"I was the person who "discovered" the Flags of the World test material. I was living in Queens, NY at the time and would frequent Mike Carbonaro's comic shop in Forest Hills, NY, as well as purchase from him at NY card shows. Mike's shop, like most back then, sold not just comic books, but also trading cards and other pop culture material; I always looked for the trading cards. One day while browsing, I saw a stack of the "Flags of the World" 1956 cards, along with several envelopes and samples of the "Money of the World" inserts. This would have been around 1990, but I do not remember absolutely. I had no extra money to spend at the time, so I asked Mike to bring the material to the next comic show, which was happening in a couple of weeks. I purchased everything he had, and to the best of my knowledge, nothing had sold since I first saw the items.
I do not have access to my notes from the time, or the material anymore, but I believe there was a total of about 70 to 80 some-odd cards, 12 or 13 money inserts, and 5 or 6 envelopes. I kept one of every unique card, money insert and the best envelope for my collection, and sold the dupes at the Parsippany Non-sports show to dealers like Bob Marks (a friend of mine) and Mark Macaluso. "
So this is a small source for a tough test issue. Lonnie believes the collection just "walked in" to the shop at some point. He continues:
"Anyway, the info I want to pass along will completely change your view of this envelope and test issue. Firstly, the hand-written number on the white (not tan) envelope was not a test commodity number. Of the 5 or 6 envelopes, I believe all had hand-written numbers on them of the card numbers they held, written by the lucky boy or girl who originally purchased (or received) them back in '69 or '70 and used to "store" the cards. The numbers were in sequence; 1-15, 16-30, 31-45 (Color photo from Hakes' auction -https://www.hakes.com/Image/
There are only 77 flag subjects in the 1970 set, plus five separately numbered Dictionary subjects, which were on the same stock and had a similar appearance, so the numbering scheme from 1956 makes sense. It does not appear the Dictionary cards made the test set, which also makes sense. Here is the scan from Hake's (I missed this item somehow, I get all their catalogs but whiffed I guess on their July 2017 offerings)-it's clearly a white envelope which has toned a bit over the years:
Their lot description read: "... is a test issue, 3.5x4.5". This is a paper envelope w/glossy sticker applied to the center. Same basic art as the standard 5¢ wrapper but with additional image/text for "Extra Inside! Money Of The World" but this concept never made it into production for this set. Moderate wear, inked numbers on top margin. VG."
Back to Lonnie:
"The card numbers were for the original 1956 Flags of the World set, which were the cards contained in the envelopes. My memory is not that good, but I think I had close to 2/3rds of the complete set. They were Indistinguishable from the original '56 cards, so no good way to tell they were test cards other than I knew they came from the envelopes. My theory is Topps was actually testing the "money" insert idea, not the cards themselves, and probably used either left over proof sheets (would have only taken 2 or 3 sheets to fill a couple of boxes) they had in archive, or did a small print run from the '56 films. I guess the '70 Flags of the World cards themselves either were not in development yet or not ready for testing. Using the '56 cards, which were over-sized compared to the modern standard, is why I believe they used an envelope instead of a plain wax wrapper; their wrapping machines could not handle the larger cards.... My theory is that Topps only used the envelopes for over-sized or odd-shaped items that could not be wrapped on their machines."
That is very, very weird. I have a theory myself after reading Lonnie's comments, namely that when Topps swept out their scattered Brooklyn warehouses around 1966 they found some of the 1956 cards, which were too large to use in Fun Packs. Since Topps never got rid of anything before trying to sell it a half dozen times, they used the Giant Size FOTW cards for the currency test. Curiouser and curiouser. But the artwork on the wrapper is a match for the one from 1956!
"There was (if memory serves) six unique pieces of money, with the rest dupes. The test money is very, very different from what ended up in the '70 retail set. It was almost exactly like the "real" money it was based on, and the final version was obviously "phony" money and could not be confused as the real thing. I guess the test was successful since they went on to release the '70 set with the money inserts."
What Lonnie says matches what I have heard, namely that the test version of the Money of the World was too realistic and had to be changed. They also dropped the Money Of The World name for the regular issue. However, when researching the retail wrappers for this post, something interesting showed up:
Here is the US/Canadian hybrid style wrapper, used by Topps for many issues in the 60's and 70's:
It's tucked under but the production code is: 0-400-87-01-0.
The Flags cards (they are also stickers of the "self-application" kind but the stock is like that of a card) that came within looked like this:
Clearly made in the US of A.
However there is a Canadian only version of the packaging as well, with pricing:
I have to assume this back (fronts are identical) came in the above wrappings:
I am wondering if the regular set was reissued in Canada, although Lonnie thinks not. And to make things even more Topps-like, there are five Dictionary cards. I have two, both are US only but the Non-Sports Bible clearly shows a Dictionary card that has the multi-lingual reverse. Here's my US style Dictionary card:
There's clearly more to be uncovered about this set, components and test counterparts. A tip of the hat to Lonnie for his insights.
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