How many to a series? Let's see some 1955 Bowman miscuts and uncut material
 

I love the Bowman TV cards. The conventional wisdom is that large Bowman's were printed on 32 card sheets and issued in fairly small series of 32 or 64 cards. 1954 Bowman Football (the set preceding the 55 Baseball's; I'm not sure when Power for Peace and US Navy fall into the timeline of 1954) probably was done this way, 4 series of 32 cards. 1955 Bowman Football (the set printed after the 55 Baseball's) was probably 5 sets of 32 cards by the conventional wisdom (I think the first series probably had 2 sheets worth).

Anyways, this seems to be very wrong to me. 1955 Bowman Baseball seems to only have 2 series, 1-224 and 225-320. Cards 1-64 have a blonde wood border, 65-320 have a dark wood. 225-320 are clearly extant in significantly reduced numbers. Cards numbered from 65-224 show evidence when miscut of bordering cards 1-64, and cards 1-64 show evidence of bordering higher numbered cards on the sheet.

Here's #27 Preston Ward clearly bordering a card numbered above 64. And here's #217 Crandall with a 1-64 next to him (other miscuts show a second 1-64 card was adjacent to Crandall to top [with the sheet oriented so that the cards are facing the viewer correctly]).


I think the evidence strongly suggests the common narrative is, like so many of them repeated in card land, false. A sheet of 220 cards would be awfully massive considering what Bowman was usually working with. It may also have been a skip numbered issue. I don't know, all I know is that the evidence doesn't support the story I've always heard.

Anyone have 1955 Bowman uncut material? Miscuts like these to show? I'd love to be able to eventually have enough public material to settle some of the questions about this issue.

33 Fox with a 65+ card to right.

34 Courney with a 65+ card to right.

31 Temple with a 65+ card to left.

#2 Dark with a 65+ to right.

#25 Minoso with a 65+ to left.

#8 Hacker with a red stripe at bottom and left. A thin red stripe sometimes separates a 1-64 blonde card form a 65+ dark card, but it's usually very thin.

#40 Wertz with a 65+ card below and to the right.

And then one with a blue and black bottom

222 Kemmerer with a 1-64 left

223 Jeffcoat with a 1-64 left.

221 Brown with 1-64 left.

224 Fondy with 1-64 left.

Not all examples of these cards I'm showing with extra border on the left show a blonde border card; many of them show what is another 65+ dark wood card.

218 Adcock, 219 Lockman, 220 Hearn all with the 1-64 border at left. Presumably a strip of cards in numerical order above a row with the 1-64 wood, at least some of the time.

These panels are the only uncut material I know: https://bid.robertedwardauctions.com...e?itemid=47109

Certainly supports skip numbering, and that not even all the highs are highs.

1955 Bowman Umpires
 

Interesting. I can dig out the Baker card if you need a better scan, if I still have it. I gave a bunch of my '55 Bowman duplicates to another board member.

1955 Bowman Article in BBC Mag
 

Here is an article by Bob Lemke, published in the Oct. 1985 issue of Baseball Cards Magazine. On page 3 is another uncut sheet that may be of interest. The other pages are also interesting for collectors of the set.

Thank you gents, 7 Baker can be added to the list.

Interesting Lemke apparently had it figured out. That fits with the evidence of the miscuts; odd this doesn't seem to have been brought up anywhere public in almost 40 years. I guess we're now looking to see these sheets for the final proof that this is indeed the case. It's a huge sheet if this is the case, especially for Bowman.

large sheet size isn't surprising....based on the little I know about '52 Topps sheets, I assumed the panel of 70 cards in the previous auctions were only partial sheets.

Good detective work on all of the above.

It’s surprising because Bowman was using much smaller sheets before this. This Bowman sheet, if true, contains twice as many cards as a 1952 Topps sheet, whereas Bowman had used smaller sheets in the past.

I think Bowman was using smaller iterations previously but the sheets were not just 32 or 36 cards.

The funny thing about the 55's is the salesman samples can sometimes be found with light and dark woods.

I’ll dig through my scans, but from what I’ve seen in 1954 Bowman was not using 224 card sheets. I believe there’s a 1954 Navy sheet showing the full half-sheet was 96 cards printed once. I haven’t seen a full football sheet from 1954 or 1955, just some blocks of a 1954 that indicate they were 32 card series but an unknown number of slots on the sheet. That’s a bigger sheet than what others were doing too (Topps has 100 to each half-sheet in 1955, for example) unless Bowman didn’t do half sheets. Releasing so many at once is also a large break from the past for them, and doesn’t seem to have been done with their next issue. I hope these possible 55 baseball sheets still exist and weren’t destroyed so they can eventually be seen and photographed.

Here's an interesting one I found for sheet construction. The dark wood miscuts showing a blonde wood card have been at the end of non-high numbers. Here's card #121 Jake/Rufus Crawford that indicates it was bordering a 1-64 group.

Crawford is an example of one thing I like about this set, there's a lot of cards of obscure players who don't have many/any other cards. I don't believe Crawford ever appeared on another baseball card. He had 12 plate appearances in 1952 for the Browns, an was in the minors through 1957.

Two 96 subject half sheets does make some sense. 224 (not 244, suspect a typo in the Lemke piece) not so much. Topps went from 100 to 110 card arrays in 1955 and 1956 (EDIT-also 1954) but I believe they used Lord Baltimore Press where Bowman probably had theirs printed by Zabel Brothers, right in Philly. I think the divisors have to make some sense and 96/192 does, although as noted, they may not have done the half sheet shenanigans like Topps did.

The Bowman US Navy series has 48 unique cards. I don't think this is the sheet I recalled, but I did find one that sold recently showing 112 cards (i.e., half the cards are double prints if this is complete). It's possible the sheet was larger and it's not a border torn off at right. I don't know if they used half sheets, I have never seen what I am confident is a truly complete Bowman sheet of any set.

One thing that makes Bowman harder to me is that they don't seem to have had unofficial 'rules' like Topps did that we can make some deductions from (like a row remaining constant). This 1954 sheet is an example; the rows aren't a constant though there is some sequencing. Things seem to change a lot between issues and years.

The 'series' of Bowman's are, for many sets and years, deduced from availability, as far as I can tell. Like the divide into 4 series of 32 in the 1954 Football issue, and the 1-64, 65-160 blocks of 1955 Bowman Football. This 1955 Baseball array might suggest these were 1 series at issue, and 'shenanigans' produce the rarity discrepancy, not divides between series'.

I believe Topps was using 100 card half sheets in 1955 for both Football and Baseball. I'm pretty sure the numerous 1955 Topps football SP's are completely imaginary. 1955 Topps Baseball Series 1 measures 1-90, 101-110. I think 91-100, 111-210 (minus the 4 non-existent, + the 4 extra DP's) are probably 2 series where each card was DP'd on each half sheet, but I haven't come across a sheet from the later run(s). 1956 is fairly well known I think; I have made no headway on 1954 Topps baseball at all besides that 1-50 is possibly a series.

UPDATE 6/24: AFTER I WROTE THE BELOW I FOUND AN OLD SCAN THAT SHOWS 1954 PROBABLY WAS A 110 ARRAY.

Topps went to 110 for 1955 Baseball, not sure if any Giant Size cards were printed at the tail end of 1954 as they may have been reconfiguring (not much else at all for Topps in '54 actually beyond the smaller size Scoop). The high-high series of World on Wheels (171-180) was printed oddly and maybe not by Lord Baltimore Press and the date and method of their issue is actually unknown, but other than that Baseball was their sole 1954 Giant Size issue I believe. The standard size print patterns changed from 1957-60 then again in 1961.

1955 and '56 Topps Baseball are 110 card half sheets. 1955 is printed very strangely and I think they put some "holes" in the numbering in case of specific player disputes with Bowman. Both years (and 1954, also with a weird array) would be excellent candidates for SP/DP study, especially 1955. And some early Topps NS series printed in smaller sizes like Look 'N' See are also wonky in terms of print arrays.

I will start a 1955 Baseball thread, I have a few different images.

Here is a #67 Larsen dark border next to a light border card.

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Gene Baker #7
Bill Tutle #35
Toby Atwell #164
Jim Busby #166

some interesting looking cards. They remind me of watching tv on the early wood/panel style TV's.

I am not sure if i like them or not.

Here is a #263 E Joost with an adjoining brown edge miscut

Just finished this (last card #257 on the way). I enjoyed it, good mix of Hofers, high numbers, variations and stars. Some neat umpire cards which can be tougher. Only flaw is no rookie power, although the presence of Mantle makes me like it better than Topps. Also looks pretty good in high grade although the backs are really tough to find not miscut, even with a perfectly centered front.

Building off cars 164 and 166 identified above, 165 also exists with the light brown card adjacent, to its right:

And the streak extend to 167 Bob Grim. He's probably pretty tough to find this way; the majority of Grim's are off center the other direction, with a fat left border.

And 168 Berra:

Continues to 169 Furillo, but the 1-64 border is at top, instead of to the left.

And 163 exists:

As does card 162

Here's 161 Batts. 160 Skowron and 170 Erskine I cannot find examples of to extend the streak.

Building off 67 Larsen, 66 Shuba also was a border card.

And 68 Ellie:

69

And 70 Burdette

71 Jolly

72 Nichols

And 65 Zimmer. I cannot find 73 or 74 showing a 1-64 card, so it seems this second streak ends here.

57 Bob Friend, bordering either a 65+ card or be an end card. End cards appear with numerous colors of lines at the miscut borders, beyond the light yellowish and red cutting lines that sometimes were present and sometimes not.

And 50 Ford/60 Slaughter with the same effect. There are numerous colors to Whitey's left, including purple, yellow, red, black, brown and more.

Both of them look bug eyed in the photos....

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Cole #28
Schoendiest #29
Sarni #30
Darnell #39
Corwin #122

That slight print offset does make their eyes stick out.

What I remember most from putting this set together was how hard it was to find a Willie Mays that wasn't really short.

5 more!

25, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 39 and 40 are all confirmed as border cards now, so presumably the rest in this range we can locate this way.

122 Corwin pairs with the 121 Crawford from earlier - presumably there will be a few more in this number range.

I don't know what was up with the cutting this year, but it is Bowman's worst cut issue by far. The 1954 footballs and 1955 footballs (which I believe were the sets printed before and after this issue; the non-sports issues dying out around this time) are both much better cut. I store my 326 set without sleeves, and handling the stack really makes clear just how poorly cut it is. I'll have to check my Mays, it's one of my favorite poses of him.

And 32 Post exists:

26 Trucks locks in 25-34 as all being border cards between the color panels. Even with the terrible cutting in 1955, the design makes it really hard to be able to tell what the adjacent card was to try and fill in the other sheet configurations besides the one we have a scan of.

35 Tuttle has it, but on the opposite side of what I expected:

36 Belardi

37 Pee Wee