Stain Stick

I'll be posting a large number of real juicy scans of 1968 Giant Stand Ups soon thanks to a phalanx of JPEG's received from Friend o'the Archive Keith Olbermann but wanted to highlight something specific about the set today.

Despite extant (empty) retail boxes and (full) packs, the retail issuance of this set has been questioned by some as it's just so hard to find.  So what then does it mean when PSA has graded only 22 examples from this issue,wrongly ID'd as from 1967 to boot, inclusive of proofs? I think it means:

a) test issues are tough and;

b) any type of set that could be played with, punched out, peeled, scratched off or stood up is a lot harder to find in an otherwise apples-to-apples comparison than one that isn't and;

c) the set tested poorly.

There's some SGC slabs out there too but I can't make heads or tails of their pop report other than to note they have four Frank Howard examples graded (one is mine). But really, no matter how you slice it, not many of these things exists in the wild.

So anyhoo, take a gander at this Frank Robinson from the Olbermann collection:

Frank always seemed to be smiling! He's doing so here even though his reverse is gum stained:

So how did that stain get there if the set wasn't issued at some retail level?  And for that matter, how did poor Jim Fregosi get gum stained on the front:

Issued set, 1968.  Now, where did all those furshlugginer proofs come from?!