Quote:
Originally Posted by tedzan
In the early 1980's, I wrote several articles regarding the BOWMAN sets for the BASEBALL CARDS magazine and SCD. Shown here is a page from the 1952 Bowman FB
article which illustrates a 72-card sheet.
Zabel Brothers (Bowman's printer) used a 39-inch tract press ** to print the 1950-1952 Bowman Sports and Non-Sports cards. The printed sheets were configured with
18 cards across the sheet by "N" number of rows down the length of the sheet. This same printing process applies to the 1951 Bowman cards.
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Ted: I recall reading your article in SCD those many years ago. Forgive my failing memory, but did the article mention at what point the Zabel Company upgraded from the 39-inch tract press to a size that accommodated the larger cards? It seems like the old press would easily fit 18 columns of 1951-52 baseball cards, but no more than maybe 16 columns of cards that were 2.5-inches wide. That, I imagine, would pretty much explain what happened to the 1952 Bowman FB Large cards on both edges of the sheet during print runs before the new press arrived.