Super Seventies Sales Sensations

A trio of Seventies Topps sell sheets today kids, as I'm feeling a little nostalgic for what I consider to be a decade very much unlike any other.  The last good time, in many (but not all) ways!

Anyhoo, we've seen Topps "package" promotions before but I've only covered those involving card and sticker issues.  Those were used to burn off products that weren't 't selling well or where Topps overestimated demand for ones that were. Here, given that Ring Pops and Big Mouth, both top sellers,  are in the deal, it looks like Topps was trying to piggyback Smooth 'N' Juicy, which was their tepid answer to Bubble Yum's unrelenting assault, and Sugar Free Bazooka, which was not exactly a carbon copy of the original, plus some candy items.

Much cooler all around was this as for Cherry and Grape Bazooka, which were both tasty treats I enjoyed at the time, especially the latter...

...but what caught my eye was not the dual flavor box but rather the canister in the lower right corner.  As you can see it clearly states Flavor Mates.  Well, the last time we saw examples from that brand they were a sugarless bubble gum, so did Topps just have extra canisters displays lying around because nobody liked the gum?

And speaking of things nobody liked, it's Bubble Fudge!

Let's conclude with something a little more novel, sent along some time ago by Friend o'the Archive Lonnie Cummins:

The commodity code on this pins it to 1970 and the only reason it would have the code is so Topps could track income and expenses on an aggregate basis.  The idea persisted for at least another year and then may have been curtailed as Topps reined in costs as they prepared for their March 1972 IPO. By the time they issued the Countermates (I never know if that should be one word or two, nor did Topps!) sell sheet that we kicked things off with today, I guess they started tracking things in a different way.

Hoodwinked?

I've briefly touched upon the 1957 Topps Robin Hood set before and today I want to take a more detailed and nuanced look at it. It's a bit of an oddity at 60 cards given it was printed in standard size (2.5 x 3.5 inches), seemingly coming on the heels of the first 66 card Topps set (1956's Elvis Presley) and the implementation of the 11 cards-per-row/12 cards-per-column print arrays used with standard sizing. The set count, being divisible by ten, very well might have been planned at the tail end of the Giant Size era, with its corresponding 10 card rows. However, I've found a major anomaly as Topps filed for the Robin Hood trademark on October 28, 1955 and indicated in their filing that what appears to be the card set was being sold as of October 4th that year:

If that's true (and why wouldn't it be) then something is off. This is a real puzzler and could possibly make Robin Hood the first standard sized Topps issue, arriving over a year ahead of Elvis. I really don't know what to make of this, although two potential options come to mind:

1) A failed test set to coincide with the US premiere of the program in Fall of 1955, but I've never seen anything anywhere to inform that possibility. 

2) It does seem possible a gum-only release or a tattoo issue, possibly generic like the 1955 Davy Crockett tats, was first contemplated, tested and then rejected, with the trademarked bubble gum brand reused when the cards were finally issued in 1957. Again, I can find no evidence to confirm or rebut.

The show, set in the Twelfth Century's densely wooded Sherwood Forest (which as we all know was ensconced in Nottinghamshire, England) was officially called The Adventures of Robin Hood, and was the first of several Lew Grade ITC productions that would find their way in syndication to lucrative U.S. shores. As noted, it aired from Fall 1955 until the Fall of 1958, always on Mondays at 7:30 and carried by CBS, with each episode running for a half an hour. After the third season it was switched over to Saturday Mornings, which then melded in season four, which was the final one produced.  I caught an episode by chance not too long ago and the forest scenes, filmed in 35 MM, were pretty great, as were the various sword fights.

The set used colorized back-and-white images from the TV show, which have that sickening, muted color used in several late Fifties Topps releases:

The reverse, despite the fairly accurate illustration of series star Richard Greene, is kind of hideous too:

It is not hard to find these cards today as they were massively overproduced.  What is hard though, is finding examples that look OK, as print defects are legion.

The packaging was far nicer than the product it contained.  Here's a flattened box straight from the Topps file room:

It was sold in all possible retail configurations: penny and nickel packs, cello and vending. I suspect cello ruled the day as the wax wrappers are hard to find:

For once, the repeater looks nicer than the five cent version, at least to my eyes:

(Courtesy Chuck Mann)

So the whole thing's a bit of a mess!  The set is also known for its inclusion of the Lucky Penny insert card:

The more I type, the more I wonder about all of this.  Thoughts, dear readers?

Flimsy Flyer

I decided to open up a pack of the 1967 Topps Fighter Planes the other day, thanks to one that popped up on eBay and called my name.  I had an unopened pack already (the five cent version and not the rarer ten cent one) and the example I snagged was also a nickel product, but with some pencil marks and a little dirt on the flip side of the wrapper.  So I opted for a surgical strike and happily managed to open the bottom flap of my new acquisition without causing any real damage to the envelope. Upon removing the contents I was greeted with some surprises.

Here's the pack and what was once inside:

Surprise number one: despite looking like a military-centric version of the Styrofoam Flying Things, which were being sold at the same time, they are made of very thin cardboard with a light gloss on both sides. The cardboard is not much thicker than a stiff piece of paper. I have to say the quality of the graphics was pretty good overall.

Surprise number two: the fuselage had a metal nose clip already attached but a spare was knocking about in there as well.

Surprise number three was that the other side of the fuselage didn't have the MIG-15 designation showing on both sides. Like the Flying Things however, the underside of the wings and tail were black, but unlike FT, there was no manufacturing information present thereon:

I'm not sure these fragile planes would have survived more than two or three flights, which might help to partially explain their scarcity today.  They were known too as a failed test, as this circa 1967-68 Topps trade ad shows them at the bottom right:

But let's face it, Topps always found ways to dump as much failed or unsold product as they possibly could before trashing something. 

I find it intriguing the ad mentions test stores across the country.  I suspect some test boxes were handed out by various Topps salesmen or jobbers as they made their normal rounds. Also of note-there's a small fortune in unopened packs and boxes sitting there!