Bowman Proofs

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Posted By: Paul

Many years ago, I read an article in SCD about 1956 Bowman proofs. These were the prototypes for Bowman's 1956 set that was cancelled after the company was bought by Topps. The article even had pictures of a few of them. They had a "knothole" design, similar to 1958 Hires cards.

Have any of you ever actually seen one of these? Do you know if any of them ever made their way into collections?

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Posted By: Hankron

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Posted By: petecld

Considering what Topps was producing in 1955 and 1956 if they(Bowman) went with the knot-hole design they would have saved Topps some money and gone bankrupt for sure.

Really un-inspiring designs.

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Posted By: Paul

Thanks for the scan. I had forgotten there were three different designs. Do you own these? Are you aware of any others that made their way into collections? Thanks.

Paul

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Posted By: Hankron

Paul, I don't know of the existence of others. That is not intended to mean that there aren't others, just that I'm not aware of them if there are. The pictured test designs are pasted into the book, which was sort of a like an artist's or draft book. I think this lot (which I do not own) sold for something like $7,000 (guess, someone may be able to correct me).

These were the three prospective Bowman designs. Bowman had an official survey of kids to see which design was most popular-- and the knothole design won. This would suggest that the 1956 Bowmans were going to be the knothole design.

It is noteworthy, that in later years Topps used two of these designs (the 'single' design being a rehashing of the the 53 Bowman Colors). The 'double' was used for the 1957 Topps football and, as noted, the knothole design was used for the Hires Rootbeer cards (Topps printed the cards for Hires).