Decked Out

An interesting find popped up on Net54Baseball.com this week, namely a tattered 1951 Baseball Candy Box.  These would have sold the nickel packs of either Red or Blue Backs, with some Team Cards and Connie Mack All Stars inside (or, if they were blue Backs, the uber-rare Major League All Stars) .Condition aside, since you don't see these every day, it offers a real nice look at the graphics.

I can't get the box bottom to resolve to the point the three little lines of black type are legiblebut I contacted the owner of the piece and he advises it reads:


Topps Candy Division, MFR.
         Brooklyn, N.Y
COPR. 1951  Printed IN U.S.A.

I find this interesting as Topps was using their Chattanooga Tennessee plant at this time to produce candy, although it would not remain open much longer.  A Topps Chewing Gum identification was probably verboten as Topps could not market cards with gum thanks to Bowman.  So voila! Topps Candy!

Based upon the box advertising, Topps clearly expected kids to collect the whole deck of 52 cards.

The It's New! tagline makes me think this box had the Red Back version of the deck.