Fugly Stickers

Mile High's recently concluded catalog auction featured a "sticky" lot featuring a black process proof sheet for the 1965 Topps Ugly Stickers. What I find interesting is that this is a 198 subject sheet, not the usual 132 or smaller sheet normally seen. The array is 22 x 9:

A spin through Chris Watson's Non-Sports Bible shows that 40 subjects each have 4 different names assigned to them but four have only a single name.  The single names (Doc, Granny, Tommy, Charlie) are not short printed, they just don't have any variation. The do however, share black backgrounds so it must have been too much trouble to change the names on those four.

Here's a couple of examples from one of the "Quads"-note the numbering:

Here's a "Single":

22 subjects are overprinted and you can see that the last 11 slots across the two top rows on the right half of the sheet (counting from the 12th column) repeat an extra time as do the top and bottom rows of the leftmost eleven. This means each half sheet is 99 stickers. I suspect this is due to the print shop setup for pressure sensitive stock at the time.

The back shows this is not a cardboard sheet; it looks like an acetate overlay to me.

It's a pretty neat item on its own but I like how it helps suss out the mysteries of the set.

See you in 2018-Happy New Year!