: Sinatra swingin' on the radio, cocktails clinking and exotic destinations beckoning! Even Topps got into the act, with their 1956 Jets set, a 240 card ode to flying machines. The small black and white cards, as we know, were sold with Trading Card Guild overtones and an album was made available for easy storage and display.

Legendary Auctions just concluded selling a whole bunch of 50's unopened boxes and one lot had some great shots of the cards, packaging and albums. The box has been shown here before but this is a classic look at some prime unopened cellos:



Normally that red and black box would have held 36 packs of Giant Size cards but due to the smaller dimensions of the Jets cards, 62 cellos were contained within.

The albums were sold for 15 cents each in 8 count boxes:



So the artwork for the cello boxes was actually on the box for the albums! Each album held half of a full set (120 cards) so 30 cents were needed for the entire run of 240 to have a nice home.

Here's another look at the album:



Neat, huh?! The cards were also sold in two types of penny packs, one repeating the look of the box art , which to be fair to the Guild, was prominent on the penny and nickel packs and boxes. But another penny pack was issued called Fighting Planes, giving a militaristic look to things. I can't find a good scan of that pack at the moment but stay tuned as I am feverishly gathering all sorts of scans from the 40's and 50's of anything to do with the smaller Topps cards. I'll add it here when I locate it.

Dime Bag

No, this is not a piece about the late Pantera guitarist but rather a followup to the end of the 1949 Play Coins of the World post. I showed this amazing little ad piece at the tail end of that tale:



I think that might be the first example of a ten cent price point for Topps but it depends when the Play Money Pops came out and what they sold for. The Flags of the World (a.k.a. Parade) card attached to the ad shows cross-marketing at its earliest; the sets seem to have been designed to complement each other. More on Parade et al very soon at the Archives kids! But for now, some pops:



I have mentioned these before-Play Money Pops were a "big box" with a dozen lollipops and seven Play Coins enclosed. Nineteen cents is a possibility for this item, as is a quarter. The Topps Candy Division marketed the pops, whereas Topps Chewing Gum marketed the penny gum packs.

According to The Sport Americana Price Guide to the Non-Sports Cards 1930-1960 (by Christopher Benjamin, 1993 Edgewater Book Company), from which I took the above scan, the box back states there are 72 coins in denominations of 25, 50 and 100. Interestingly, there is an extant ad for the pops in the Benjamin book but I can't get a good scan so it's not shown here.

Play Money Pops may be the source of the metallic coins discussed last time, I just don't know. This all still does not answer the question of the alleged yellow 1 denomination coins. However, if you look closely at that bag of coins in, or rather, on, the ad peice, there may be a hint of yellow one one coin. Here is a close up (look between the two blue coins and then off the the right "shoulder" of the rightmost blue coin):



Very possibly a yellow coin encircled below the rest. This leads me to believe there were at least three issues of these, if not four as I can't believe there was not a nickel pack:

1) Penny Pack-120 in number 5,10,25,50 100 in green, blue, red, gold and silver.

2) Theoretical Nickel Gum Pack, with coins following penny pack mode

3) Ten Cent bag of coins, possibly as per above coins plus adding a yello 1 denomination coin for each country so 144 set total with 24 yellows added to the 120 previously issued coins. Addign yello may have been a ploy by Topps to resell old, overstocked coins and new product together.

4) Play Money Pops-72 in number, 25, 50 and 100 denominations, all in metal.

Benjamin mentions the coins that came with Play Money Pops had plastic cores with metal coatings of brass, copper or nickel. If the copper 50 and 100 pieces displayed in my last post are not from the lollipop issue, then there may be a fifth permutation out there. Crazy!

Gimme Some (Play) Money

A tantalizing mystery partially solved yet spawning more questions today cadets!

The 1949 Play Coins of the World issue is a big touchstone here at the Archives, as it is one of the earliest sets issued by Topps. Seemingly issued as 1948 turned into 1949, this little set identified as PX4 in the American Card Catalog may in fact be two sets in one.

I had previously questioned the size of the set, described as 120 in number by Topps in period advertising but truncated by some other sources. Thanks to a recent Ebay victory, I think I can set the count at 120 but only for what is the plastic version of the set (yup, there is more than one variety-keep on reading!).

A large cache of coins, of which my win reflects but a small part, has been auctioned in recent months at the world's biggest garage sale and there appear to be five colors, each pegged to a specific denomination, for each of the 24 countries represented in the set.

Green means 5:



and blue means 10:



while red is two bits:



After 25 we run into the "metallized" coins, the 50 in silver:



and the 100 in what could either be gold or copper; gold is more romantic but copper is more practical, no?



Silver and gold are merely plastic made to look like metal and I must say they look pretty spiffy and even shine a bit. Copper and gold likely have cross-polluted in some listings so that may be one run of 24 we don't have to count; which one--you tell me!

The Play Money of American Children site indicates yellow coins with a 1 denomination exist but I have never seen any of that color or amount in the current auctions or in various online searches so that could be either an error or represent a scarcer type or even one of the possible side-sets (subset seems incorrect here) I'll touch upon momentarily. There is a lot of play money out there, by the way.

Here's the corresponding fronts, a mix of Peru and Finland, for you curiosity seekers and completists:








Now, the coins were sold in both penny packs and a larger box of "Play Money Pops". The thinking is these are the same sets and that the pops are from Topps but I do not have enough background to confirm, although it seems like lollipops would be a Topps confectionery staple. Tabling that bit for now, until scans and research materializes, I need to figure out what is going on with this odd couple:



That scan is from a mixed Ebay lot of mostly coin like products. The first problem is that the 50 denomination is the same color as the 100. Mistakes can happen and the end of production runs can result in the breakage of patterns within sets but the thing is, the above two coins are corroded in the telltale green of copper after oxidation ends and thickening begins. Therefore, the above examples are made of metal but I have no idea where they are from.

Certainly it is possible other denominations exists in metal as well altho' it might just be the two highest. I do not think Topps manufactured these, as it would be very inconsistent for them to do so as third parties generally did their printing and other production related to the gum pack inserts. Did Topps make plastic coins from molds already created to produce metal play coins or did they only have a license for a specific period of time for these? Ah, sweet mystery.....if you have any ideas, drop me a line.

I'll leave off with a great ad piece scan from Legendary Auctions as they just probably shipped this to some lucky winner (more on this next time; I told you this was tantalizing):

Test Pattern-The Mid 60's Black and White TV Cards From Topps (Part 4)

Rounding out the decade kids, with the rest (I think) of the B&W TV show cards produced by Topps in the 60's.

1967 brought a very strange show to TV: Captain Nice, starring William Daniels as a mild mannered superhero with a costume sewn by his mom. It looks to have been a mid season replacement and aired from January to May in '67, lasting 15 episodes. For some bizarre reason, Topps produced a 30 card set of this color show in glorious black and white!

I suspect the set, which was tested as a wrapper is known to exist, either sold next to nothing or was pulled from wider release due to the lackluster ratings of the show. The cards add a splash of color to the front:



That is just an ugly design! Nonetheless, these are very difficult cards, almost as hard to find as Flipper (and with the same card count of 30, no less). The back though, was quite colorful:



Very odd that a B&W card has a color back,no? It resembles the back on The Land Of The Giants cards issued a year later:



As a bonus, note the default Topps block print, back for a final visit! Here is a LOTG front, in color though:



LOTG is not as tough as Captain Nice but it's scarce. A&BC also did a Giants set in the UK a year later that is far easier to find. Many Topps test and limited release issues were repurposed for the UK and to a lesser extent Australia, Holland and Israel starting around 1967. That will be the subject of a lengthy series here someday.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch:



Yes, Bonanza-the set I consider the rarest ever produced by Topps, although I admit Flipper and a couple of others give it a run for the money. That one little splash of color indicates to me production around the time of Captain Nice, maybe 1967, or within a year either way. Allegedly produced as an almost in house gag by Topps, Bonanza cards never were sold at retail.

Here is a back:



Bonanza was shown in color from its first broadcast in 1959 through its last in 1973 (431 episodes buckaroos!), which was unheard of at the time, so of course we get more B&W, although I can't swear to the print on the back being B&W, I have heard it is brown.

There are rumors of other test or proof sets out there for F Troop, Green Acres and I Dream of Jeannie. All but Green Acres had at least one black and white season. Not that it would matter if they were all shown in color to fit in with our grouping but if a card surfaces from any of these three shows, I would not be surprised if it is in black and white.

Test Pattern-The Mid 60's Black and WhiteTV Cards From Topps (Part 3)

We ended with a spy spoof last time out so today will pick up with a serious spy show sort of by way of a cheesy doctors show from '62 before moving on to other realms. As everybody over the age of 40 knows, the 60's were a great time for spy and adventure flicks, primarily due to the tensions of the Cold War. A lot of TV shows tried to cash in on the James Bond phenomenon but The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was the only one aided by Ian Fleming, who penned the Bond novels. Do you know what U.N.C.L.E. stands for? Answer below!

While first season, 1964-65 was shot in black and white, the pilot was produced in color. The card set has a 1965 copyright date but was issued in 1966, after the show had switched to color. Why this was a black and white set is puzzling to me unless it was somehow delayed prior to issue. We will get to scans of these momentarily but first let's hit the wayback machine.

The U.N.C.L.E. cards are readily available and use a stylized front that as far as I can tell originated with the Dr. Casey & Kildare cards in 1962 but was really ramped up with the issuance of the three Black and White Beatles sets that were rushed out in post-invasion 1964. The common thread in these sets is a B&W photo, usually glossier than a normal card (but not always) and adorned with a facsimile autograph in blue.

Here is a fine example of the front style referred to above, which I fondly call Topps Black and Blue":



The reverse is also very typical of these style cards:



My operating theory is that the design used here originally was created to mimic a standard Hollywood portrait or group photo but once the Beatles hit the Ed Sullivan Show it was found to be perfect for pumping out a lot of product very quickly without worrying about any real design other than what was being shown on the wrapper.

Man from U.N.C.L.E. used the same style front as the Casey and Kildare cards:



But the back was decidedly different, albeit a simple puzzle piece:



We also see this front on the Soupy Sales cards issued circa 1965 (there is some confusion on the date, I'll address that momentarily):



Another simple back for ol' Soup:



Now there is a color Soupy Sales set as well, that is quite scarce:



Yes, Soupy is smoking a cigarette on a bubble gum card! The backs of the color cards are blank and indicate they were only early proofs:



Some sources have the color cards being from the end of Soupy's second national run in 1967 (he had a show in the late fifties and early sixties and would even manage to star in yet a third nationally broadcast show in the late 70's) and this date has turned up a couple of times in my research for the B&W issue but I believe the latter to be from 1965. The Soupy Saga will be looked at in detail here sometime as there is a lot more to it than what I want to get into here.

1968 brings us for some bizarre reason, a B&W set commemorating the show Julia, which I remember very well but it still disappeared very quickly after three seasons, much like these cards which are scarce:



Once again, the simple tried and true information block back presents itself:



Why this style of card and why a B&W set was issued in 1968 is curious. However, 1969 brought yet another B& W set!

Room 222 had a solid run on ABC, premiering in 1969 and eventually becoming part of ABC;s powerhouse Friday Night block of programming, which was de rigueur kid viewing in our household in the early 70's. There is a twist though, blue has turned to black in our autograph:



The back is partly puzzling:



Topps did come up with an identical color version though:



And I mean identical:






U.N.C.L.E is an acronym for United Network Command for Law and Enforcement by the way!

Our look at the B&W 60s cards will conclude next time out-see you then!