Quote:
Originally Posted by G1911
We know they did this in 1955 Baseball so that would make a lot of sense. One more reason there are probably sheet shenanigans and this sequence is not the whole story yet.
I believe that by 1955 Bowman was already wrapping up its card projects. I don't believe any of their non-sport issues are credited to 1955, and that year only saw the baseball and football sets (which I would presume, based on relative scarcities today, were their top sellers), neither of which were lazy releases. 1955 Baseball is notoriously bad for miscutting, the subsequent football set is a lot better cut and centered, especially 97-160. Thankfully only a tiny sliver of the next card is enough, with the design, to place which card is adjacent.
I'm trying to find further miscuts, in the high number cards that are top or bottom of "sheets" 4 and 5. I've found an Alex Langford showing "sheet" #4 had cards beneath it, but it's such a small sliver of the next card I can't make out which card it is. I am trying to do the 1954's as well as I am also confident the current theory there is wrong, but there are not many miscuts to play with.
Apologies if this is in your book and I don't recall it, but do you know the date or month the buyout of Bowman was finalized by Topps? It appears Bowman did a full print run of the football set in all its series (probably 2...) before ceasing operations, with some early designs of the next baseball set in progress. Topps seems to me to have been kind of a mess in 1956 with the buyout, releasing a lazy football set (I love it and it's one of my favorites, but it appears to be a quick meshing of the 55 Topps and 55 Bowman football designs using Bowman's contracted players), a lazy Presidents set copied and pasted from Bowman's work in 1952, and a small size Jets set that was pretty low effort alongside the effort sets of the Round Ups, Flags, Davy Crockett and Elvis issues that were mostly TV cash-ins, and the baseball series. I don't believe Topps copied a Bowman design again until 1966 for the Hockey and Football sets that basically copied the 1955 Bowman Baseball set.
|
Topps finalized the deal to buy Bowman on January 20, 1956 and announced it on February 18th. The effective date of the sale was April 1st and it included contracts in force, production machinery and all trademarks. They paid $200,000 and I believe it strapped them for most of the rest of the year.
I think a couple of Bowman designs went into sets Topps produced for other parties but my notes are scattered on those right now.
Do you know Mike Thomas? He's pieced together virtual sheets which just recreate the 32 player blocks but also collects miscuts he uses to ID sheet positions. He's not as active as he used to be but does seem to update his website still; he was pretty focused on grabbing miscuts back in the day. You may want to give him a shout:
https://www.footballcardgallery.com/set/55b/1955-bowman-football-cards/?cat=bowman