1955 Topps Baseball Sheet Positions

[coppercoins]

My undying quest to figure out the sheet arrangement for 1955 Topps baseball cards has brought me to this forum. I am nearly finished figuring out what all the cards were on the sheet sold at auction in 1993 for which there exists only one, heavily grainy image:



I have but ONE card to identify and I will have all the cards figured out in this image, and I am here seeking help.

1955 Topps baseball cards were arranged in sheets of 110 cards, with 11 columns of 10 cards per column. Numbering the columns from left to right seems to be the most logical way to go, so the card in question here is the 9th card in column 10, up and to the left of the far bottom right card (Ted Williams). Here is the block of nine cards from the corner of the sheet blown up for some hope for clarity. It's the card in the middle of this image:



I have taken the liberty of filling in the known cards in the pseudo sheet partial below, with the card in question left blank:



What we DO know about this card:

A. It's a low number card. Probably UNDER #91
B. The head is on the left side of the card.
C. The background color on the card is NOT yellow.
D. The name strip across the bottom of the card is NOT yellow.

Any help with this?

[coppercoins]

This is the same sheet - I have taken the liberty of straightening out the perspective of the sheet to be flat to the viewer. It might help just a little bit.

[jason.1969]

See if you think Jim Pendleton #15 could be it.

[coppercoins]

I ruled that one out because of the yellow name strip. The card in question has a dark name strip, and because of the amount of contrast there, I am thinking it could even be black.

But thanks for the attempt!!

[coppercoins]

Comparing the two right next to each other, the darker blobs just don't seem to match the darker areas of the House card...

[coppercoins]

And if it might help even further, I have attached here my list of all the other cards on this sheet. Interesting that a few players appear at least three times on the sheet, including Ted Williams.

[jason.1969]

If not then I’d go with Frank House.

[jason.1969]

If you have all but one figured out have you tried just crossing off the ones you have from the checklist? Or is it more complicated than that?

[coppercoins]

Originally Posted by jason.1969

If you have all but one figured out have you tried just crossing off the ones you have from the checklist? Or is it more complicated than that?

I actually think it could be more complicated than that. Between this sheet and the other much more clearly known first series sheet, I have been able to place every card through #109 EXCEPT all cards from #91 through #99. I believe those were placed on another sheet and printed during the second series.

The problem is with player appearance and frequency - the other sheet has SOME rhyme or reason to it, but this one has cards seemingly randomly placed for no apparent reason.

Tell the truth, the card in question looks almost identical to the card above it where I placed Spahn. It's just a teeny bit different and I don't think they would place two identical cards side by side on a sheet of 110 cards.

[coppercoins]

Unfortunately this was but one of two years where Topps made the 110 subject sheets, the other being 1956. Some of the mystery surrounds that, and some of the mystery surrounds the non-existent card numbers because of the exclusive signing issue they faced with some of the players and Bowman...like Mickey Mantle.

[coppercoins]

Also what I have for this sheet matches the position of cards for all the uncut partials I know of, and they match the player groupings for the few existing salesman panels.

The assumed sheet of Topps stamps covered many of the same players in the columns represented partially here, but the card in the questioned position was Dusty Rhodes in the stamps, and this is definitely NOT a Dusty Rhodes card. That group of cards is in the fourth column on my sheet layout.

[jmoran19]

images ive saved over the years, not sure if they help but here ya go, John

[G1911]

Interesting there’s no 91-99. I believed them to be printed on the same sheet, all cards 1-110 comprising series 1. Cards in this range have the cream or white backs, a variation that ends at card 110, and is not present in the later series (2 of them, I think). I will check my set later this week for 91-99 in the white backs that only exist on this sheet run. I did not get to the level of confirming every single card with both backs, because it’s hard to tell from scans and I need them in hand, very casually putting it together both ways.


I had not seen this image before. This further suggests the 1955 Topps Footballs we’re probably a 110 card sheet instead of 100, and thus there are 20 1.5 prints if A/B were different, or 10 full DP’s if A/B were the same. The SP’s are almost certainly a fake hobby myth.

Thank you for posting.

[jason.1969]

Hmm. It actually looks a lot like card above it. Could it just be another Spahn?

[coppercoins]

Originally Posted by jason.1969

Hmm. It actually looks a lot like card above it. Could it just be another Spahn?

I suppose it "could" be another Spahn card. Wehmeier is repeated in this same column (which is a bit of an oddity for Topps). Wehmeier fills the fourth and seventh spots in the same column.

[biggsdaddycool]

Very nice! Thank you for your work on this!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk