This Soupy's Nuts!

For as long as I have been aware of the cards, there has been a persistent bit of conventional hobby wisdom that states the circa 1965 Topps Soupy Sales cards also came in a thin paper version that were wallet inserts. I've always thought that was a bit of an odd thing for Topps to do but recently an eBay auction appeared that gave me pause.

There is indeed a vinyl Soupy Sales wallet from the 1960's:

In its own right that is one awesome piece of 60's kiddie memorabilia but it gets better.  Check this out:

That is a colorized reverse of a Soupy card sans numbering and the T.C.G. indicia is easily seen to the bottom right! Here is a normal Soupy reverse:

There are 66 cards in the set but I have no idea how many Soupy Sez phrases made it to the wallets. The "card" on the wallet is smaller by a quarter inch in each dimension than a standard Topps card at 2 1/4" x 3 1/4" and the entire wallet measures 8 1/2" x 3 1/2" when opened. Here's the front of a regular card in case you are curious:

Even though the current pricing of them does not support it, Soupy Sales cards have always seemed to me to be a bit harder to find than your average card of the mid 60's.  I suspect they sold poorly and were subject to heavy returns from the jobbers.

There are also some very scarce color Topps Soupy cards that are believed to be from 1967 (I think they are a little earlier) but all known versions of those come with blank backs.  I wonder if Topps prepared color backs for those and then when production was abandoned, was able to repurpose them for the wallets.  Stranger things have happened at Topps but I admit it's a bit of a farfetched theory.

Here is the inside of the wallet:

There is no manufacturing information on or in the wallet other than on the "card".  Apparently a gray version is also known and I suspect there could be a couple of other colors as well.But wait, there is another Topps-Soupy connection:

A 1965 book of short, Soupy themed Children's stories, part of a series from a series called Wonder Books has a pretty neat Topps connection as well:

This particular book...

 ...was written by these two people:

Barbara Gelman was Topps Creative Director Woody Gelman's daughter and Robert Shorin the son of Topps co-founder Abram Shorin.  So far as I can determine, other Soupy-themed Wonder Books were not the product of these two author's pens.

But wait, there's more.  From January 1965 comes this little gem:

The comic is dated January 1965 (which just reinforces to my mind the 1965 date for the Topps Soupy Sales cards) and there is a connection between Topps and Archie, namely a series of Blony gum comics a few years prior.  

And still, there is more...check out this #1 issue of the Topps Fan Magazine featuring ol' Soup. I confess I had never heard of this until a posting on the Net54 Vintage Non Sports board alerted me to it:

That scan was posted by David Davis over at the forum. I don't know what lurks within but am told there are replicas of some of the Topps Soupy Sales cards shown.  I'm not sure what to make of all this love for Soupy by Topps but it's pretty neat stuff.

There was even a second issue of this little known rag, which is enroute to me as I type:

I'll post the insides when my copy comes in the post; hopefully I can find a No. 1 somewhere or get scans.