Miami Nice

I've written a couple of posts over the years about the 1973/74 Topps Action Emblems, which was an attempt by the company to introduce their own versions of Major League Baseball team logos that likely arose out of a desire to stop paying licensing fees to MLB.  The set is not widely known as it doesn't depict any players as subjects and while examples can be found on eBay they are not all that plentiful.  In addition, three differing formats/mediums were used.  Here is a typical example:

Certainly less well known among collectors are mockups of some football versions of the Action Emblems. This one has been known for a while and features fanciful Atlanta and Miami logos:

  

Love the palm trees!  Now that was the only example I had ever seen of the football version but another has popped up of late:

More ersatz logos, this time for Chicago and Baltimore. Topps did not have a license to use the NFL team logos for any of their sets issued between 1970 and 1981 (see here for some really good background on this) and I would date these mockups to the mid 1970's. So this has me thinking that instead of avoiding the use of the official logos, Topps also wanted to avoid use of the team names. It never came to anything but I wonder if a dispute was brewing with either or both of MLB and the NFL at the time over using the team names. The baseball stickers only have city names as well so it's plausible. Let's not forget how they avoided using the Astros team name for a good portion of the 60's due to a lawsuit over Astroturf-Topps was clearly sensitive to potential litigation in this area.

I wonder if any more of the football mockups exist? I'd love to see them if they do.

1970 Rollin' In Sight

1969 rolling into 1970 is the first holiday season I can really recall as my 8 year old self became a bit more aware of what was going on around me.  1969 brought the moon landing of course, which I saw through sleepy eyes in glorious black-and-white on a whopping 19 inch screen in our living room on Long Island.  I saw the final out of that year's World Series on the same screen and a brief glimpse of Rowan & Martin (forbidden fruit to me at the time) two days before New Year's Eve waving goodbye to the 60's on "Laugh-In".  From such things spring this post.

There's been an uptick in offerings related to mid-to-late 60's and early 70's Topps packaging lately and I'm assuming a longtime collector is selling out through multiple channels. Box proofs and actual retail boxes from this period are not all that common but during this recently concluded July a bunch have been auctioned off. In addition these show a nice progression from proofing the colors and artwork until the final press run was struck.

I'll start in 1968, although a groovy year it was not:

The above box and 33 sticker set would be issued in 1968 and they display the typical Topps humor of the time, i.e. totally awesome!  That's not a final proof but rather one used to make corrections to the artwork.  There's no commodity number yet either, I don't think those were checked for anything but accuracy prior to being added, usually below the rest of the bottom indicia.

1969 was decidedly a more far out time:

As before, this was a proof used to check before the press run began. If you blow up the image you can see that they wanted to show more of Peggy Lipton's can!  Dig that five cent price point, due to fade out with the 60's for the most part. But guess what-they never used that box!  The retail box actually looked like this:

Next up, a less confusing issue:

A final proof for this 1970 box I say. That little Martian looks quite happy!

And now, a rare box for a rare set (two actually):

Until now, I had never quite confirmed the Kiss Bobby set came with the Plaks but it sure did. I have a little more here on these, both are quite difficult sets or even types for that matter.

Here's the bottom:

That's a 1970 commodity number by the way, although I do think the set came out in '71 as that's the year his show "Getting Together" premiered on ABC. Commodity numbers (aka Production Codes) refer to the origin year of a set, i.e. when it was green-lighted for production so sometimes a set was issued a year after the code's last digit might indicate.

So that's some groovy, groovy stuff for you all, 50 years after the Summer of Love!

Better And Better

Well campers, there was some big time stuff on display at this year's National but by my estimation one item sat atop the heap. Many of you have undoubtedly seen the article on Sports Collectors Daily about a large stash of vintage unopened packs from Topps and Bowman unearthed by Mile High Card Co. Among this array of goodies was an unopened 1968 Basketball pack, a heretofore unseen objet d'hobby!

(Courtesy Sports Collectors Daily)

The pack, which is being auctioned in September and will undoubtedly go for major bucks, was the one thing I truly made a point to check out in Chicago as I was curious about the never-before-seen insert described on the wrapper (opened packs, which are really envelopes, have been seen previously) and to see if it fit my theory of it being derived from a 1963 Hood Dairy booklet. After gawking like a little kid at the candy counter, I asked one of the guys at Mile High about the pack contents, to which he replied "we also have one that was opened, would you like to see it?". Yes, please!

I then was led to this sight:

And just like that, two mysteries were solved.  If you haven't clicked through above to some of the Hood Dairy booklet scans I will end the suspense and confirm that above "How To Shoot" instructional is descended one of them and it was indeed folded to fit within.  The interior is set up like a small comic book by the way, very typical of the early 1960's. As for the rest of the pack, three cards (all HOF'ers in this case) were what you got. I recall the back of the booklet was blank.

Those B&W cards are similar to other produced by Topps in the mid 60's but the envelope style pack is a rarity, with only a couple of other sets having been associated with them over the years.  The card style was an easy one for Topps to produce but I suspect they were created for multiple purposes. The envelope is a little trickier but I think it ties in and will describe how momentarily.

First, here's Friend o'the Archive Keith Olbermann on some specifics about this pack (and find), after inquiring further with Mile High:

"These packs came from a family that operated a confectionary company that distributed non-sports trading cards. Apparently, the companies exchanged information with one another and the packs were likely acquired directly from a Topps executive in order to get feedback, since they were not a competitor in the sports card market. On much of the unopened material that they acquired, they made notations showing the date of acquisition. The unopened pack has the notation “3/6/68,” which would support you claim that they were produced and distributed to select people during the 1967-68 season."

My previous thoughts on the envelopes and B&W cards is that they were used in a lab test setting, i.e.a controlled environment.  Topps routinely had at least a three phase process when testing cards in the 60's:

1) Lab Test (observing kids in a research facility play with the cards).
2) Field Test (executives handed out cards at local schools near the Topps plant in Sunset Park, Brooklyn)
3) Retail Test (a select few stores in select few regions or areas--again mostly in Brooklyn--would get a box or two) 

We now have a fourth option, namely an industry oriented informal review.  Mile High thought the cards were made up to show NBA executives how such a product would work, which is also a possible avenue of limited distribution.  So really, except for the retail test, which more closely resembled the standard retail counter display model, the envelopes and B&W cards could have been used for any or all of the other four options.

The Mile High comments also reiterate Olbermann's position that the set was issued during the 1967-68 season.  All-in-all this little bit of the larger find has filled in and confirmed some key points.

Next question: what will the unopened pack go for?!

Update 9/16/17 - The pack went for $16,693.20.  It also seems likely the paper envelope test packs were used because the inserts, even folded, were too big and/or too floppy for a standard sized pack.

180 Degrees of Separation

Further to my two previous posts, the always resourceful Jon Helfenstein (of the Fleer Sticker Project Helfensteins) sent along a number of scans that nicely complement my comments about the 1961 and 1962 Topps Baseball Stamps.  I have to admit I've not seen the sell sheets before and they are just super nice.

Here is the 1961 sheet:

I have to wonder if a brown version of this sheet exists to complement the two color schemes of the stamps proper.  Probably not but wouldn't that be cool?! Nice to see my guesstimate of 12 albums per box was spot on but it appears Topps was 28 stamps over the 180 stamp capacity of the albums.

The 1962 sell sheet is much nicer and appreciably more colorful as well

I'm not sure why Topps didn't mention the albums on the regular sell sheet-seems like a missed opportunity.  But wait, there's more, namely the name checked 3 Pak:

Nice job with the cello sleeve raks (never knew Topps called them 3 Paks but they also called them Rak Paks!) but again, no mention of the album. Speaking of albums, here's the '62:

That is one frightening looking kid!

Thanks Jon, for sending over all these goodies!