In a recent thread, the topic of discussion why Ted Williams and Stan Musial are included in certain major BB card sets, but not in others.
Back in the mid-1980's, when I was completing sets, this "mystery" sparked my curiosity, and I wrote an article about it.
Let's see what I recall. So, we'll start with 1941, the 1st year that both Stan and Ted were playing in the Major Leagues.
1941….Stan Musial's Major League debut was September 17, 1941. Just a couple of months after GUM, Inc. printed their PLAY BALL Hi #
series (#49 - 72), which was issued circa late Summer 1941.
1940's Exhibits
. .
1947 BOND BREAD
1948 BOWMAN........ no Ted Williams
1949 LEAF
. .
1949 BOWMAN........ no Ted Williams
1950 BOWMAN........ no Stan Musial
1951 BOWMAN........ no Stan Musial
1952 BOWMAN……….Ted Williams reported to Flight school at the Willow Grove (Pennsylvania) Naval Air Base for Jet aircraft training
before seeing action in Korea (1952 - 1953). See 1959 FLEER cards
.
1953 BOWMAN........ no Ted Williams
1954 BOWMAN.…….True story: Sy Berger (TOPPS executive) was an avid Ted Williams fan. Circa late 1953, in the design of the 1954 TOPPS set,
they designed the 1st and last cards featuring Ted Williams. When BOWMAN issued their 1st series of 1954 cards with Ted, Berger sued BOWMAN.
Forcing BOWMAN to discontinue printing their card of Ted. They replaced Ted's image with Jim Piersall for card #66 on their 32-card printing plate.
Speaking of "printing plates", stay tuned for the rest of this story in a subsequent post here. You'll find it very interesting.
1954 TOPPS > > 1958 TOPPS (Lo #s)........ only Ted Williams
1958 TOPPS…. Finally, TOPPS featured Stan Musial in their All-Star series (Hi # s)
1959 TOPPS Stan Musial....but, no Ted Williams
1959 FLEER……. I'll relate an interesting story regarding this set, as told to me in a personal conversation with Ted Williams (circa 1985 in Cooperstown).
Stay tuned here.
TED Z
T206 Reference
.