I'm collecting the 1956 Master set (white back/grey back, the cropping variations, etc., the more recognized ones etc.) and have noticed the massive price discrepancies on certain white backs too. Guess which ones I still need?
I'm not sure if some are being hoarded and simply appear rare, or if they actually are. Deductively, it does not make much sense that there would be SP's at all. Topps was using 110 card half-sheets in 1956 on their large size cards (100 or 110 seems to have been the norm depending on year during their large size days). Here's a 110 card series 1 sheet to show what I'm talking about
:
https://sports.ha.com/itm/baseball-c...a/7085-80717.s 11 rows of 10 cards per row. This is a half sheet, sheets had two sizes and were cut in half down the middle as apparently the first step of handling and cutting into cards. Images of series 3 and series 4 sheets are attached, though the severe file size limits here mean they will probably be indecipherable and shrunk too small.
This series 1 (series 1 had 100 cards) sheet has all 100 cards once, and then one row repeated, making these 10 cards double prints on it. The other side of the sheet is unknown, I believe, but would have either the same cards repeated (true double prints) or a different row repeated (making two rows 1.5 prints, 2 rows printed 3 times, 9 rows printed twice on a full sheet).
Series 2 has 80 cards, each half sheet would have the 80 cards + 3 double printed rows, making for 3 rows of 4x print and 8 rows of 2x print. Or, it would have the double printed rows different on each sheet, making for 6 rows of 3x print and 5 rows of 2x print. Series 3 and 4 are also 80 cards, and fit just fine. Series 3 has the 80 cards, and then 3 rows repeated for 110 cards. The other side was just like this, making 3 rows of DP's, or had different DP rows, making 6 rows of 1.5x prints. Either way, there's plenty of each card and every card appears on each half sheet. Series 4 is the same
The problem is, that when the half sheet is bigger than the set of cards, you're getting a full set on either side. We can see from the gray backs that Topps didn't do something very weird and include some row only once on a full sheet; there are no gray backs in series 2 that are significantly tougher, there's no short prints only some double or 1.5x prints (technically, a card not a DP in a series with DP's could be considered an SP by its nature, but this is so pedantic as to confuse the issue).
For there to be extreme SP's in the white print run, Topps would have had to redesign the sheets or design them from the start explicitly to create shortages, and have some rows in 4x or even more and some rows in 1x for it produce true SP's. Which makes no sense, If Topps was trying to screw collectors into buying more packs, it would be this way in the grey backs, in other Topps issues of the period, etc.
Which says to me I'm not sure these are actually any tougher. Market shortages often have little to do with supply. In the 1966 Highs thread we have shown the 1966 Topps 591 shortage is mostly hype, there are numerous other cards in that series printed in the same quantity that don't cost $100 in almost any grade because they don't have the marketing hype. There are many fantasy SP's in the hobby, 1953 Bowman baseball 113-128, 1955 Topps All-Americans (100 or 110 card half sheets, there are maybe 10 DP's but no SP's), 1953 Bowman football, etc. A lot of hobby history is people thinking a card is tough because they haven't seen it much, that narrative becoming accepted and driving up prices as people lock up the cards making them appear rarer, and then learning later that the cards actually are not tougher after all. Anecdotes are not that helpful in figuring out actual SP's.
I'm not saying that's definitively what has happened here, but I'm not sold yet that there is some bizarre print pattern here that was never used before or since or even on the grey sheets for series 2. I think we need more evidence beyond market prices to see if they are actually tougher, or people just think they are and thus behave as such, escalating prices as has happened on numerous false SP's over the years.
Anyone have an image of a series 2 sheet? I don't seem to have one in my archive if a copy exists.