1969 Is Fine - Part Two

Following last weeks' peek at the 1969 Decals,  today I'll be looking at the 1969 Topps Baseball Mini Stickers, more commonly known as 4 on 1 Stickers. 

Topps was pretty big on putting a "quad" of stickers on a card back in the 60's and early 70's, especially on the non-sports side. For some reason they decided to test a baseball themed mini sticker set in 1969, taking images from the 2nd series press sheet used for the regular issue. Perhaps Woody Gelman just liked the card design for '69! As an aside, the Football stamp stickers Topps issued in 1969, which had to be moistened to put into a mini album, are referred to as 4 in 1 Stickers. This makes me think it was more expensive to use true sticker stock but I digress....

In addition to the old standby of capless photos, Topps really broke out the airbrush in '69.  Kosco had come over to the Dodgers from the Yankees and Ollie Brown was, of course, selected in the expansion draft by the Padres (from the Giants) and had the honor of being the first player selected in MLB's third such crapshoot. Jim Bunning came over after the 1967 season from the Phillies to the Pirates and given his Philly duds, I would say Topps just didn't have a current picture of him. 

As Friend o'the Archive Keith Olbermann recently pointed out to me, Topps was facing a Major League Baseball Players Association boycott in 1967-68 and only a handful of new pictures were taken during that time.  Dexter Press and few other issuers tried to take advantage of this interregnum but the MLBPA worked out their differences with Topps after increased royalties were obtained for the players. They did start taking a lot of new photos in spring training in 1969 as a lot of tired old shots had been rehashed ad nauseum over the previous years.

Ron Reed was happily ensconced in Atlanta at the time, although he had been a player with the Detroit Pistons in the NBA  a couple of years prior. In addition to being one of a dozen MLB players who also played in the NBA/NBL, he played alongside former White Sox pitcher Dave DeBusschere while in Detroit and, in fact, was also coached by Double D, who was Pistons head coach from 1964-67!  In addition to dying on my 15th wedding anniversary, DeBusschere was also having a drink with an acquaintance of mine on the day he passed.  Anyhoo...

Topps indicia adorns the lower right card sticker of each quad, so 25 of these babies have such markings. The back is just a shade off true white:

Looks like the horizontal score line had a bit more oomph behind it during manufacture as you can't see the vertical companion.

I'll get into the teams and composition of the set momentarily, but one interesting variation from the regular issue Baseball set surfaces and gives us a window into the production timeline.

Clayton Dalrymple, shown with the Phillies in this set, while he has a team variation in the main set, having been traded from the Phillies to the Orioles on January 20, 1969. Here's the progression:

So at what point did Topps make him an Oriole?  We saw last time out that the Decals were composed sometime between 12/12/68 and 1/22/69 and the Mini Stickers fall into the same rough time frame. Once again Donn Clendenon helps with the dating. Remember he went through a crazy period where, as Wikipedia tells us:

"With first base prospect Al Oliver waiting in the wings, the Pirates left Clendenon unprotected for the 1968 Major League Baseball expansion draft, and he was selected by the Montreal Expos. On January 22, 1969, the Expos traded Clendenon and Jesús Alou to the Houston Astros for Rusty Staub. The Astros had recently hired Clendenon's former Pirates manager, Harry Walker, with whom Clendenon had a personality clash, to steer their club. Clendenon refused to report to his new team.

The Expos and Astros worked out a new deal, and Clendenon joined the Expos on April 19, 1969."

He's an Expo in the 4 on 1's It's easy to pinpoint the bookend dates for the Mini Stickers then. They couldn't have been approved for final design before October 14, 1968 (the day Clendenon was selected by the Expos from Pittsburgh) or after January 20, 1969 when Clay Dalrymple became an Oriole. Clendenon's regular issue card with the Expos shown also goes for about ten times the Houston version, while Dalrymple has many more Orioles cards available so the first regular issue print run was altered and subsequent runs had the majority of both player's cards with their new teams. I think it's good bet then that the Mini Stickers were printed just after the first run of the second series was composed.

A color process proof of the Mini Stickers exists and was auctioned for a song by REA a little while back:

These were taken from the "A" sheet, or left side of a 264 master uncut series 2 sheet, as iPhoned by Friend o'the Archive Anthony Nex; Clendenon as an Expo is third card in on rows 1 and 9, while Dalrymple is eight cards over on the 6th row:

You can clearly see how the top two rows of the regular press sheet are double printed and reappear near the bottom.  The rightmost column was excised for the Mini Stickers, which saved Topps from having checklists appear in the set but truncated the World Series subset by one subject in sticker form.  In fact, where else can you find a checklist of the cards NOT replicated as stickers?  Witness:

107  2nd Series Checklist

155  Pete Ward (White Sox)

167  World Series Game 6

172  Jerry Stephenson (Red Sox)

182  Bill Rigney (Angels)

183  Don Shaw (Expos)

211  Galen Cisco (Royals)

212  Tom Tresh (Yankees)

214  3rd Series Checklist

217  John Donaldson (Athletics)

Here's the "B" Sheet, from an old Huggins & Scott auction:

You can see how Topps sliced and diced the rows when compared to the "A" sheet.  That's how they rolled back then! If you count from the top down, the 8th and 9th rows, which are replicated as the 11th and 12th rows, are all extra prints, appearing three times over the two half sheets.

As with the 1969 Decals, I'll give you a checklist ordered by team.  Note all the of the designated rookie cards have two players apiece but I've shown each player individually:

LAST		FIRST		TEAM		REG #
REICHARDT		RICK		ANGELS		205
RODGERS		BOB		ANGELS		157
WEAVER		JIM		ANGELS		134
BAUER		HANK		ATHLETICS		124
NOSSEK		JOE		ATHLETICS		143
ODOM		JOHN		ATHLETICS		195
AARON		TOMMIE		BRAVES		128
BRITTON		JIM		BRAVES		154
HARRIS		LUMAN		BRAVES		196
MILLAN		FELIX		BRAVES		210
REED		RON		BRAVES		177
GIBSON		BOB		CARDINALS		200
HUNTZ		STEVE		CARDINALS		136
NELSON		MEL		CARDINALS		181
PINSON		VADA		CARDINALS		160
SHANNON		MIKE		CARDINALS		110
TORREZ		MIKE		CARDINALS		136
BECKERT		GLENN		CUBS		171
DUROCHER		LEO		CUBS		147
HANDS		BILL		CUBS		115
SMITH		WILLIE		CUBS		198
FAIRLY		RON		DODGERS		122
KOSCO		ANDY		DODGERS		139
LEFEBVRE		JIM		DODGERS		140
PURDIN		JOHN		DODGERS		161
SUTTON		DON		DODGERS		216
BATEMAN		JOHN		EXPOS		138
CLENDENON		DONN		EXPOS		208
FAIREY		JIM		EXPOS		117
GIBBON		JOE		GIANTS		158
HIATT		JACK		GIANTS		204
MAYS		WILLIE		GIANTS		190
SADECKI		RAY		GIANTS		125
EDWARDS		JOHNNY		HOUSTON		186
GILSON		HAL		HOUSTON		156
McFADDEN		LEON		HOUSTON		156
RADER		DOUG		HOUSTON		119
WILSON		DON		HOUSTON		202
ALVIS		MAX		INDIANS		145
AZCUE		JOE		INDIANS		176
SNYDER		RUSS		INDIANS		201
WILLIAMS		STAN		INDIANS		118
CARDWELL		DON		METS		193
COLLINS		KEVIN		METS		127
HENDLEY		BOB		METS		144
MARTIN		J.C.		METS		112
DILLMAN		BILL		ORIOLES		141
JOHNSON		DAVEY		ORIOLES		203
MAY		DAVE		ORIOLES		113
PHOEBUS		TOM		ORIOLES		185
BROWN		OLLIE		PADRES		149
McCOOL		BILL		PADRES		129
PENA		ROBERTO		PADRES		184
SELMA		DICK		PADRES		197
CALLISON		JOHNNY		PHILLIES		133
DALRYMPLE		CLAY		PHILLIES		151
HISLE		LARRY		PHILLIES		206
JACKSON		GRANT		PHILLIES		174
LERSCH		BARRY		PHILLIES		206
WISE		RICK		PHILLIES		188
DAVIS		TOMMY		PILOTS		135
HANEY		LARRY		PILOTS		209
MORRIS		JOHNNY		PILOTS		111
OYLER		RAY		PILOTS		178
BUNNING		JIM		PIRATES		175
CANNIZZARO		CHRIS		PIRATES		131
PAGAN		JOSE		PIRATES		192
SISK		TOMMIE		PIRATES		152
LAHOUD		JOE		RED SOX		189
PETROCELLI		RICO		RED SOX		215
STANGE		LEE		RED SOX		148
THIBDEAU		JOHN		RED SOX		189
YASTRZEMSKI		CARL		RED SOX		130
ARRIGO		GERRY		REDS		213
ROSE		PETE		REDS		120
WAGNER		LEON		REDS		187
WOODWARD		WOODY		REDS		142
ADAIR		JERRY		ROYALS		159
BUNKER		WALLY		ROYALS		137
HARRISON		CHUCK		ROYALS		116
BALDWIN		DAVE		SENATORS		132
BRINKMAN		ED		SENATORS		153
FRENCH		JIM		SENATORS		199
HOWARD		FRANK		SENATORS		170
WORLD SERIES		GAME 4		SPECIAL-WS		165
WORLD SERIES		GAME 3		SPECIAL-WS		164
WORLD SERIES		GAME 7		SPECIAL-WS		168
WORLD SERIES		GAME 2		SPECIAL-WS		163
WORLD SERIES		GAME 1		SPECIAL-WS		162
WORLD SERIES		SUMMARY		SPECIAL-WS		169
WORLD SERIES		GAME 5		SPECIAL-WS		166
FACE		ROY		TIGERS		207
HORTON		WILLIE		TIGERS		180
McLAIN		DENNY		TIGERS		150
TRACEWSKI		DICK		TIGERS		126
GRZENDA		JOE		TWINS		121
PERRY		JIM		TWINS		146
ROSEBORO		JOHN		TWINS		218
UHLAENDER		TED		TWINS		194
CHRISTIAN		BOB		WHITE SOX		173
NYMAN		GERRY		WHITE SOX		173
PAVLETICH		DON		WHITE SOX		179
WOOD		WILBUR		WHITE SOX		123
CLOSTER		ALAN		YANKEES		114
CUMBERLAND		JOHN		YANKEES		114
McDANIEL		LINDY		YANKEES		191

EDIT 4/17/16: A further tip of the cap to Keith Olbermann, who pointed put the first version of this post had Dalrymple shown with the wrong team on the Mini Stickers. His catch has helped tighten up this post considerably.

1969 Is Fine - Part One

1969 brought a world of changes to Major League Baseball. A second wave of expansion swelled the number of teams to 24 and gave us the beginnings of divisional alignments and multi-tiered playoffs. Topps was forced to change too, with new photography being ordered for veterans and a massive set that, at 664 cards, was their largest to date. 1969 also marked the last year of things such as multi-player cards and five cent wax packs, so as one era ended another began.

Topps created a simple design for the 1969 Baseball cards and gave them backs with a pinkish/salmon color that was prevalent in many of their late 60's non-sports sets. I guess when Topps bought ink they bought it by the tanker truck full! The result was an easy to read reverse that expanded on the slimmer, vertically oriented landscape of the past two years and incorporated the curved lower case "t" Topps logo-its only appearance on a vintage baseball card.

Topps so liked the design of the cards in 1969 that they used it in two additional sets: a 48 subject decal insert with the regular issue and a 25 "card"/100 Mini Stickers set that was sold on its own. Today we'll take a look at the Decals.

They are quite colorful and measure about 1 3/4" x 2 1/8", although there is some slight variance in the cutting; as per below, some of this cutting may have occurred well after the last out of the 1969 World Series was caught by Cleon Jones.

The colored circles usually differ vs. the regular issue and the text is all black here whereas the cards used a two tone scheme. Actually, all of the colored circles may be different but I didn't really check those carefully.  What I did check was all of the poses. Almost of the images used for the Decals differ from those on the regular issue cards.

There are three types of photos used on the Decals when compared to the regular issue and I counted each type:

1) Different picture (35)

2) Same picture (5)

3) More tightly cropped picture (8)

A couple of crops were so close I counted them as being the same.  The 8 tight crops I noted were obvious ones.  Here is an example of a cropped Decal photo:

You can see how they used a tighter crop of the photo from the card:

What the heck, here's the aforementioned Topps logo on the card back.  Sweet, huh?

Now take a look at Tony Oliva's regular card vs. his Decal:

Two different photos were used obviously. I'll get into the reasons for this momentarily. It also worth noting Topps did manage to recycle his Decal image on a 1969 Super Baseball card though, just with a slightly bigger crop:

The Decals sport two team changes (sort of): Rusty Staub is shown with Houston on his Decal but is with Montreal in the regular issue. Donn Clendenon had a card variation in 1969 and can be found with Montreal or Houston but he's with Montreal on his Decal.

This makes a lot of sense as he was traded for Staub on January 22, 1969 (although Donn refused to report to the Astros) and this transaction allows us to pinpoint a date for the printing of at least one-half of the Decals. I'm trying to sort out which series' packs had the Decals (or, more properly Magic Rub-Offs) as the wrapper on the wax packs stated but the second series had them for sure, based upon PSA Registry details and Darren Prince's 1993 pamphlet Unopened Baseball Wax Packs, Boxes & Wrappers Price Guide. Prince goes on to add Series 5 to to the mix for the Decals, whereas series 3 and 4 had the Deckle inserts. Cello packs also held inserts, but not Rak Paks. 

It certainly seems like they could have been issued in two series of 24 then and they are taken from all seven series of Topps Baseball, like so (print runs and series match in 1969):

Series One - 8 (six cropping differences, two photos that are the same)

Series Two - 12 (11 use different pictures, one is the same)

Series Three - 8 (all but two are different, one is a crop, one is the same)

Series Four - 7 (one is the same, the rest are different)

Series Five  - 7 (one is a crop, the others are different)

Series Six - 4 (all different)

Series Seven - 2 (all different)

Topps clearly did not have the higher series cards composed when the Decals were designed, which looks to have been right after the First Series cards were composed and printed. This timing led to so many different photos being used after the first series was mined for the Decals. Given the date of the Staub/Clendenon trade, Rusty being with Houston on his Decal, plus the fact Hoyt Wilhelm is shown as an Angel on his (he was traded to the Angels on December 12, 1968 from Kansas City, who had taken him in the AL expansion draft two months prior), we know the design was locked in between 12/12/68 and 1/22/69. Topps had more time between composition and printing than they were used to though, as you will note they were printed in the U.K.  

Topps used a London company called Letraset, who specialized in this style of ruboff decal, to print these, and you can see how sharp their work was. That's because Letraset was well ahead of anybody with this technology at the time. Nigel has the scoop on them, at least on the Football side. Topps licensed from or used Letraset to produce a couple of non-sports sets as well in the early 1970's.

The decal image was printed on the reverse of the clear, thick, cello top layer.  A bottom layer of very slightly waxed paper had to be peeled off before the decal could be applied.  Take a look at the back of one for goodness sake:

A number of finds, both of cut and uncut decals (on long rolls) have surfaced over the last 15 for so years and finding high grade examples is not difficult. Many of these rolls have now been cut up and graded (don't get me started on "sheet-cutting" and TPG's!)

Here is the Decal checklist, ordered by team, showing the Baseball series each player was in. All teams have two subjects, except the Angels (3) and Royals (1), thanks to the Wilhelm trade. The table also shows poses and card series:

FIRST NAME	LAST NAME	TEAM	CARD		POSE		SERIES
JIM	FREGOSI	ANGELS	365		DIFF		4
RICK	REICHARDT	ANGELS	205		DIFF		2
HOYT	WILHELM	ANGELS	565		DIFF		6
REGGIE	JACKSON	ATHLETICS	260		CROP		3
RICK	MONDAY	ATHLETICS	105		CROP		1
HANK	AARON	BRAVES	100		CROP		1
FELIPE	ALOU	BRAVES	300		DIFF		3
BOB	GIBSON	CARDS	200		DIFF		2
TIM	McCARVER	CARDS	475		DIFF		5
FERGIE	JENKINS	CUBS	640		DIFF		7
RON	SANTO	CUBS	570		DIFF		6
DON	DRYSDALE	DODGERS	400		DIFF		4
TOM	HALLER	DODGERS	310		DIFF		3
DONN	CLENDENON	EXPOS	208		DIFF		2
MAURY	WILLS	EXPOS	45		CROP		1
WILLIE	MAYS	GIANTS	190		DIFF		2
WILLIE	McCOVEY	GIANTS	440		DIFF		5
RUSTY	STAUB	HOUSTON	230		DIFF		3
JIM	WYNN	HOUSTON	360		SAME		4
SAM	McDOWELL	INDIANS	220		SAME		3
LUIS	TIANT	INDIANS	560		DIFF		6
JERRY	KOOSMAN	METS	90		CROP		1
TOM	SEAVER	METS	480		CROP		5
DAVE	McNALLY	ORIOLES	340		DIFF		4
FRANK	ROBINSON	ORIOLES	250		DIFF		3
TONY	GONZALEZ	PADRES	501		DIFF		5
DICK	SELMA	PADRES	197		DIFF		2
RICHIE	ALLEN	PHILLIES	350		DIFF		4
CHRIS	SHORT	PHILLIES	395		DIFF		4
TOMMY	DAVIS	PILOTS	135		DIFF		2
DON	MINCHER	PILOTS	285		DIFF		3
MATTY	ALOU	PIRATES	490		DIFF		5
ROBERTO	CLEMENTE	PIRATES	50		SAME		1
KEN	HARRELSON	RED SOX	240		DIFF		3
CARL	YASTRZEMSKI	RED SOX	130		DIFF		2
TOMMY	HELMS	REDS	70		CROP		1
PETE	ROSE	REDS	120		DIFF		2
JOE	FOY	ROYALS	93		CROP		1
FRANK	HOWARD	SENATORS	170		DIFF		2
CAMILO	PASCUAL	SENATORS	513		DIFF		6
WILLIE	HORTON	TIGERS	180		SAME		2
DENNY	McLAIN	TIGERS	150		DIFF		2
HARMON	KILLEBREW	TWINS	375		DIFF		4
TONY	OLIVA	TWINS	600		DIFF		7
LUIS	APARICIO	WHITE SOX	75		SAME		1
PETE	WARD	WHITE SOX	155		DIFF		2
MICKEY	MANTLE	YANKEES	500		DIFF		5
MEL	STOTTLEMYRE	YANKEES	470		DIFF		5

I love these little inserts-they are among my favorites of this era.

Mirror Mirror

I wouldn't say I'm obsessed with it but the 1988 Pee Wee's Playhouse set has definitely cost me some hours researching matters and comparing cards to see what I had against what is a 159 card master checklist.

The set was covered here a while back

33 base cards with 33 variations
44 stickers, including 4 checklists
12 lenticular wigglers
12 tattoo sheets
25 activity cards, including 3 mirror variations

The mirror cards have been driving people nuts for almost thirty years now and I thought I would show them here so you all can see what you may or may not have in your collections if you collect this set.

The first mirror image concerns a skull:

The easiest way to make out the differences are by looking at the cracks atop the skull.  If you look at the 11 o'clock position on the top card, you will see the crack snakes up in a zigzag pattern.  The bottom, mirrored image, has a straighter line in that position.

The second mirrored card's variations are a little easier to discern:

The size of the little white triangles at the 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock positions around each eye are the best clue here.  It's still subtle but a little bit more obvious then the skull cracks!

Card #3 is by far the easiest of the mirrors to ID.  You can see the most prominent difference quite easily:

The blue and green eye color switches are a dead giveaway!  The "reflectors" are also rotated in an obvious way.

Each of these have other differences as well but they are very, very minute and easier to see than describe if that makes sense.

The base cards each come with two different borders: 

It's pretty easy to see the different borders and in fact, all are quite simple to spot.  I'm not going to catalog these but you can drive yourself around the bend looking to fill in the variations across all types of cards in this innovative set.

I'm down to needing two stickers (nos. 11 & 40) to complete mine.  And yes, that is a big hint!

Popsicle Stars

1963 brought us the 55 card Topps Astronaut Pictures set, which captured the nascent U.S. space program's "Mercury 7" Astronauts at a time when the entire country, especially kids, was outer space crazy. I grew up during this period and can tell you the entire country was captivated by astronauts and rockets in the 60's, which was exhaustively chronicled in the existing media of the time.

The set, colloquially just called Astronauts in the hobby,  was produced quite cheaply by Topps as they used official NASA photographs and created a card back that was a simple 3-D picture.  While I'm not actually covering that set in detail today (or possibly ever, since it's so well documented) since I'm here to discuss Popsicle cards, I will show some scans for comparative purposes and direct you here if you want to read a little more:

See, 3-D!

Just like the Tarzan 3-D issues a decade earlier, except those had the 3-D images on the front of the card (a good idea, said no one ever). Each five cent wax pack came with a pair of 3-D glasses; no penny packs were issued due to this requirement:

The wrapper was almost spectacular but marred by the intrusive advert for the 3-D glasses. Here's a proof of it:

Astronaut Pictures was reissued in a slightly different format a short time later. Topps cut a deal with the Joe Lowe Corporation to include small packs of the cards with Popsicle brand ice pops. Now the intrepid among you might recall Woody Gelman's association with Popsicles, which directly led to his employment at Topps as he had created Popsicle Pete, a mascot for the brand that caught the attention of Topps President Joseph Shorin in the late 40's. So like many things in the Topps universe, that deal was probably enabled due to past relationships.

Understandably, Popsicle did not want to include the glasses in their packaging, which looked like this and is just glorious in its colorful simplicity:

This is the same style packaging used for penny packs at the time by Topps.  I believe three cards came in each Popsicle pack.  But what to do about the backs if no glasses were provided?

Topps came up with a solution that kept the NASA provided fronts but took the back design from their Space Cards set of 1957, replicated a year later in Target: Moon, and came up with this:

Note the card number has been excised from the redesign as it was on the front of the card but some Topps indicia is displayed; this was not always the case with 3rd party products. Compare this back to the original Space Cards reverse from 1957:

The dating of Popsicle Space Cards seems to be problematic if you look at every reference available but it's actually quite simple.  The Joe Lowe Corporation was bought by Consolidated Foods Corporation in 1965 and was fully assimilated into the mother ship. The original Topps issue was from 1963 so I feel quite comfortable dating the issue at 1964.

The Popsicle cards are harder to find than Astronauts cards proper and go for at least double the price. They were not identified in the ACC Updates until the May 1, 1971 Catalog Additions were published and carry an F253 designation.

Posterized

Topps went a bit format crazy starting around 1967 right through the time they went public in 1972. All sorts of crazy mediums and sizes were used for their increasingly esoteric line of products, not the least of which was oversized posters.

On the baseball front, Topp first inserted posters into the regular Baseball packs in 1967 with a set of 32 appearing in two series of 16. These were much smaller than the posters that would follow and I only mention them here as a point of reference for in 1968 Topps followed with a standalone issue of 24 oversized posters:

 

As you can see, these were quite large at 9 3/4" x 18 1/8" (approximately as I find these have shrunk a little after almost 50 years in the wild).  The posters are printed on paper similar to that of the 1967 inserts, a very cheap stock that will likely disintegrate another 50 years from now.  The flimsiness of the stock causes these to separate at the horizontal folds and they must be handled with care.  There is not a whole lot to like about them actually, other than the poses.

They came in this pack:

It's a little obscured but the product code ends in an 8, clearly marking these as a 1968 issue. You can see one poster and a stick of gum were offered for a nickel.  No big deal except two years later we are confronted with this:

That is a 1970 product code and the design essentially is the same as in 1968.  We do have a price increase to a dime and a move to Duryea noted on the wrapper (both in line with how Topps was doing things at the time) and now multiple posters are included in the pack (two I believe).  These are the same posters as in 1968 and clearly the full run of 24 was included, which is odd because two major subjects had retired in the interim (Mantle and Drysdale) and numerous players had changed teams. In addition, it is quite strange Topps reissued a baseball set two years after the fact with gum as their previous pattern was to make any such reissues non-confectionery in nature so as not to run afoul of their various contracts.  Perhaps their deal with the MLBPA in 1968 gave them the right to do this. It's worth noting some but not all team logos on these posters are obscured. The whole setup is strange and I wonder what markets these actually appeared in.

In between all this, as I want to be thorough, Topps offered a team poster issue in 1969 that was a little bit larger than the 68's and printed on much better stock.  I've already discussed those here so no need to repeat myself. An insert similar to the 67's also came in the 1970 Baseball packs and featured a better design and somewhat upgraded stock when compared to the 1967 issue. Again, this set, which was 24 in number, is not the focal point here and only a point of reference.

Amazingly, no baseball poster set was issued in 1971.

Topps saved their best for last and in 1972 offered a gorgeous 24 subject, borderless poster set printed on thick stock:

Pictures don't do these justice, the colors are extremely vivid. These are roughly the same size as the 1968's but they hold up much better.  They used to be much harder to find as the 72's look to have been a somewhat limited release.  What's happening lately though is that the 68's are commanding higher prices, perhaps because so many are deteriorating and the survival rate for the 72's would seem to be much higher, or maybe there was a find of the latter issue. 

The packs are like so:

Once again, it looks like two posters and gum came inside. Like all of the short Topps baseball specials, the set is loaded with Hall of Famers.

I'll leave off with some poster porn. In the first, you can really see the difference in paper stock between 1968 and 1972, while the bottom scan is just kind of neat.  You also get a Mantle collectible with the 1968 box (no offense Joe) so I wonder who graced the box of the 1970 reissue?

Shafer Is The One Gov To Have When You're Having Only One

The never ending election season is on many minds at the moment and while I stay away from politics on this blog, there are a few Topps themes that touch on such matters.  Today we travel back in time fifty years to the Pennsylvania Gubernatorial election of 1966 and the successful campaign of Ray Shafer.

I've known about a campaign item Topps put together for Shafer for a few years now but until last month I had no inkling of what it was.  Now, thanks to Friend o'the Archive Terry Gomes, we can take a look at one of the strangest Topps pieces of all time. Here is what I assume to be a one card set:

Terry grabbed the scans herein from an old eBay auction that he, sadly, did not win.  Here is the back:

Now the fact that this thing has finally come up for air is pretty amazing but what's even better is that these were distributed in wax packs with a stick of gum!  Here, look:

I have no idea how many of these were produced but the survival rate for such a pack must be absurdly low.

I own a postcard from the campaign which I don't think was produced by Topps. I have no clue who printed it as there is no information detailed on it that would help suss that out.  

I've obscured the addressee but the left side of the PC back is quite revealing.  I suspect Shafer had a huge hand in luring the Topps plant from Brooklyn to Duryea, which not coincidentally opened in 1966, so the card "set" may have been some kind of soft payback by Topps:

Shafer served a single term; he was barred from running again under an old statute that was later changed.

              

Marvel-ous!

I'll conclude our mini arc on the various styrofoam flyers Topps issued in the 1960's and 70's with Marvel Flyers. The set was obviously designed to supplement the Marvel Super Heroes cartoon that debuted in the fall of 1966 and ran for thirteen weeks in its first run.

It's an extremely colorful set as these images from www.mycomicshop.com show:

You can see the plastic clip may have come attached already to the body of the plane.  Spiderman and Iron Man were one of five main, recurring characters on the cartoon.  The Incredible Hulk, Thor and the Prince Namor the Sub Mariner were the others.  I suppose Namor was added to provide a little variety, allowing the use of underwater adventures as the other superhreoes were air and land based essentially.

The wrapper shows the Human Torch:

As we'll see on the back though, not all of the Fantastic Four made it to styrofoam:

No Mr. Fantastic or Invisible Girl?  Yikes!  And Dr. Doom even made the cut:

I just wish they had included the Red Skull! Marvel novelties are quite popular right now, with all the movies and TV shows featuring their superheroes, so it's no surprise some of these go for pretty big bucks.

I'll leave you with this gallery shot; it shows all the plane bodies and as you can see, some were not really main characters:

You'll be forgiven if you don't recall The Angel or The Wasp. And the spelled Daredevil wrong!

Still, it's a very nice set commemorating a very bad cartoon. Even as a kid I could tell it was cheaply made.  Give my Bugs Bunny any day!