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.
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