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and organized clippings from old hobby publications and auction catalogs from roughly 1981 to 2007, some of which are outdated, some of which are not.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!

Flip Your Lids

I've mentioned an uptick in uncut Topps material hitting the auction circuit of late, much of it of the test variety. Today's treat features the 1970 Topps Baseball Stars Candy set, which marks their initial attempt to market a tub full of small confections with a lid featuring a collectible novelty on the underside. Memory Lane recently offered this piece, which may have been first hammered in 1992 at Christie's, then locked up in a collection since:

I've covered the set in some detail previously (you can click on the label at right to see) and it's nice to see this sheet surface. The idea of filling the little tubs with candy soon morphed into cramming them full of bubble gum, which suggests to me the candy may not have tested all too well. These next-phase products featured various fruit-flavored Rocks o' Gum and Gum Berries which began rolling out the following year, with humorous illustrations adorning the lid bottoms:

Rocks o' Gum may have been based upon an even earlier version of the product but that's something uncovered by Friend o'the Archive Lonnie Cummins and he's still on the trail.

From rocks to berries (well, grapes):

And purple (1971) to red (1972):

I believe all these related sets used the same illustrations, so Topps was playing around with the gum format a bit. Here's another: 

This of course, all culminated in the 1973 Baseball Stars Bubble Gum issue, which was apparently redesigned from a proof-only set started a year earlier.  Here's how "1972" (as its often referred to) displayed to the world.  This version seems to be part of a design phase where Topps tweaked some of the colors:

(UPDATE 6/22/25:To clarify, these are generally referred to in the hobby 1972's but they are early phase 1973's). A handful of these have been found in "rounded" form but they mostly come squared off:

This transitioned to the final 1973 release, where some green stars turned red::

It was a long road but they finally got there:

So many twists and turns for sets that never really sold all that well!

Mystery Dating

Every once in a while, as I'm looking through my supply of older hobby publications and various saved scans, I find something that makes me scratch my head, either in wonder and/or dismay that I'd never stumbled across a specific piece before. The two I'm focusing on today all pertain to 1952 Topps Baseball, with each falling into the "wonder" category.

Kicking off, we have this partial from an uncut sheet offered by Robert Edward Auctions in the Fall of 2017, which does not seem to have been addressed in any kind of detail anywhere since it popped up eight years ago. Everybody collecting or following this set knows that the first 80 cards that year can be found with wither red or black backs, then series two, which ran from numbers 81-130, made the switch to red permanent. The thought has always been that those first 80 cards were a discrete printing, which I'd imagine is due to the black/red flip-flop. What then to make of this bad boy:

If you have not fully memorized the checklist, the fuzzed out reverse will reveal why I'm showing this particular piece:

The top row (bottom row on the flipped front) has cards running from 81-85 above a second row with numbers 76-80; those sneaky so-and-so's at Topps were subbing in rows from series two at some point! Hopefully additional partials are out there that might show how far they took this.

Next, an old 1998 auction from Ron Oser was posted by the user "postwarcards" over on Net54 a little while back:

Those are the graphics from the 1951 Baseball Candy set:

Then, if you click through to the link to Net54 above then click on another link in that thread, you come to this:

Several of the listed players were not in the 1951 sets but all of them were in the landmark 1952 release.  Couple that with the fact the 1951 cellos held 16 cards...

 ...these examples sure seem like 1952 Trading Card Guild Baseball cello boxes with 15 cards offered for a dime, sans bubble gum, which is how the Guild rolled.

It's pretty cool that, despite the mountains of information in the hobby concerning the 1952 Baseball set, there's still some surprises to be found.

Superhombre

A few months ago Friend o'the Archive Jason Rhodes sent along some intriguing scans from a Mexican licensed set of comics that feature images taken from the 1966 Superman In The Jungle release. SITJ is one of the more legendary U.S. test issues unleashed by Topps, fueled by both the superhero connection and extreme scarcity. The PSA registry count is quite low, with 120 total subjects graded, of which 110 are proofs, and where I assume the latter are all blank-backed.  It's not quite as bad as those figures indicate as a number of off-register and/or hand crudely hand cut "finished" examples have survived that don't really merit being slabbed, but the rarity of these is up there. 

Here is the U.S. version, in the aforementioned hand cut shape.

The reverse features a well done design IMO:

The set saw a full UK retail release, seemingly in 1968, licensed by A&BC, which is easily found and well-known to collectors. However, as it turns out a Mexican set, shrunk down to comic size - and presumably minus some subjects - was also issued by Topps of Mexico. The wrapper is fantastic:

These were Bazooka penny tab-sized but they are quite a departure from Bazooka Joe, no?

Here's an A&BC card (no. 17) titled "Escape By X-Ray":

You can see the A&BC indicia has replaced that of T.C.G. but other than that and some color variance, the backs are the same as the US test version (the back illustrations change around card-by-card in both sets):

And here is the corresponding comic strip from Mexico:

It lacks the vivid colors of the card set but for a wax comic it looks pretty sweet.  The translation of the bottom text, according to Google, reads "The man of steel had an idea, he used a burst of x-rays and the beast escaped scared." Did you know that "panther" in Spanish is "pantera"? Well, it was news to the folks as Para Topps Mexico!

Here's a couple more for your viewing pleasure, nos. 20 and 32, respectively:

Jason unearthed fourteen subjects: 2,5,7,8,15,16,17,20,30,31,32,33,39,40. 

The Bazooka one cent comic set counts from 1966-68 were 42 (14x3) in all years. I'm not sure that it's safe to assume a similar number of subjects here but the known SITJ comics count suggests the possibility.