1953 Topps; White and Black Bio Text
 

Hello Collectors -
I just started building a low-grade 53 Topps set and I have found that the text color for the player bio on back switches between white and black. Can anyone help me answer some questions

- Does anyone know where to find the most accurate list of which cards(I don't think it is all) have been printed with both?
- If any of you have completed a set, did you chase both white and black or just get one of either?
- If anyone has low grades they are looking to unload, I'm buying. I still need all the big names except Campanella, Spahn.

Thanks for the help.
Barry

These are the 1953 Topps cards with both black and white bios: 10, 44, 61, 72, 81, 86-165.

I completed a project for COMC in which I broke down all the cards we have (and have sold) into those. There are 5 cards in the 86-165 range which are only one color. (They compensate for the five in the earlier series)

Rich

Looks like the five between 86 and 165 that are NOT black and white are #94 Bill Kennedy, #107 Danny O’Connell, #131 Harry Byrd, #145 Harry Dorish, #156 Jim Rivera.

Is that because of skip-numbering in the 1953 Topps sets where those cards in series 1 were not printed until series 2?

I admit to doing all the backs for my set. I enlisted the help of Levi Bleam to run down the cards I needed. Levi pointed out that cards 94, 107, 131,145 and 156 were pulled from the 2nd sheet to allow the printing of 5 cards from the first series that were not on sheet one, 10,44, 61, 72 and 81. Then 94, 107, 131, 145 and 156 wee printed on the 3d sheet

There are some great George Vrecheck articles on the printing of the 53 set

https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrE...M5qwrFJoD0keA-

https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrE...UH7JJoqHYNd.4-

Sounds like that dirty trick where the card company purposely didn’t initially print all of the cards in a series to keep kids buying the packs looking for those few cards and then releasing those cards with the next series.

Here is an article on the 53 set by an ebay seller loved by many here ;)

https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrJ...qT8qUB_vTFsFM-

I'm not certain but while it seems that way, I think Topps may have held some numbers as they were afraid some players would have to be pulled as they got an adverse legal ruling in he middle of Feb. 1953 when Bowman changed tactics on appeal after losing their lawsuit over the 1952 cards. The three DP's in the 1952 Topps highs may have been due to three pulled players and Topps then hedged their bets going in to 1953. Indeed, both Topps and Bowman were both the subject of a temporary injunction issued on May 25, 1953, each prohibited from issuing cards of certain players. They would have had time to create the gaps after the initial ruling and before series one went out, especially since no checklists existed at the time. The final gaps in the 1953 Topps high numbers probably came about due to the injunction. Did Topps also reap a benefit from the missing numbers in terms of additional sales? Undoubtedly.

Topps also hedged their bets by using paintings and not photographs in '53 IMO, trying to circumvent the Bowman contracts, which specifically mentioned photographs.

Thanks for the legal history, Dave. I had not read about Topps using the paintings in '53 specifically to do an end run around "photos" in the Bowman ruling. That would pretty much explain the whole '53 approach. On the other hand, I don't see how any of the transpositioning of cards from one series to another would have resulted in greater profit for Topps, simply because there were no checklists. Kids spending their nickels in '53 might have figured out that five cards were missing from a series, but probably not before the next series was issued - and then there they were. How much extra profit could that have produced? Afterall, kids then were searching for players, not numbers.

The skip numbering ploy was started in the 1930's and I guess it worked to a degree. Some kids collected the whole series for sure. How much extra could Topps wring out of it? Not too much I'd say, but that never stopped them from doing something. Their early approach was to issue few big sets, sell a bunch of gum and then add lots of little things that added up to a bigger thing.