The Thrill of Victory

It is officially esoteric sticker month here at the archive. Today we take a look at a relatively unknown large (in dimension) set called ABC Wide World of Sports.

Now, if you are of a certain age you remember this long running sports anthology series that ran on Saturday afternoons and was hosted for what seemed like half a century by Jim McKay. I used to watch it religiously back in the 70's.

In keeping with the theme of the show, Topps issued a sturdy sticker set depicting 24 images from the show, artfully selected so as not to display logos or full faces. These stickers measure a fabulous 5 1/16" x 7" in size-yikes! Here is one of my favorite shots:



Here's another cool action scene:




The stickers are quite well made and must have been bonded to the backing paper with super glue as they are immovable on my set even at this late date. It must have been high quality backing paper as it is snow white three and a half decades later:



The stickers were sold in packs costing 19 cents, as this Ebay grab shows:



I have seen these in at least one price guide but was unable to turn the listing up. In the interest of scholarship here is the full checklist:

1 Basketball
2 Boxing
3 Figure Skating
4 Football
5 Pole Vaulting
6 Women's Gymnastics
7 Water Skiing
8 Men's Tennis
9 Motocross (Front View)
10 Ice Hockey
11 Surfing
12 Kick Boxing
13 Relay Race (Action Shot)
14 Formula 1 (Tri-view action shot)
15 Freestyle Skiing
16 Rodeo (Bronco Busting)
17 Formula 1 (Two Cars)
18 Horse Racing
19 Motocross (Grabbing Air)
20 Relay Race (Start of Race)
21 Men's Swimming
22 Skydiving
23 Slalom Skiing
24 Formula 1 (Accident)

The cards are untitled, those are my descriptions. Written ABC and Topps copyrights are in small type at the bottom along with the card number. I don't know why some sports repeat in such a short set. Another Topps mystery I guess!

A Kick In The Grass

Sometimes a set just falls through the cracks. In 1979 Topps issued an obscure set called Soccer Stickers. 33 in number, the set memorializes the logos and in puzzle form on the backs, three North American Soccer League Players. As far as I can tell this set does not appear in any of the major price guide books. It's not really a non-sports set and it's not really a multi-sport issue and soccer never was considered big enough to appear in the early hybrid (Football, Basketball, Hockey & Boxing) guides. You can buy a full 36 count wax box on Ebay at this very minute for a pittance so there is minimal collector interest. But it's a Topps issue and you would think somewhere a checklist exists but I just can't find one.

The NASL seemed poised for the big time in 1979 and in addition to a full schedule of outdoor games contested within six divisions, a ten team indoor league was about to be introduced. But instead of issuing a traditional set of players, Topps elected to create a sticker set that consisted of team logos and a few 4-in-1 "names" all featured on a hideous mustard colored background.

The cards came in a colorful wrapper though:



The packaging indicates 33 stickers are in the set. We know this because it appears in text for a premium poster that would allow all of the stickers to be displayed:



As I said before, the background color is fugly. Here's a large size logo:



And a 4-on-1:



If all 24 logos are in the set, then there would be nine 4-on-1 stickers (36 mini stickers) in all.

There are two (and a half) backs. Here is the "How To" instructional version:



There are also puzzle piece backs:



This scan I nabbed from an Ebay Store (Ernie's Cards) shows a full puzzle of Werner Roth (star defender for the New York Cosmos) and has very interesting companions as two cards show the completed puzzle on their reverses:



My yellow bordered back above is from the other puzzle, which had 12 pieces oddly enough:



Ernie's store indicates there are nine "How To cards" so there must only be one sticker back showing the yellow bordered poster.



I don't know if all stickers were available with all backs or not (possibly not) but a full box would likely yield all the answers. Anyone out there have a few more details? If so, drop me a line.

Incidentally, I found a great NASL website here while researching this post. Perhaps the Memorabilia section will get filled in soon.

The Deckle is in the Details

When I posted at the end of May on the 1969 Topps Deckles, I figured it would be a pretty innocuous piece and for the most part I was correct. What I didn't realize at the time though, was that there was a pattern to how the cards were originally ordered, thanks to an e-mail from friend o' the archive Duke, who alerted me to the reasoning behind the two pulled cards and their corresponding replacements.

Wilhelm had actually changed teams when the yet-to-play-a-game Royals packed him off to the Angels on December 12, 1968. This left a hole that was made bigger by the the corresponding trade of Rusty Staub from Houston to Montreal early in the New Year as Topps was including players from the two dozen ML teams in '69.

Now, as you can see from the checklist below, the set was originally ordered by AL teams and then NL teams, alphabetically by city. But when Wilhelm and Staub were pulled, Wynn and Foy were placed out of sequence. Here look:

1		ROBINSON, B.	BALTIMORE ORIOLES
2		POWELL	BALTIMORE ORIOLES
3		HARRELSON, K.	BOSTON RED SOX
4		YASTRZEMSKI	BOSTON RED SOX
5		FREGOSI	CALIFORNIA ANGELS
6		APARICIO	CHICAGO WHITE SOX
7		TIANT	CLEVELAND INDIANS
8		McLAIN	DETROIT TIGERS
9		HORTON	DETROIT TIGERS
10		FREEHAN	DETROIT TIGERS
11		WILHELM	KANSAS CITY ROYALS
11		WYNN	HOUSTON ASTROS*
12		CAREW	MINNESTOTA TWINS
13		STOTTLEMYRE	NEW YORK YANKEES
14		MONDAY	OAKLAND ATHLETICS
15		DAVIS, T.	SEATTLE PILOTS
16		HOWARD, F.	WASHINGTON SENATORS
17		ALOU, F.	ATLANTA BRAVES
18		KESSINGER	CHICAGO CUBS
19		SANTO	CHICAGO CUBS
20		HELMS	CINCINNATI REDS
21		ROSE	CINCINNATI REDS
22		STAUB	HOUSTON ASTROS
22		FOY	KANSAS CITY ROYALS*
23		HALLER	LOS ANGELES DODGERS
24		WILLS	MONTREAL EXPOS
25		KOOSMAN	NEW YORK METS
26		ALLEN, R.	PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES
27		CLEMENTE	PITTSBURGH PIRATES
28		FLOOD	ST. LOUIS CARDINALS
29		GIBSON	ST. LOUIS CARDINALS
30		FERRARA	SAN DIEGO PADRES
31		McCOVEY	SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS
32		MARICHAL	SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS
33		MAYS	SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS

I'd say the Cardinals got short shrift and the Giants made out pretty well but the disruption of the alphabetical sequences is odd. Nonetheless, here's the deckle of Willie Mays, in a classic pose I have always liked:



I'll be more alert when discerning the patterns within patterns Topps was creating in my future endeavors.

Small Scoop

Last month I promised to show a one cent pack of Scoop, provided I came across one and lo and behold friend o' the archive John Moran sent along a scan:



It's a little pixellated but clearly shows the repeating design that was a hallmark of Topps penny packs.

Blocked Out

I was going to do some super-snazzy stuff to celebrate my 100th post but it seemed trite after some contemplation and besides, it's way too hot today to do anything constructive. So I figured I would feature an obscure set of Hallowe'en masks produced by Topps in 1967 called Blockheads.

Being lazy and unfortunate (I don't own any examples) clearly gives me the massive justification I need to completely use scans and photos from other sources for this post.

Here is the subject entitled The Bleech, front and back from an Ebay auction a few months ago:





If you are a fan of the old EC comics, you will note the hand of Basil Wolverton. The whole set is really designed by Wolverton and Wally Wood and was primarily drawn and painted by Topps mainstay, the ridiculously talented Norm Saunders.

Here is some back detail from the same auction:





Here's how they were supposed to look when donned:



Crazy!

Chris Benjamin's Sport Americana Price Guide to the Non Sport Cards No. 4, an indispensable tome, lists the size of these as 7 1/4" x 8 5/8" but that is too small by half and must have been the folded size. Measurements from the Ebay auction indicate a width of about 14 1/2".

There is a nice Flickr page with more details here including a picture of the box and it links to the Saunders site which tells the story of how these morphed from monster masks to posters (the masks were considered too dangerous by Topps to fully release). These are rare and beautiful.

I don't want to lift too much from the Saunders site but the artwork for No. 4 Witch Doctor (by Wolverton) is too fabulous to pass up:



That is really something else!

The masks originally sold for fifteen cents. It would cost at least 1000 times that to get one now.

The Saunders site indicates these were recast as 3D Monster Posters but I can't find any information on that set at the moment, or maybe it was retitled and I'm just not picking up on it. The posters would be really tough as well.

Who's Minding The Mint?

Time to gas up the Mystery Machine and get the Scooby snacks handy folks, as we search today for an answer to an age old question. (NOTE-this post has been updated twice from the original posting due to a combination of new information and really bad editing on my part. 8/11/09)

As you will no doubt recall, Topps issued a wrapper set in 1949 and '56 called It Happened To A President which was the interior wrapper of an issue entitled Golden Coin. Here's a '56 box with a mix of packs inside, the one third from the left is from '49:


(From the collection of Jeff Shepherd)

Within you would find one from a set of presidential coins, 32 in number and made of metal.



The reverse had some text:



Now presidential math is always a little tricky but with the Grover Cleveland kangaroo jump 33 presidents yielded 32 slots in the album if you're scoring at home and I'd wager when Ike was added the slots were upped by one to 33, even though he was president number 34. Keep this in mind as we look for clues below. Bear in mind though that there was also a coin minted of the U.S. Capitol, although there is no spot in the album for it.

The original album was a Bazooka premium and you could mail away for it:


(From the collection of Jeff Shepherd)

The bottom items are from a '49 pack. The coin itself was housed in the paper sleeve with the red printing which has the address to mail away for the album. The album looked like this close up:





In 1956 a Canadian version of the set was issued via O-Pee-Chee that upped the presidential coin count to 33 and increased their size slightly (still around the size of a quarter). The fronts have changed a bit if these are indeed the Canadian coins (UPDATE Aug 10th-these are likely NOT the 56's. See some details here on Net54) and they are actually made of plastic:



The backs changed too, although to a lesser degree:


(Both scans from the old Net54 ID of MarquisofCards)

Gotta love the original cello wraps! I doubt the '49 coins were entombed this way, I think this type of cello technology came a couple of years later. In 1956 the inner folder looked a little different up North:


(From the collection of Todd Riley)

The back goes through Eisenhower:


(From Sport Americana Price Guide to the Non-Sports Cards 1930-1960, 2nd ed, Edgewater Book Company, 1993-Copyright by Christopher Benjamin)

Sorry for the b&w scan there kids! I don't think an album was issued for the OPC set in '56, by the way since there is no mail in offer on the folder.

Here is where the mystery lies though. There is supposedly no US counterpart to the '56 coins but what then, do we make of these?



(Anonymous e-mail post)

I still find it hard to believe no US version exists, perhaps it was abandoned and rejiggered for the Canadian market but what of the above coins then? There is some evidence too the Golden Coins were also issued as gas station premiums in the 50's and early 60's so Topps may have just licensed from another source the coins originally and there is more to this set than can be discerned here.

The Net54 link above has some scans from Jeff Shepherd you can look at, including a trade ad for the 1949 edition.

A Winning Combination

Well, the set that will not go away returns! Yes, every time I scan my respective in-boxes, new details emerge on the 1971 Topps Winners.

Collector Doug Goodman was kind enough to send along some scans to top off the visual checklist of known cards, which remains at fifteen. Here is Jeff Hooper:



And here is Darren K. Lazzari:



There is a twist this time though-another collector (let's call him Bill Mullins) did some ace detective work and found a newspaper article about Master Lazzari. This is from the Valley Advertiser of May 3, 1972 which served Monessen, Pennsylvania at the time. Monessen is a Pittsburgh suburb so we are zeroing in on one pocket of sweepstakes distribution.



As the article states Darren was "happily passing the cards out to his school chums" and "packages with his picture will be appearing in stores throughout the country" it would appear that while the Winners were from 1971 they were distributed within 1972 Topps baseball packs. It also seems possible they had national distribution but I have to wonder if that was limited to the two or three areas the contest seems to have been held.

Other nuggets in the article indicate Darren received 1000 copies of his card and a carton of bubble gum containing packs of 10 regular issue baseball cards plus one of his. This ties in with the recollections of the Bole girls in my earlier posts. The fact that these were inserts in baseball card packs makes them a bit of a different beast than just a contest card.

More as it happens!

Flipping A Coin

Well, as you can see from a comment to the previous post, there is still another pattern to be discerned in the 1971 Topps baseball coins. We'll let our anonymous tipster tell the tale:

"I believe the rim colors were based on the division alignments of the NL and AL. Blue rims for the NL and AL East Divisions, Copper for the NL West and Gold for the AL West. That may explain the Sizemore exception. He was traded from the Dodgers (green circles with copper rims) to the Cardinals (blue circles with blue rims). They probably were only able to change his rim from copper to blue, but kept his circle green."

Well, the rim/circle theory checks out but my semiotic abilites maxed out last time!

Here is the Sizemore coin:



He should have had a copper rim as a Dodger (NL West) but his trade to St. Loo (NL East at the time) on October 5, 1970 changed things. His interior color ring of green would not have changed due to happenstance (NL East rings are not blue) but Topps corrected his rim color to that used for the NL East teams. The pattern in 4 pocket rows is disrupted but the overall color scheme remained intact. Wow!