Riddle Me This

Following their move to Duryea, PA in the winter of 1966 and subsequent period of settling in, Topps started toying with the use of what are usually referred to as commodity or production codes toward the end of that year. These codes, documented, in a way, the vast majority of their output for decades thereafter.  I've shown and tried to explain these here several times - perhaps haphazardly - in the past but today I'm trying to sift through the origins of these little strings of numbers, which as we all know, generally followed this kind of pattern (example taken from 1972 Baseball): 0-401-90-01-2.

Here's a closeup of the code:

The first digit represents the medium (wrapper, box, sheet) and the second two the product number (which also covered pure confectionery products, somewhat reset every year and is loosely tied to the chronological order of release within that year as well). Sometimes the code for a product issued series-by-series could slightly change. The third set of digits is for the packaging format code, while the fourth batch represents an iteration number, documenting meaningful changes in some aspect of the release such as revised retail box or pack artwork. The last, single, digit is often said to represent the year of conception but that's not entirely true. This often does tie to the year of conception (and 95% of the time, release) and can never represent a date after the release year but sometimes (there's that 5%) can signify the one before. So a set with a final digit of -2 could have been released in 1973 but not 1971.Worth noting, the annual Baseball sets have this number matching the season of release, presumably tying to some form of contractual wording with the specific league and/or player's union regarding payment of royalties.  

As mentioned, thanks to another superb sussing out by Friend o'the Archive by Lonnie Cummins, this use of the commodity codes is well known in the hobby but does not match the packing date codes stamped on each shipping carton (the solution to which can be found here). So, the commodity code  represents an internal green light for production as it ultimately details a "Bill of Materials" code. This was assigned and authprized by the Topps Bill of Materials manager, who (possibly) oversaw and (definitely) coordinated with such disparate departments such as Manufacturing, Engineering and Shipping but also had to dovetail with others such as Woody Gelman's New Products and Ben Solomon's Art Departments.  In essence, the code was assigned when a project intended for full release was formally started and the costs associated with producing and distributing said product needed to be tracked, all of this happening once the BOM Manager gave it the thumbs up.

Some exceptions did occur. Test issues from some time in 1966 until 1973 or so were not always tracked via any kind of numbering system found on the issued boxes or wrappers.  After that, Topps began using using a much shorter T code for tests. In addition, most products that were imported from abroad, such as some of the metal pin issues, and merely repackaged (and sometimes rebranded) and then sold as a Topps release (i.e. not manufactured by Topps but merely distributed instead) had no codes at all. That simply meant these projects were tracked internally via some other system. Products that contained an insert, which was another 95% situation, did not have a separate code for them, although a handful of times even that was not the case.

Of utmost interest are the annual sports releases, primarily baseball, where, as noted above, the BOM code date matches the intended season of issue. This does not always apply to some of the myriad baseball test issues roughly running from 1967 to 1971; some of those have a BOM code that predates the year of issue. A non-recurring project, such as sets timed to Valentine's Day, would usually have a code also signifying the year prior to issue, as it took several months for most of these to be prepared, tested and then tweaked for general release.

I've tried to track down the start of these codes and it seems like they all may have started with the Batman Color Photo (aka Bat Laffs set):

 Check out this box bottom:

That's 454-06-1 snaking up from the bottom right corner.  The expected prefix indicator digit is missing, and it's unclear what 06 refers to (probably not the year, as we shall soon see). That trailing -1 could be the iteration number, in this case the first iteration. 

As for the wrappers, no code was imprinted on them. However, a revised box was used to sell the Riddler Back cards:

That's pretty much the greatest Topps box art ever! The bottom of some didn't have a code though, although to be fair it was a generic box bottom used that year for several releases:

There is a catch though-some of the Riddler Back box bottoms did show a code: 444-06-1-6

Throwing me a little, however is this wrapper for the Riddler Backs:

That code reads: 444-01-1-6.  This somewhat matches up with the cello box code for the series...

(Courtesy Lonnie Cummins)

... which reads 444-046-1-6. So that's not quite there yet.  By the way, there was a special Rak Pak header created for Bat Laffs:

The Riddler Backs also got one, a sure sign Topps was making bank on Batmania;  it's also a thing of beauty:

The green header has no coding but the yellow one does:  444-029-1-6. It seems like -029 could refer to the pricing but I think it's just a coincidence.

At least two other sets with non-conforming codes were issued in 1966:

Green Hornet Stickers
Display Box:    466-06-1-6
Wrapper:          466-01-1-6

Lost In Space
Shipping Case: 470-10-1-6

Topps seems to have fumbled around a bit in '66 looking for a consistent code but they nailed it pretty quickly. By the time Rat Patrol came around the system was set:

That code?  It reads:

The codes were also assigned to pure confectionery products so they are hard to fully track but Rat Patrol has to be one of the earliest ones to use the familiar cadence.

There's a lot more to unpack with these codes (and all the myriad others) but that's the 101/102 Level looksee.

The 21 Club?

Friend o'the Archive Steve Schnaper has been sending in some scans of anomalous doings in the 1974 Baseball set, specifically related to certain team cards deployed by Topps. 

The scans started off with thIS Oakland A's card, which had a mysterious "21" printed next to the team name:

The reverse staining shows clear evidence of the card once being from a pack:

Following this, and noting the "2" and the "1' above are from two different typefaces, sans-serif and serif respectively, this Pirates card turned up with either a sans-serif "11" or two parallel lines in the same general area:

There's also a back scratch froma  pen on the card that Steve advises was not applied post-factory (hard to tell if that' s another 11 or not but it's pretty sloppy either way):

The A's card was sent in to SGC and determined to be authentic and garnered a grade of 4:

Steve also says he has found a Red Sox Team card with a front dot in the same general area as the other two markings and mentioned the Pirates card has now been slabbed by SGC.

Rich Mueller at Sports Collectors Daily posted about the A's card a little while back and a friend of mine with a LOT of 1974 team cards looked through his stash to no avail; neither had ever encountered anything like these oddities before.

If anyone out there has a clue what's going on here, please reach out!

Simply Magical

This post is continuation, in a way, of the Penny Arcade series I toyed with several years back.  The premise is simple, I merely examine Topps one cent packs, preferably those already in my personal collection.  This brings us to a 3-for-1 deal today, as the "focus" (groan) is on some Magic Photo Packs.

The earliest card set put out by Topps debuted in 1948 and was successful enough to warrant a second series that came out in early 1949.  While the wrapper makes it seem like the set should be called Hocus Focus, that was actually the name of the bubble gum, while the cards got second billing as, of course, the self-developing Magic Photo. As an side, the cards came inserted between the inner and outer wraps. This surely impacted the condition of surviving examples today! You can find all sorts of prior posts I've written about the set using the Labels links. if interested.

There were two styles of penny packs used for the set, both with 1949 copyrights (and the same indicia). One has a glassine inner wrap around the gum, the other foil. I'm not sure if the yellow glassine used here was the only color used though but I've not seen another, although X-Ray Roundup employed a dark green inner wrap in 1949.

Here's the yellow:

The foil pack may have come after the glassine, I'm not really sure and the fact that two series were produced may or may not mean there's any connection:

This is the indicia; technically it's a Bubbles Inc. release: 

Note the Lord Baltimore Press logo (which appears on a couple of other similar style wrappers into some part of 1949) and also the black stamped letters and numbers.  Here:

I'm not 100% sure what that all means and every other example I've seen of the opened wrappers does not feature this. However, at a guess it's a stock identifier at the start of the paper used to print the wrappers where 10 indicates the size, MC stands for Multi Color and 32' is the length of the spooled roll.

Here's a point of sale banner for the first series, once offered by REA as part of a larger lot of related sales materials:

I can't find a color image of the first series retail box, but the Topps sell sheet, sent to me in this case by BFF o'the Archive Jeff Shepherd, sure has a nice b&w image of it:

Compare this to the second series box in 1949, which came from another REA auction some time ago.:

It sure looks like both series were co-mingled for 1949 as there's 126 subjects in each.  Worth noting, this is the first Topps one-cent release to feature a square retail box and not be sold out of a round canister. I suspect they were reconfiguring things for the debut of Bazooka penny packs a little later in '49.  It's hard to read but the front panel says "Bubble Gum in Colors" at the bottom right. Six different colors of gum were manufactured, so that's kind of a sly move as the kiddies may have thought the images would be in color once developed. 

1955 saw Topps re-release a couple of sets in a cost cutting move as they moved in on acquiring Bowman.  One was Hocus Focus, issued in one and five cent configurations, the latter in a slightly larger card dimension than the former and with thirty less subjects.  Once again, use the Labels for more on the 1955 set, which clearly states "Hocus Focus" on the back of each card, unlike the 1948-49's. At this point in their history, Topps had stopped giving a set's bubble gum one brand name and the cards another.

The penny pack in 1955 had a white inner wrap:

These one cent 1955 packs are exceedingly difficult to find and the smaller series of 126 cards are quite tough as well (not that the cards from the series of 96 are easy). This would be the last issue from Topps that inserted a card between the two wrappers.

Yup, also Bubbles, Inc., which was originally used by Topps to create some space between their products but soon after this became their go-to persona for potentially controversial sets. It's use here was more of a throwback I think.

Salad Days

My post last month about the various Topps Baseball Stars Candy and Bubble Gum lid sets elicited a response from Friend o'the Archive Keith Olbermann. He asked what the basis was for dating the first, "green-starred" proof Baseball Stars Bubble Gum set to 1972.  The answer is: nothing!  I've usually put quotes around the year when referring to the set, as the dating seems to stem from early dealer attempts to identify the first run of proofs with the stars in green atop the lid, since the issued set switched the "star's stars" to red. 

Now, keep in mind that I soaked up tons of hobby knowledge from old price guides and reference books, bi-weekly and monthly hobby publications and many old time dealers, especially from 1981 to the early Nineties. In fact, I have several bookcases and cabinets full of them (well, not old dealers, they would collapse my shelves). So when I type "1972" in regard to the green starred set, it occurs to me that many people don't know why I do that. Related to this, when looking through numerous posts and comments in various collecting groups on social media, it's easy to see there's a big knowledge gap between people of an "uncertain" age (say those born after the Millennium, and those of a "certain" age (old coots like me but generally those born before 1975 or so) with a middle group that has some grasp of the old, paper-driven hobby eco-info-system. 

I fell this is not the fault of the younger folks but rather the fallout of the migration from books to screens that is very much still ongoing.  Now I realize not everybody has the space, time or means to accumulate a library of hobby books and publications and that it is, more and more in the digitally driven world, a luxury in a way. I've been accumulating printed hobby material for forty five years, a solid chunk of which was never published in any kind of quantity or widely circulated.  I also saved and organized clippings from old hobby publications and auction catalogs from roughly 1981 to 2007, some of which are outdated, some of which are not. All of that stuff is pretty much entered into my brain at this point and if it isn't, I know where to look.  But that's because it's all on paper (although I've been scanning and digitizing a lot of it as I have time).  How then, does the younger collector of vintage items (vintage being pre-1981 to my mind but let's say pre-Millennium to be fair) today figure things out? We were all green once (that's Shakespeare kids, look it up) but it seems harder and harder to study up these days, at least to my way of thinking, and I'm hardly a luddite.

Well, there's various websites such as Trading Card Database, PSA and Sports Collectors Daily, plus old auction house online archives, eBay, subscription sites like Beckett and Card Ladder plus all the groups on Facebook, Instagram and the like.  And this doesn't even get into things like Tik-Tok, vlogs and podcasts.  Many of these are fine and informative sites or entertainment but it's all getting dispersed to the point there's no way to efficiently corral some of the more esoteric information on non-mainstream sets, which is not something that seems easily solvable. So I'm thinking on all of this and invite this blog's regular readers (and casual looky-loo's) to weigh in.

Meanwhile, I never really looked at the "1972" roster of Baseball Stars Bubble Gum to decode if there was, in fact, any way to date it to 1972, or nor.  Mr. Olbermann has helpfully weighed in, allowing me to avoid any heavy lifting.  And so...

"We all saw it, new, at the first New York card shows (1973) and that proof sheet was a thing of horrific beauty - with hockey team photos and other detritus serving as an impromptu background for the oddly positioned baseball shots.

But most importantly: Willie Mays is on the proof sheet, in a Mets uniform. He wasn't traded to the Mets until May 11, 1972 and nobody turned new Topps photos around in less than months then."

This is the proof sheet in question and it's always been seen as an oddity; here's an ad from the much missed U-Trading Cards in Seattle, circa 1995 (with bonus goodies described):

Everybody calls them Candy Lids by the way, even though they are not, as after 1970 they held bubble gum!

Keith has sent along some illustrative scans (red circles by KO), noting:

"I love the idea that Esposito is in the debris behind Sanguillen"

"Mike Epstein was traded to Texas on November 20, 1972. That sheet was NOT produced in 1972"

"Pretty sure that's a '71 Yankees team card peeking up from under Barry Bonds and Lee May"

I'm not sure anyone has ever figured out why the underlying matte for the candy lid proofs looks like it does, maybe the fumes from mixing up Bazooka that day were too overpowering or something.

Here's a side-by-side comparison of both years, showing Dick Bosman, "1972" first, of course:

That bright ring of color is the big difference of course, but the backs, as noted in the U-Trading ad, reduced the size of the "Baseball Stars Bubble Gum" copy, albeit quite subtly. The smaller green stars without photo insets also remained for the issued version.

The proofs of the issued 1973's are seldom seen, which is too bad as they are kind of glorious:

Christie's auctioned off an uncut proof sheet in 1992, according to quite wonderful Post War Cards website; taste the rainbow:

I'm not sure why there were so many yellow lids!  Here's the color breakdown:

 8  Red

 8  Blue

26 Yellow

 6  Purple/Pink (you decide)

 7  Green

--- 

55 

== 

"Oddball" status aside notwithstanding, the 1973's have never really caught on with collectors, although they have their adherents among HOF and team specialists. I feel like that's the case with any almost any kind of set issued without the additional licensing needed from Major League Baseball Promotions Corp. allowing the use of team names and logos.

Strung Along

Well that didn't take long. Friend o'the Archive Lonnie Cummins sent along quite a pertinent update concerning the subject of last week's post, 1973's Jeepers Creepers. So sit back, grab a drink to "ghoul" off and marvel at the contents of the retail box, which looks pretty striking all filled up:

You can see the strings here , which I suspect broke off pretty soon after these were played with for the first time. It also looks like each batch of  toys was dumped into the retail subject-by-creepy-subject:

It's a little hard to discern, but there were only five different critters offered: Pterodactyl, Frog (really?), Mouse, Bat and (what looks like a dwarf) Alligator. 

One thing I'm not at all sure about is when these were actually marketed as the line up doesn't necessarily translate to a given season.  The last of the traditional Topps Hallowe'en sets came out in 1972 and this may have been an attempt to try a new format but am not really sure. I am happy to know, however, that my type example is legit!

Creeped Out

I've had in my possession for some time now an example of what I believe to be a 1973 Topps Jeepers Creepers toy.  I'll get into the "believe" momentarily but first, here she is:

My example is fairly substantial, and thicker when compared to what I consider the set's ancestral (1967) Teacher's Pets/Rubber Uglies subjects. It's well-formed and clearly marked as being made in Hong Kong on the bat-back:.

These came in a blue box:

Yikes!  The reason I "believe" my example was sold in this box is the artwork, where a suspiciously similar looking bat is flying under the pterodactyl. I can't quite suss out where the string would have been attached though.

The set dating is from the box bottom indicia, found on this proof flat:

Here's the aforementioned indicia:

As always, if you have examples from this obscure issue, please send your images along!

Owen-ing Up

Over the years here, I've shown various bits of ephemera concerning the prizes baseball players signed by Topps could consult, picking out merchandise instead of taking their yearly check from Topps for use of their likeness.  By my calculations 1957 saw the first dedicated merch catalog but there was apparently some form of earlier non-cash compensation that made available a limited amount of items, at least based upon this postcard, sent in by Friend o'the Archive Ben North:

A camera, phonograph or golf clubs in lieu of cash didn't tempt him, but the two different spellings of Mickey Owen's last name briefly raised my antennae.  It didn't take long to make sure he didn't have the "s" tacked when he born and to me it sure looks like someone at Topps filled in the "From" and "Name" fields for Owen and then the catcher filled in the rest of the mailer.  The verbiage clearly indicates the merchandise was offered in the Topps cover letter of March 15, 1956 (seemingly a default date) sending out his 1956 contract with them.

Putting aside his pivotal error in game four of the 1941 World Series, Owen was known as a defensive catcher, wielding a pretty light stick.  His best years came in St. Louis with the Cardinals and he played throughout most of the World War 2 before joining the Navy in 1945. After that he was wrapped up in the Mexican League brouhaha, reinstated and then waived by Brooklyn in 1949. He was a half-time backstop for three seasons with the Cubs, then spent 1952 and 1953 in the minors.  He resurfaced with the Red Sox for 1954 but was released before Spring Training commenced in 1955. He then became a coach with the Red Sox for the 1955 and 1956 seasons, which explains why Topps sent him a contract for '56.

He never made it to a Topps card though.  Topps bought out Bowman in early 1956 and didn't need to keep padding out sets with managers and coaches, so there was no card for poor ol' Arnold. Some pre-war issues and 1950 and '51 Bowman were the extent of his nationally distributed cardboard appearances.

There can't be many of these postcards floating around but they strike me as an excellent and unique way to acquire a player's vintage autograph, if you can find the one you want!