Quote:
Originally Posted by Zach Wheat
My feeling is it wasn't an exclusive contract with Berk Ross aka Hit Parade. Admittedly, I am not as versed in the particulars as you would be but Lemke wrote an article on the Berk Ross sets and he suggests the set was unlicensed and they were flirting with the NIL issue. Lemke details that the original lawsuit for NIL $$ actually originated from the Berk Ross set (compensation for 6 of the players was $20) and was filed by the same attorney (Shapiro) for the same reason as the more popular Haelean Lab (aka Bowman) V Topps Inc. lawsuit in 1953. So just a guess here...and its only a guess...but the contract with Williams wasn't exclusive since the compensation was minimal for the players mentioned in the lawsuit. To me, that suggests Hit Parade, et al. had a tight budget. The '51 set included 30 figures not related to baseball. This again suggests that Hit Parade et al. was on a tight budget.
My guess is Topps just couldn't get the contract with Williams signed as he was overseas by July of '52. And Berger has said a number of times Boston was his favorite team growing up, which leads me to think Williams might have been 1 of the 3.
Again just a wild guess.
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Could be. All you can really do at this point is make best guesses on this stuff.
Am I reading this right, Berk-Ross may have been partially licensed? I'll have to look at that Lemke piece again.