[lumberjack]

Probably the best critique of Topps and Bowman comes from, "The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book," by Fred Harris.

They described a card from the '58 T set as looking as though a gravy boat landed on top of the man's head.

In order to cover all the bases, if a player was traded, they would shoot him without a baseball cap. Jeeze, everybody knows a baseball player wears a hat, otherwise they look like the guy who came over to fix your sink.

I think Topps got as good as it was going to get in 1957. TCMA tried to copy that about 18 years later.

As a kid, I was so wrapped up in owning the early 50s Bowmans that I never realized there were black lines around the players. It was as though Gauguin was working for Bowman Gum.