Monday, May 31, 2010

Gray Area

As we journey into 1959, Topps was starting to standardize how they printed their baseball cards. 1958 saw a real slapdash final series (6th) and what I believe were four 110 subject printings made to look like five 88 card series prior. After their efforts to conclude that season's set, the Topps braintrust look have have really started planning out the best way to issue their cards.

I found a 66 card proof sheet on my hard drive that is the key to seeing how the 59's were printed:



You will note this block of cards spans 66 numbers, from #375 (Niemann) to #440 (Burdette). The checklists on the back of the team card in '59 would have us believe the 4th series ran from #353-429 and the 5th series from #430-495, so this group is smack dab in the middle. #495 was also the last number in the 1958 set, so I think that was an intentional move by Topps as they were going to expand the set by 77 cards for '59.

However, the high number series in 1959 was printed as a 66 card run:



identifiable by the black number block on the reverse, as well as the cream stock:



Compare this with the last card of the prior run, with a green number block and gray stock:



From #1-506 the blocks are green, as was the text; I think the black looks much better. I wonder if the ink color was changed when Topps started printing the 1959 football cards, which also have black ink and may have been a move to expedite printing of the omega and alpha series of each respective set.

The gray stock also helps us pin down the production cycle as cards 199-286 can be found with either type of stock. This once again point to a 110 subject press run to start the year, followed by an 88 subject second run to get to #198. 88 cards again through #286 and the another 88 gets us to #374. Since we know #375-440 is another run (totaling 66) then we have a 66 card gap to get us to the true high number run starting at #507. This gives us print runs as follows:

1st 110
2nd 88
3rd 88
4th 88 *
5th 66 *
6th 66 *
7th 66

I have a sneaking suspicion that Topps printed some combination of the 4th, 5th and 6th runs above together so have marked them with an asterisk but don't have the uncut sheets to prove it. They end up at at #440 though, through the "5th" run, which trues up in the real world as the previews would get get too far past the press runs otherwise. This is where they caught up in 1958 as well. I have to think a bit more about the implications of two 66 card semi-high series being printed separately.

The Checklists give us a fictional account:

1st #1-88
2nd #89-176
3rd #172-264
4th #265-352
5th #353-429
6th #430-495
7th #496-572

No matter how you look at it, the checklists on the back of the team cards showed series that only existed in the minds of the creators of the cards. Look at the 7th Series checklist to see:



Those black number blocks begin after 11 with the green blocks if you go by the official count. I do not believe those 11 cards from #496-506 were printed with the rest of the high numbers but if you are selling cards the kids are already buying those 11 before the last series comes out. Boy, I'l l bet they wanted to complete that run badly!

Here is a checklist card from the third printing (the card stock variation run):



And just for fun here is the 3rd Series checklist with an error with the two rightmost columns are transposed:



You get the idea. Topps was using the Theory of Checklist Relatvity once again but with a bit more forethought than in '58.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

88's The Key

I thought I would continue my haphazard look at uncut Topps sheets and the 1958 printing arrays as I found this 55 card partial from the year Elvis got drafted lurking on my hard drive. There is a little bit of a tieback to the Series Preview and Checklist Relativity Theories as well!

Check out the murderer's row at the right side bottom portion of the sheet:



I believe Topps loaded up the first series with stars now that MLB was bi-coastal. That is not the most interesting thing about this sheet though. No, it does not have yellow letter variations either but what it does have is card #1 (Ted Willliams) and #110 (Johnny Logan) on the same partial sheet of 55. This clinches for me the fact Topps was previewing 22 cards from what they were calling the 2nd Series while printing at least 110 subjects on the first series sheet. I say "at least" but if I had a full sheet scan it would likely confirm 110 different cards.

See, here is a first series checklist from '58, courtesy of Doug Goodman:



See, it goes to 88!

Just for fun,here is the 2nd Series Checklist (also a Goodman scan) showing the gap at #145 where Ed Bouchee should have resided:



That would have been confusing as you had no idea what had happened or who it was supposed to be. If you do the math, you end up with five series of 88 printed over four sheets, ending at #440. A little teaser for the kiddies back in the day and some proof of my wacky theorems today!

Monday, May 24, 2010

Pennant Fever

Well, I thought I had seen it all when it comes to the 1968 Topps 3-D baseball card test issue but, as evidenced by a discussion over at Net54 recently, another bit off oddness has turned up:



Odd Clemente items are nothing new here but I am scratching my head on this bad boy. This style of pennant does not appear in any of the guides I have(and I have a few) but the Buccos mascot dates to the 1960-67 period, according to Chris Creamer's sportslogos.net. The version here is missing the crossed bats below the head but looks pretty close otherwise.

So the logo dates to just before 1968 and the pennant seems ideally suited for a 3-D card to be displayed. Could this actually be a type of an internal Topps presentation? Is it a piece created after the fact by a third party?

If another team could be found with a 3-D card attached, I would lean in the direction of it being a Topps prototype. Curiouser and curiouser.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Halfs and Half Nots

About a year ago I posted on the ultra rare 1970 Topps Cloth Baseball Stickers. A bit more information on the players included has trickled out since then and I have had some time to think things through in the interim. This is an amalgamation of a couple of theories discussed to some degree on Net54 (a link is proved at then end of this post) but it's the first chance I've had to consider at length what is known and what is not concerning these elusive stickers.

If you click back to the prior post you will note the 1977 Stirling Guide mentions 66 stickers are known in the set and we know the extant examples are numbered within the second series of issued cards. I do not think there are necessarily 66 possible stickers at this point, though they all definitely come from the 2nd series. More on this in a moment.

At least three Cloth Stickers have a different player pose than in the corresponding regular issue, two of which (Higgins and Nye) were due to early December 1969 trades, so the Stickers came from an early proof run of the second series. Their issued cards show capless head shots, a classic Topps way of dealing with trades the occurred during a production run. Here is the Higgins sticker:



That is from the collection of Bob Fisk by the way, as are all individual shots of stickers in this post I believe. I can't find a scan of Nye right now.

Now, based upon the Stirling reference and the known checklist, the 66 card chunk I will show below (part of a series of sheets scans sent by Friend o'the Archive John Moran) reveals what I consider to be the possible universe of players in the cloth set. But let's first note the 1970 second series was printed on a 264 card master sheet that ran from #133-263 (plus 4th Series checklist #343) for a print run of 132 cards and featuring two similar 66 card blocks on each side. I would label this an A/A B/B pattern as each side has 66 double printed cards.

Here is the 66 card block that contains the Stickers; it is from the bottom half of the left sheet and has issued poses of three players whose stickers differ (and a possible fourth):



Note LeMaster in the seventh column bottom row. While a number of stickers are known with tasty Topps period brown backing paper:



Lemaster's shows a rolled over bottom with printer's color bars and shows why this type of rolling was possible on stickers taken from the bottom row. I ran this shot last time but it makes sense to show it again here to illustrate:



I am not sure why the Lemaster pose was changed for the cards as he did not leave the employ of the Astros from 1969-70. What I am becoming sure of though, is that some of the cards in the "block of 66" used to make the stickers are not known and that there is a pattern that shows why.

If you visualize the sheet with six letter rows (A-F) and 11 numbered columns, the A and B rows contain no known stickers. That brings us down to 44 possibilities I think.

Further investigation shows that no stickers are known from columns 1 and 11 (the left and right most columns) and that only three partial stickers (divided vertically down the middle) are known from columns 2 and 10. From Column 2, here is part of Ray Culp:



And from Column 10, Alston and, the coolest ball player of all time, Lloyd Palmer (so cool in fact, Topps dared not shear off his shades):





This means the entirety of all known, complete stickers come from rows C-F and columns 3 through 9, leaving 28 full sized candidates for the set (as likely constituted) and as theorized previously on Net54 by both Bob and John, who deserve the credit for the 28 card theory.

I do think it possible the partials could exist in full form but have no evidence yet of this so we have the likely 27 known full stickers to contend with and one (the Padres Rookies) highly probable example that remains unknown, at least to me, at this time.

Here is a list of the known stickers (Higgins and Nye with their former teams, the latter an educated guess with a high degree of confidence) with their numbers, as issued in card form, and teams:

200
AL PLAYOFF #2 ORIOLES
167
BURBACH YANKEES
256
DAVALILLO CARDINALS
153
GENTRY METS
208
GLADDING ASTROS
169
HALL, TOM TWINS
216
HARTENSTEIN PIRATES
257
HIGGINS (VAR.) SENATORS
263
JOSEPHSON WHITE SOX
238
LABOY EXPOS
178
LEMASTER (VAR.) ASTROS
210
MARICHAL GIANTS
250
McCOVEY GIANTS
158
McNERTNEY PILOTS
261
MOTTON ORIOLES
146
MURPHY, DANNY WHITE SOX
179
MURRELL PADRES
160
NIEKRO, PHIL BRAVES
195
NL PLAYOFF #1 METS
197
NL PLAYOFF #3 METS
177
NORTHRUP TIGERS
139
NYE CUBS
163
O'BRIEN RED SOX
226
PERRANOSKI TWINS
259
REYNOLDS, TOMMIE A'S
212
SANTORINI PADRES
193
WEGENER EXPOS
242
ALSTON (PART.) DODGERS
144
CULP (PART.) RED SOX
252
PALMER, LLOYD (PART.) PHILLIES


I would add the Padres Rookies #262 to that list obviously as the odds are overwhelming that it exists in sticker form. So for the sake of good order:

262
PADRES ROOKIES PADRES


The following five should likewise exist as partials:

206
BOYER, CLETE (POSS. PART.) BRAVES
182
HALL, DICK (POSS. PART.) ORIOLES
136
HARGAN (POSS. PART) INDIANS
211
WILLIAMS, TED (POSS. PART.) SENATORS
189
YANKEES ROOKIES (POSS. PART.) YANKEES

The Yankees Rookies feature Thurman Munson but the partial would only show his name, not his portrait. Here is a shot of a 1972 Cloth Sticker sheet that shows the same type of vertical short cutting:



That leaves 30 possible "no prints" from 1970 although I think it somewhat probable they could exist due to the notation in Stirling. Those 22 from the top two rows are less likely since we have no evidence these rows made it to sticker form:

199
AL PLAYOFF #1 ORIOLES
227
ASTROS ROOKIES ASTROS
172
BRAVES ROOKIES BRAVES
152
BROWN, IKE TIGERS
149
CHAMPION PHILLIES
135
DIETZ GIANTS
235
EPSTEIN SENATORS
156
FISHER, EDDIE ANGELS
147
HERMOSO EXPOS
186
JOSEPH PHILLIES
155
MENKE ASTROS
198
METS CEL. METS
157
MOTA DODGERS
196
NL PLAYOFF #2 METS
223
OLIVER, NATE CUBS
260
OSTEEN DODGERS
151
ROBERTS, DAVE PADRES
191
ROMO RED SOX
222
ROOKER ROYALS
188
SANGUILLEN PIRATES
161
SCHEINBLUM INDIANS
148
WEAVER ORIOLES

I feel the eight cards from the extreme left and right columns of cards in rows C-F are more likely to be found as stickers than the 22 cards from the A and B rows since rows C-F are where the action is. These eight are:

201
AL PLAYOFF #3 ORIOLES
133
CARROLL REDS
176
HART GIANTS
150
KILLEBREW TWINS
166
OLIVER, AL PIRATES
202
ORIOLES CEL. ORIOLES
141
PIRATES ROOKIES PIRATES
243
SPARMA TIGERS


Of those, #243 Sparma would likely show his old team, the Tigers, as he too was traded (to the Expos) in early December of 1969. It's odd all four potential pose variations feature pitchers!

You can also go here for more details and scans from the original Net54 posts. It would be great if the Padres Rookies sticker surfaces!

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Unissued and Unknown

As promised cadets, I am back with more 1953 Topps original artwork musings after leaving everybody hanging last week. There are five paintings of unissued cards in the current REA auction, all from the Sy Berger collection:

Richie Ashburn (Philadelphia Phillies)
:



Max Lanier (New York Giants):



Joe Tipton (Cleveland Indians):



Harry Brecheen (St. Louis Browns):



Ken Wood (Washington Senators):



6 cards obviously are missing from the 1953 High Numbers, likely due to contractual issues with Bowman.

Max Lanier was released by the Giants on May 15th so his card may have been withdrawn due to the fact he was no longer with NY. Ken Wood's final game with the Senators was on May 23rd, whereupon he was either released, sent down or quit (can't tell).


In addition, the 2nd issue of
Baseball Cards magazine in Autumn 1981 had an article with pictures of three other unissued artworks intended for this set:

Andy Pafko (Brooklyn Dodgers)

Pete Castiglione (Pittsburgh Pirates)
Billy Cox (Brooklyn Dodgers)



Pafko is shown as a Dodger (ignore the ersatz card back created for the article) and the author speculates he was pulled due to his preseason trade on January 17th to the Braves. Castiglione was also traded but not until June 14th.


Ashburn was Topps in 51, 52 and 54, Bowman from 49-55.

Brecheen was Topps 51, 52, 54 and 55 and in Bowman from 49-52.
Castiglione was on 52 Topps and Bowman from 50-52 and 54.
Cox was in 51 and 52 Topps and was Bowman from 49-55.
Lanier was 52 Topps and 50-52 Bowman.
Pafko was in 51,52 and 54 Topps, 49-55 Bowman.
Tipton appeared in 52 Topps and Bowman from 49-51 and 53-54.
Wood was 52 Topps and 50, 51 and 53 Bowman.

So if Lanier, Wood and Pafko were pulled due to team changes, that leaves five and possibly only four paintings to fill 6 slots, depending upon the Castiglione timeline in respect of the card production. Ashburn, Cox and Tipton look to have had iron clad Bowman contracts and Brecheen and Castiglione may have had such bad luck they could appear in neither set (depending on the trade timing, of course with Castiglione). Wood may have been Bowman bound as well and was shown as a Senator in the 53 Bowman color set. Lanier is a tossup but I would lean Bowman contract with him but he could have had the same fate as Brecheen and Castiglione. Pafko looks possibly Bowmanesque as well and appears as a Brave in the 53 Bowman B&W set, which was presumably issued after the color cards.


Has anyone ever seen evidence of any other unissued 53 artwork? I feel like there should be at least one more painting out there, if not two.

Interestingly, the article in Baseball Cards by Bill Bossert indicates he also purchased three paintings of issued players at the time. This gives us at least
121 known paintings that were issued and 8 that were unissued, so of the 282 paintings (at a minimum) that were created, just over 42% have been confirmed as still in existence. REA's catalog reveals some were given to various executives at Topps and MLB and no doubt a few players probably finagled some over the years so I don't expect we'll ever have the full set reconstituted in aboriginal form but it would be a righteous thing to see.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Sy-onara!

Now that the annual, mind-boggling REA auction has passed, a look at the 1953 Topps baseball card original artworks offered therein appears in order. First though, as we are wont to do, we must look at the past.

Some of you may recall the 1989 Guernsey's auction of some original Topps artwork, file copies and the like:



It was what would now be called a BFD. The centerpiece of the auction was the original art for the 1953 Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford baseball cards, which sold for big bucks. What is not as well known is that four other paintings were included in the auction: Bob Feller, Roy Campanella, Jackie Robinson and Whitey Ford:



Those six paintings were not accompanied by common players within the pages of the auction catalog and it always bugged me that more were not available. Well, it turns out there was a good reason for that; they were in Sy Berger's basement.

REA's auction featured a whopping 112 paintings used way back in '53! That means 118 of the 274 paintings used to create the 1953 baseball set have been disseminated in the hobby. The artwork was originally to have been in the 2009 REA auction but pulled before being offered; I have to suspect the current ownership of Topps took issue with Mr. Berger reaping all of the proceeds and a deal amenable to all parties was finally worked out.

Here's few of my favorites:

#76 Pee Wee Reese:



#159 Wayne Terwilliger:



And a peek at the SGC slab that housed them all:



The original art measures about 3.25 by 4.75 inches, or about 56% larger than the actual cards and many of the paintings had glue remnants from the production process marring their surfaces. There seems to be some variance in sizing as well, so the whole process was likely more haphazard than the well-organized auction lets on.

Oh, did I mention there were five unissued players included within? I'll be a tease once again and save those for next time. I'm off to the warmer climes of Ft. Lauderdale for a bit of well deserved R and R but will have more for you all on the flip side!

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Triple Your Pleasure, Triple Your Fun - The Theory of Checklist Relativity Part 2 (Now With Bonus Series Preview Theory!)

In our last adventure, I left you all hanging a bit on the 58's but with good reason. There is another facet of the Theory of Checklist Relativity to be touched on, namely variations on the cards proper.

Part 1 showed us four team cards in the 1958 semi high, or fifth series with two different types of checklists on their backs. Thanks to Friend o'the Archive Doug Goodman, here is a complete run of the four checklists that give you the players in alphabetical order (well, 439 cards since #145 Ed Bouchee was pulled due to an arrest and never appeared in the set):









You will notice that those cards are out of sequence; the highest shows the low part of the alphabet and vice versa! Now I am looking at a 66 card semi high series but there is a germane question I cannot answer. Were all five first series cards printed in 88 card runs or did the first run have 110 cards in it, thereby previewing 22 cards from the next series until everything comes back together at the end of the (66 card) fifth series? Don't forget all the major price guides show a 110 card first series so the next series preview theory may be viable.

Why is this germane, you may ask? Well the four team card checklists above obviously have numerical counterparts which have a 7 or 8 times price kicker when compared to the alphabetical versions. That indicates a definite and deliberate short print pattern on the numerical backs.

If they were printed in a single series, locked in run of 88 cards (i.e. the series and the run match up excatly from one through five) then there would be three of each team card front on a 264 card master uncut sheet. Then, in a scenario where the A/B/A B/A/B pattern is at work, one 44 card batch of cards could contain the four team cards with numerical reverses. Conversely, a 66 card series run on 264 card master sheets would yield identical A/B patterns of 66 card substrate. However, a third choice presents itself.

What if Topps only planned a set of 440 cards in 1958 and then they managed to sign Stan Musial with just enough time to rush a card of him out? The alphabetical lists stop at 440, indicating finality to the planned set. Topps obviously made a big deal about signing Musial out of the regional card wilderness in 1958 (he had not appeared in a nationally distributed set since 1953 Bowman) since they advertised this fact on the four numerical team card backs from the 66 card semi high series. Finally, the '58 high numbers are readily available and do not command any significant premium, indicating a full run of cards was printed after the first 440.

If that's the case, then it seems clear they had no time nor the stable of players (there were only around 400 active roster major leaguers in 1958) to compose a full 55 card series so the braintrust at Topps came up with the Sport Magazine All Star cards so they could get Stan into the set at the last minute and also fill out the high numbers. The timing of this indicates Musial's signing had to come after the All Star selections were made in 1958. They also added 34 no-names (at the time) to the 21 All Stars to give us a 55 card high number series, most of whom had limited playing time prior and therefore required minimal stats on their cards. I admittedly have not researched the service time of each of these 34 players and don't own any '58 highs but the names don't seem to include too many veterans.

This brings us back around again to the short printed numerical backs. I think it likely that once the final 55 card series was green-lighted that the final run of semi highs resulted in a change from the alphabetical checklists to the numerical ones with the Stan Musial announcement and then maybe just one side of the full master sheet at that.

There is more to the Musial All Star card and I'll get to that in a minute but first, since the mighty Punk Rock Paint blog gave us a shout out on the checklists and I'm riffing on them while cranking out some Leatherface in homage, which always puts me in a good mood, I'll show all four numerical counterparts, even though I had one scanned last time:









Those are all courtesy of Mr. Goodman by the way.

We also know the Musial AS card was triple printed and so was the Mantle AS. How Topps did this was a bit odd and violates the 11 card row theory (boy, I gotta lotta theories, huh?) but they pulled four regular player cards and subbed in the extra prints of the Mantle and Musial All Stars. I first encountered this in the February 23, 1996 issue of Sports Collectors Digest:



Here, see for yourself:



Those three rightmost cards are the Mantle All Star:



And thanks to the miscut I believe Stan the Man resides directly below the Mick in all three columns:



That Red for AL, Blue for NL background is consistent although since the Yankees lost the '57 World Series I find it curious that the All Star Managers card has a red (AL) background but so it goes. Topps had to create slots for the triple prints so they pulled four cards. #443:



#446:



#450:



and #462:



By the way, the array of the Mantle and Musial cards seems to indicate Topps cut and packaged cards based upon the vertical columns and not the rows. Had they been horizontally focused, the triple prints would seemingly yield to poor distribution in the packs. Intriguing.

We get into some weird short print/over print scenarios with 55 cards. You could have 44 cards appearing five times and another 11 appearing four times on a 264 card master sheet, or you could have two identical sheets with 22 extra printed rows per 132 card half sheet, a possibility here given how the triple prints play out. The triple printed rows may just be the orphaned 22 card rows on each half sheet

I would also offer that, given the low price kicker on the short printed cards (only about a third more in value than a regular high number common) one half sheet may not have lost the rows with the four players shown above.

There was also some type of mail in premium in 1958 where Topps (or someone) sent out partial sheets. I wish I had better scans but I don't:





There are also variations in the low numbered cards involving team and player names being white or yellow but that is definitely fodder for another day. And don't forget the Pancho Herrera "error" card, which I think is merely the result of a printing mishap and will also have to wait for another post.