1948-1955 Bowman series divisions and sheet layouts

[G1911]

The conventional story is that there are a number of short print cards interspersed in the later part of the set that were included in most/all catalogs for many years, and the standard catalog until the end. The method by which these SP's were assigned seems to be lost to time and not particularly academic.

The more modern rendition of the story is that there are indeed no SP's, and the set was issued in 3 series of 32 cards each. This is derived at as 32 is the divisible number for most of Bowman's large size sets. There are panels of 1953 Bowman Baseball Color known showing 32 cards together. 1954 Bowman football is said to be released in 32 card series as well, with the cards laid out in numbered sequential order, relying on the 128 cards being divisible by 32 and that #'s 65-96 seem to be genuinely more difficult than the others. By 1955 Bowman was using much larger sheets for the baseball set, though the football conventional wisdom that year is that they again are just 32 card sequential sheets.

I do not have in my archive any images of 1953 Bowman Football uncut material, and could not find any searching the web. If the cards were issued in 3 series of 32, with the small sheets laid out in number order, then card #96 of Little Billy Cross would be the bottom right corner, which should make this attached miscut impossible.

It seems to neither of the available explanations mesh with the evidence, of which there is not much. I'd love to see any uncut material folks may have images of, or other miscuts showing an adjacent card. With only 96 it should be pragmatically possible to piece together the series, if not a full layout.