Ted talked with Moll late in the ad man's life, who knows what his recall was at that point. Ted had many theories, not all were fact-based.
Zabel was printing the Bowman cards from at least 1950 I believe, not sure/can't recall if they were used earlier. I blogged about them a few times, most pertinently here (make sure to read the comments):
https://www.thetoppsarchives.com/201...-contents.html
Two comments of note thereon:
From Doug Hall, who worked there in 1962 and was grandson of William Zabel. He commented regarding about Zabel's presses:
"The Bowman cards were printed on a German-made multi-color press (I think it was a Heidelberg)from zinc plates, one for each of 4 ink colors. Before printing actually began. the press ran a sheet through each color, one at a time. I once had a full set of sheets of the 1953 Bowman cards of 1 color each (yellow, blue, magenta and black I think)."
An anonymous commenter stated: "I think the two 58” 2-color Harris presses at Zabel came from the Topps plant in CT. For a time, Topps May have printed the backs and LBP the fronts. Zabel bought their 60” 5-color Miehle to print Topps fronts."
That Connecticut Topps plant closed around 1971.