Boxing Day

I'm feeling a bit lazy today and thought I would just take a look at some interesting box graphics from the early days of Topps.

Very much a design that shows how quickly Topps issued this set in the wake of the Korean War, the Freedom's War box has some fairly basic graphics that don't really represent the great artwork in this set:

The "Save 'Em Trade 'Em" slogan was used across the Topps line of cards starting in 1950, appearing on retail and advertising pieces as a unifying meme to get the kids to buy more product.  It also was coincidental, excepting the reissues of Flags of the World and License Plates in their larger size, with their issuance of two card panels in nickel glassine and ten cent cello packs and ran until the end of 1951.  Fighting Marines was the first panelized set that didn't feature this wording since the beginning of 1950 so the campaign ran for almost two years.

Much more colorful was the Bring 'Em Back Alive box, which appeared before Freedom's War:

And before that, we had Hopalong Cassidy, which actually featured a photo and was the first entertainment property licensed by Topps:

Yo-yoing into 1951 Animals of the World had some decent graphics:

The motto isn't on the box but it is on the wrapper:

Baseball Candy even got into the act, as you can see on this scan of an ad provided by Friend o'the Archive John Moran:

Ringside?  Check:

Those ad back cards replicate the box graphics, one of Topps' best efforts I think. And ewhile we are in the sporting arena, let's not forget Magic Football:

Just like Animals of the World, you have to look at the wrapper to find the motto:

Now there is an anomaly out there as well and it belongs to Ed-U-Cards.  This 1952 photo from one of their ad campaigns is very intriguing, especially since Topps produced the Lone Ranger set for them in 1950 and there is a somewhat close connection with Baseball Candy:

Those early Ed-U-Cards graphics are not as cartony as their later issues and given the wording on the retail box, I am starting to wonder just how much of a connection there was between Topps and Ed-U-Cards.  Or maybe Solomon & Gelman's art agency is the connection.

Mis-Adventure

I always have a chuckle when I see a 1956 Harry Agganis Adventure card attributed to Topps. While the set includes 100 colorful, reasonably well executed paintings of various subjects, including Agganis, it is definitely not a Topps product.

Here is the Golden Greek, already dead when the set was issued (as noted on his card):

You can clearly see the Gum Products Inc. copyright, belying a Topps connection. There is however, a connection to an old baseball card set, namely  1941 Double Play, also produced by the same company:

The Boston connection in that scan is intentional on my part as Gum Products Inc. was based there (in Cambridge). GPI also produced a 175 cards set of airplane cards in 1940-41 called Zoom:

GPI also made gumballs sold under the name Jaw Teasers and a few other confectionery products as well in addition to a short series of flip movies issued around the time of Adventure.  Boston was a hotbed of candy and gum manufacturers and card issuers in the years leading up to World War 2 and Gum Products looks like they would have been an earnest player had the conflict not come along.

So Adventure, while being a well-executed set, was not a Topps product, despite dozens of eBay listings to the contrary!

The Wisdom Of Solomon

There were some super sweet Topps related items up for bid in the just concluded Legendary Auction for September 2014.  Over a dozen lots featuring Match Print photos taken by William Jacobellis have turned up and while only a scant few feature Topps images, they come with an added bonus, namely the scrawled approval of Ben Solomon, who was Woody Gelman's ad agency partner and at some point became the Topps Art Director.

The Match Prints are from the 1954 and 1956 sets.  Here is Larry Doby's, featuring both the main photo (with classic Yankee Stadium centerfield background) and the inset:

You can clearly see the "Ben Sol" OK on the reverse of each.  Pretty neat!

Here is the finished product:

Topps clearly was concerned with quality control and appears to be avoiding the use of wire photos to create their cards. Someone did a real nice job colorizing the main photo as well; art was a true art form in the 50's!

On a related note, I have not yet been able to figure out when Ben Solomon went to work for Topps as an employee.  While his Solomon & Gelman partner Woody worked on the 1952 Topps baseball set and is said to have joined the firm around that time (late 1951), I am not so sure.  Solomon & Gelman lived on until at least 1957 --and possibly even as late as 1962-- from what I have been able to find and they may have been taken in house by Topps before finally hiring on at some point.

I do note Jacobellis had an address fairly close to Solomon & Gelman's (230 W 41 St at one time before they moved three or four blocks north). There were probably dozens of commercial photographers in Manhattan at that time.  I wonder if this guy was one of them?

Here is a Net54 thread on Jacobellis and some other vintage era photographers that is well worth a look.

Two Way Player

Far less well known than the 1960 Baseball Tattoo issue, Topps also issued a football counterpart in 1960 that does not even make the pages of some major price guides.  It's been discussed here before but the length of the set was a mystery, although surmised to be 96. The way we knew this is thanks to some stellar work by Jon over at the (almost-but-hopefully-not-dormant) Fleer Sticker Project blog in detailing two 32 subject uncut sheets and the existence of poses not on those sheets. But a full checklist of all 96 subjects has never been published (until today).

Working with Friend o'the Archive Mike Blaisdell, every one of the little buggers has been now confirmed.

First though, here is a much better scan of the wrapper exterior than I have ever had before, thanks to Mike:

Mike also has a great sell sheet for the set.  Check this out:

Here are the two uncut sheets from the Fleer Sticker Project, I usually link to scans others have posted first (and if you look near the top of this post you can click through to that site) but I've mirrored the two sheets Jon posted over there to make them easier to decipher. 

Once I did that I thought it would be a good idea to start putting together a checklist based on his scans and tattoos that exist but are not on the known sheets.I got it down to four or maybe six missing subjects but it's a little tricky with the generic subjects. Mike's yeoman work on the unknown scans did the trick though.

All subjects below are identified as they would look after applied to the skin (i.e. not reversed) and verified by a scan seen by either Mike (a trustworthy lad) or yours truly.  An (H) indicates a horizontally oriented tattoo within the generic subjects, of which there are eight.  As it turns out there are 13 NFL player portraits (one player from each team), 13 NFL team logos, 47 college logos and 23 generic subjects.

NFL PLAYER TATTOOS

Walt Anderson (actually Bill Anderson)

Chuck Bednarik

Jimmy Brown

Rick Casares

Howard Cassady

Bobby Joe Conrad

Frank Gifford

Paul Hornung

Bobby Layne

Ray Mathews

Y.A. Tittle

Johnny Unitas

Bill Wade 

NFL TEAM LOGOS

Baltimore Colts

Chicago Bears

Cleveland Browns

Dallas Cowboys

Detroit Lions

Green Bay Packers 

Los Angeles Rams

New York Giants

Philadelphia Eagles

Pittsburgh Steelers

St. Louis Cardinals

San Francisco 49'ers

Washington Redskins

COLLEGE TEAM LOGOS

Air Force Academy

Army

Baylor 

Boston College Eagles

California

Columbia

Dartmouth 

Duke

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa Hawkeyes

Kentucky 

L.S.U.

Maryland

Michigan

Michigan State 

Minnesota Golden Gophers

Mississippi Rebels

Navy

Nebraska 

Northwestern

Notre Dame

Oklahoma 

Oregon Ducks

Oregon State

Penn Quakers

Penn State

Pittsburgh Panthers

Princeton

Purdue Boilermakers

Rice Owls

Rutgers Scarlet Knights

South Carolina Gamecocks

So. Cal

S.M.U. Mustangs

Stanford

Syracuse

Temple

Tennessee

Texas

T.C.U.

U.C.L.A.

Virginia Cavaliers

Washington Huskies

Washington State Cougars

Wisconsin Badgers

Wyoming

GENERIC SUBJECTS

Blocker on one knee facing right, yellow helmet, red shirt, green pants (H)

Lateral, both players red helmet, yellow uniform (H)

Player arguing with Referee, player is tall and in green uniform, ref has red shirt & green pants

Player leaping with hands up, green shirt, #41, yellow pants

Player on one knee, all yellow uniform, #52

Player portrait, #25, TOUGH! in red letters

Punter, #16, in follow through, Defender nearby, punter red shirt, yellow pants and helmet, Defender white uniform #22

Punter or Receiver, yellow shirt #11, red pants

Quarterback about to throw, red helmet, green shirt, #15, yellow pants

Quarterback about to throw, red helmet, green shirt, red pants, #45

Quarterback about to throw, yellow uniform, red helmet, #62

Receiver about to catch ball, yellow helmet, green shirt, red pants

Receiver and Defender going for ball, player on left blue shirt, #40, green pants, player on right red shirt, #15

Referee running with whistle in mouth, yellow striped shirt, red pants and hat

Runner with ball, red helmet, red shirt, green pants

Runner with no ball, green shirt,#8, green pants & helmet, red square on bottom half

Runner with no ball, green uniform, yellow helmet, white square on bottom half

Tackler in yellow uniform with red helmet bringing down receiver with green uniform & red helmet (H)

Tackler grabbing receiver's shirt, tackler yellow helmet & pants, green shirt, receiver green helmet & pants, yellow shirt, red rectangle on bottom half (H)

Tackler in green shirt, red pants, yellow helmet causing receiver in red shirt, white pants & green helmet to fumble (H)

Tackler missing Receiver with ball, tackler red uniform, receiver yellow uniform (H)

Three Players Running,  green, yellow & red (H)

Two Players diving for loose ball, lowest player has yellow shirt & red pants, highest player has red shirt (H)

I also had an O-Pee-Chee version listed on my master checklist but am now convinced it's the same as the US one; in true Topps fashion the wrapper also lists information for Canadian sale.