Blame it on Topps?
It's very likely that Topps had a contract to create, print and distribute the Hires cards. When Topps bought all of Bowman's assets in 1955, they would have had these designs on hand and probably put them to use for Hires.
Topps designed many sets for the food industry over the years (1980s Drake's, 1961 and 1980 Pepsi, etc) and they often used common elements from existing designs in these sets.
That's my hunch anyway.
|