Fumblerooski

Tomorrow the NFL will determine which team is the champion of the 2024 (really 2024-25 now) football season when Super Bowl LIX (or "licks" as Gronk calls it) is contested in the Big Easy.  Based upon the Championship Games two weeks ago and recent past history between the two teams, it figures to be an epic event. So I thought a little pigskin prose might be in order on Super Bowl Eve and it sure seems like an apropos time to take a look at a classic vintage release, namely the 1972 Topps Football set, now 53 years old (!)

The set  as all collectors of it know today, consists of three series, with the high numbers being especially difficult. However, when it was issued in 1972 almost nobody knew anything about the last of those three, which we'll get into momentarily.

Series one contains 132 cards and features the rookie cards of John Riggins, Archie Manning, Ted Hendricks and several other Hall-of-Famers. The second series has 131 cards, thanks to the way Topps positioned checklists, as both those for series one and two are contained in the first series, with the latter also found on the series two press sheet, of course with its series one number (which is 79 if you're keeping score).  The design is somewhat colorful, if a little unexciting, with many cards issued in a horizontal format:

The backs were quite legible, not something Topps was always able to pull off:

Like they did with the 1972 Baseball set, Topps included a good number of "In Action" cards, dubbed "Pro Action" for football.  These were aptly named...

...but show in detail that Topps only had a deal with the NFL players and not the league proper; all the logos were airbrushed away!

Series two was not as flashy in terms of rookie cards but does have a major one in Roger Staubach, plus a couple other HOF types.  And it was there things seem to have ended.  However, Topps elected to run off an 88 card third series to cap things at 351 subjects, described in at least one contemporary hobby publication as a test:

Why Topps did this is unclear, although it was a time of various configuration operations experiments  across all their lines, as we've seen previously with the 1972 Football cello packs, and they did expand the Football set to a massive 528 cards a year later. So technically it was a kind of test but the number of cards printed shows the difference between seeking approval of a new item among a small group of consumers (like the 1968 3-D Baseball set) versus one that helped them verify that new methods of packaging, box and pack changes. 

The latter method, in what I think can be called regional testing, was important to Topps as they had to see what was viable before committing to the idea fully the next time out (1975 Topps Mini Baseball is a good example of a configuration test that wasn't successful enough to replicate the following season). But if they wanted to see how more Football cards might have sold, they ended up fumbling, and quite badly at that as almost nobody knew the third series in 1972 had even been issued!

A handful of markets did see them in 1972, in what was a wax pack only release of the series. A very old SCD article by Tol Broome (I've lost the date, sorry) mentions that three "test markets" were used by Topps. Hobby chronicler Rich Klein once wrote me and indicated he had obtained the highs in the Dallas Fort-Worth area while growing up.  This makes some sense as I believe Topps had a regional distribution center nearby. 

Another market was in the Milwaukee area (hold that thought) and the third seems to have been around Detroit (an area where the 1975 Mini Baseball cases also ended up in bulk). The environs around the Topps plant in Duryea, Pennsylvania would also dovetail with a kind of combined smaller (and local) retail test quite nicely, as would some Brooklyn test store action and I'm coming around to the idea Topps would use those two locales to sell a few boxes when they conducted regional tests. But the slowly revealed volume of 1972 highs over the years does not strike me as marking this anything but a regional test series.

Series three contained a couple of HOF rookies among its 24 All Pro cards, 14 Pro Action cards, a checklist and 49 player cards.  The decision to market this final series seems like it was made after series two had been locked in place, given the of a checklist "preview" card being included therein:

It's no. 294 by the way:

The All Pro cards look pretty nice to my eye:

A nice write-up is found on the reverse:

At least one full 264 card press sheet is known:

You will note the two 132 card slits do not share subjects.  Every All Pro card is found on the left side, with all the Pro Action cards (and the checklist) sequestered to the right on the B slit:

Neat-o!

Meanwhile, back in Milwaukee, the SCD article incorrectly mentioned the third series was distributed in mid-to-late December and that the cards did not sell, with a major Milwaukee wholesaler stuck with their order.  Well this September 1972 ad in The Trader Speaks basically matches up the Sport Hobbyist piece above time-wise. So it wasn't December and the linked notion that a late release doomed the series seems incorrect as well.

Some of the article's inaccuracies seem to stem from the Topps PR-Spin Room of yore but I'm not sure that's where they all originated. One whopper stands out though, which was the assertion Topps would routinely pulp or destroy unsold inventory.  That was definitely NOT their routine, and in fact it was almost an anti-routine they employed only when no further back channel or third party sales were possible. What was undoubtedly correct though, as they had inventory for decades (and still might), is that the Milwaukee shipment ended up with Larry Fritsch Cards.  As told by Larry Fritsch himself to Broome:

Fritsch mentioned he did see some patterns of short prints among what was also described as a set that had a lot of off cuts, but the uncut press sheet shows everything was even-steven.  It is possible there were issues in cutting and packaging that could have caused after-the-fact shortages but Fritsch never divulged which cards they were. And I can't presently find the article but recall the Fritsch bought cases were all in a railroad freight car at the time of purchase and that he got them for essentially the cost of the shipping cost to be paid by the wholesaler returning them.  If memory still serves, it worked out to around five bucks per case.

That explains some of the distribution during the minimal sales window and some of the after-market shenanigans but not all of it.  And of course the Card Collectors Company had an ample supply, per their January 15, 1973 catalog:

No price gouging or idea of a test there, that series and set pricing reflects there were 88 third series cards available and nothing else. CCC would usually point out what was a test issue, so the theory of a local test setup (i.e. the associated rarity) really does seem like bunk. 

The cards may not have been moving all that well over the next decade as Fritsch also burned off some cases eventually, as this December 1983 ad from The Trader Speaks shows:

Check out the eye-popping (for the time) $5,080 for a case of the highs!

I'm sure there's more to this story and the idea of Fritsch's haul being practically the sole source for these cards is surely a fanciful notion but they are somewhat tough to find and this marked the first time Topps had gone to three series of release for Football. But this misadventure didn't stop their expanded effort for 1973 Football, so there must have been some measure of success, although the 73's were an "all 528" release as the series-by-series era at Topps was over by the time they came out.

Good luck with all your football boxes tomorrow!

Rats!

Before the Sixties turned Day-Glo, there was a cottage industry of movies and TV shows that were set during World War 2. The boob tube's offerings ranged from the ridiculous (McHales's Navy, Hogan's Heroes) to the sublime (Twelve O'Clock High) with the others falling somewhere in the formulaic in-between.  One of these focused on the Long Range Desert Group, which was a British "recon and raid" unit that operated in Africa and, as the name suggested, primarily saw action in the desert.

ABC aired a show on Mondays at 8:30 detailing their fictional adventures fighting Rommel's Afrika Korps, called The Rat Patrol, which debuted in September 1966. Starring Christopher George as Sgt. Sam Troy, his small group of desert rats created big ratings in their debut season.  They weren't so lucky in season two as serious war shows were starting to fade, due in part to negative reaction to the Vietnam War. But before things turned south, Topps commemorated the series with a 66 card set.

Featuring full color fronts with no distracting graphics, the look was clean:

The backs used the combination puzzle/text look Topps was moving towards at the time:

As nice as the set looks, it's really no great shakes. The wrapper though, was an eye-catcher, and just pre-dated the commodity codes being added following the year's move by Topps to Duryea:

The retail box was awesomely action-packed-check it out:

The cards can be found with ease and are not all that popular.  However, that ring shown on the wrapper splash is a whole 'nother ball o'bullets.

The Insignia Rings used the same form as 1966's Funny Rings (about the oddest Football set insert that ever existed) but added a metallic gleam. Since they were essentially designed to be destroyed, the rings are quite hard to find in nice shape today. Here's my example, which is fairly typical of what's generally available condition-wise:

An uncut sheet of rings, likely a partial, exists:

As tough as the rings can be, there is another Rat Patrol item that's exponentially more difficult, a test of the cards:

Topps originally used the red silhouetted modified Jeep (partially shown in the card image) as a logo but scrapped it for the retail release.  The back is identical in both sets (I'm pretty sure they didn't use "darn!" as an expletive in the real war):

It's not clear how many subjects were used in the test but not all 66 are known, or even close to it, at least as cards; there is a partial sheet showing the full set with the red logo however. It's not clear to me when knowledge of the test cards first surfaced but they are not listed in either the Benjamin guides nor the Non-Sports Bible and I don't know if PSA would even grade them. The test cards are very, very hard to find.

Why Do You Think They Call It Dopey?

By 1967 Topps was cranking out all sorts of interesting non-sports sets, many of which featured the sarcastic tone that was the hallmark of the MAD magazine fueled artists and writers working under the aegis of Woody Gelman. One of the more amusing sets to emerge from this creative be-in was Dopey Books.

Comprised of 42 foldable cards on thin stock, which measure the standard 2 1/2" by 3 1/2" when closed, the set closely follows the pattern seen here of a serious looking cover...

...containing a snotty gag within, centerfolded, with an accompanying humorous illustration.:

You can see the back cover here, oddly blank for all 42 subjects; a colophon of some sort would have really sealed the deal IMO:

The set may have been rushed into the marketplace, based upon the wrapper.  Many look like this:

Note the lack of a commodity code!  Those were firmly in place by 1967 but Topps goofed this one up. There's not a ton of wrappers out there but I found this guy, folded like this just for online sale:

I ran this Magic Magnet anomaly by Friend o'the Archive Lonnie Cummins, who thinks it likely that all wrapper variants should exist with and without the code. Right now, two of the three others (Chemical Magic comes both ways) should eventually also be found with it. Time will tell if the Camera and Exploding Battleship versions also come both ways but it seems like a good bet. Weird, but wrappers from the set are scarce for some odd reason, especially since the cards can be found somewhat easily.

The box and contents presented well, noting the torn Valentine sticker indicates it was repurposed for 1968 "VD Season":

Here's another box with that added sticker:

Ain't that dope?

Hey Rook!

Last time out I was surprised to discover I had never covered the 1973 set Topps issued to commemorate The Rookies. Originally an ABC-TV Movie of the Week that aired in March of 1972, the flick and the series that followed that fall focused on the work and personal lives of a small group of Los Angeles police officers that had recently graduated from the police academy.  The most famous member of the cast turned out to be Kate Jackson, who played a nurse married to one of the fledgling cops. Ratings were middling until the third season when it crept into the Top 25 and a syndication deal was reached. That fell apart and after one more season the show was done.

The middling ratings may explain why this set is so hard to track down these days.  It's clearly a 1973 issue based upon the test T-code assigned by Topps and in fact it's only the second one to use their new nomenclature for test sets (the first was Emergency!/Adam-12, which also kicked off a rather generic refinement of many non-sports sets to follow). A test wrapper is known:

As mentioned in my post last week, only 60 cards have been graded by PSA.  I can't say I've seen any with gum stains but that wrapper does look like it had been folded with cards inside. I have to assume the test failed miserably. With many examples known in the hobby being severely miscut, I wonder if a sheet, or a partial, was cut up after the fact somehow?  

Happily, my type example is cut well; it's not perfect but for this set it's close:

The backs, also standardized, feature some text and partial puzzle piece action:

That's Georg Sanford Brown pictured, whose missing "e" I found fascinating as a kid. 

As I've written, the cards are extremely tough to find and only one full set is shown in the PSA Registry. In theory, it's easier than Emergency!/Adam-12, which has a mere 46 graded PSA examples, with 50 cards needed for a set, but that's splitting hairs.  In fact, I've seen more raw E!/12 cards than examples from The Rookies over the years , although not by much. Not all of the most difficult Topps test cards are from the Sixties!

Brown & Blue

While I didn't bid on it, a curious piece of Topps history was hammered on eBay late last year.  Using their own employees for photo shoots was a continuing theme with Topps in the Sixties and Seventies, and some of their antics are a little humorous in retrospect.

This is an original photographic pasteup from the archives of Brown Brothers, a stock photo firm that was big for a good chunk of the Twentieth Century: 

Lelands has been auctioning off the firm's archival items on the 'Bay and also in some catalog auctions but the three notations are masking another Brown reference, namely the friendly "shopkeeper" pounding a baseball mitt, one Len Brown.  Brown was Topps New Product Director Woody Gelman's assistant at the time and he's helping the PR push for those 1963 Bazooka boxes that not only had three package design baseball cards on the revere but five All Time Greats cards within. 

These were the boxes being hawked by Len:

The reverse of the photo shows a lot of decrepit rubber cement along with a notation:

I've blown it up to make it easier to read:

I am surmising this particular piece came from Len's first wife and was in her possession as part of their divorce.  Of note are mention of three 1973-74 test issues; in order these are Deckle Baseball cards from '74, plus The Waltons and The Rookies, both TV shows of the day that Topps tried to make work as card sets in 1973.  I've covered the first two here previously but to my surprise I've never referenced The Rookies, which is one of the tougher test issues of the decade and far harder to track down than the other two, at least from what I've found.

They come from a time when Topps was trying to standardize some of their graphics:

A little text and a puzzle make up the reverse:

The example above is unusual as it's not severely miscut, since most of the set's surviving examples are found that way. In fact, many of its 44 subjects are horizontally-oriented and the cuts can be so bad that the caption is often found above the photo and not below:

Yikes!  It's truly a tough issue and finding well-cut cards is super challenging.   PSA has graded a mere 60 examples overall with nothing above a grade of 7 given. However, 44 of them are in the sole registry set, which is complete with a GPA of 6.898. By way of reference, 255 Waltons cards have been PSA slabbed (nine 9's given) and over 3,000 1974 Deckles, with seventy-six 10's granted somehow!

Second Team

I'm on a bit of a Baseball Candy roll of late and today we look at what is the least popular of the five subsets that made up Topps' inaugural release of a standalone baseball set. That would be the Team cards.

I've written about these oblong,  gold bordered cards previously but there was a recent sale of a full master set of 18 at Heritage that caught my eye, although not my wallet.  Sets do come up, a bit infrequently, but every year or so one is offered at auction. It's unusual for the master set of dated and undated varieties to pop up but that too, happens from time to time.

Printed along with the Connie Mack All Star cards, PSA as of December 13th, had graded 1,053 examples of which the highest is a lone 8.5 of the dated Athletics card.  The dimensions work against them as a mere six straight 8's have been assigned and it's easy to infer high grade raw examples are just not out there. Meanwhile 996 Connie Mack's have been slabbed by PSA and 211 Major League All Stars. That's a different distribution from the last time I really checked, about a decade ago, with the spread between Teams and the Connie Mack's almost pulling even while the Major League All Stars have gone from about half the population of the Connie's to a mere twenty percent or so. Those MLAS cards are tough kids!

Distribution between the dated and undated Teams varieties seems roughly even and the least graded cards are those of the Giants, followed by the White Sox and Cardinals. I'm still tying to figure out if Topps used three different cardboard stocks and can say the recent Heritage lot only showed two, the brilliant white stock that seems to stay bright forever and the far dingier tan backs. I've long thought a cream stock exists but it didn't show up in this lot and relying upon scans doesn't always yield precise results. Let's take a look then at two different Teams, the Dodgers and Athletics.

The boys from Brooklyn were going to blow a massive lead in the National League pennant race by season's end but it was a dynastic squad that often brawled with an even more dynastic one in the Yankees from 1947-56, with six World Series clashes but only a single World Championship to show for it.

The back of this undated card shows off the brilliant white stock; it's a thing of beauty in a way:

Meanwhile the Whiz Kids got a National League Champions notation:

There was no Yankees card as seven teams were never produced, so no corresponding American League Champions card exists. The back of the Phillies card is also brilliant white:

They got two red pennants added on the back as well.

Now for the dated cards, which were issued after the undated ones, likely in a bid to avoid running afoul of Bowman.  Dodgers again:

Here's a closeup of the name plate showing the date.

The dingier card stock is easily discernable when compared to the white:

The Phillies stand tall...

...despite the dingier card stock:

That's how the whole auction lot presented; brilliant white for the undated cards, dingy stock for the ones with dates.

The offered set was ninth on the PSA Registry and a check over there shows sixteen master sets on the registry, with half of them at 100% completion. The Heritage lot was the lowest ranked set that was complete, with a GPA of 3.48; the no. 1 set has a GPA of  6.16 and only one other partial is above 6. 

These cards are not for everybody but many Hall of Fame players can be found in the photos and they certainly have their place in the history of the hobby.