1959 Topps Uncut Sheets?

[SMPEP]

Dan - some cards are off center, because they were laid out off center on the printing press. I don't know the printing of the 1959 Topps set as well as I know the 1952 Topps set, but in that set there are many cards that were not laid out evenly (Charley Maxwell is the most famous example - but Antonelli, Don Johnson and Gus Bell also all suffer from significant issues - and there are more than this). I would assume the same thing happened with the 1959 set.

Cheers,
Patrick

[jmoran19]

Here of some more partial uncut sheets from 1959, none are mine.

Maris block



Musial block



28 additional cards to Musial Block

[Keviron]

Thanks everybody for the great information! Reuben Amaro (178) in the upper left hand corner is another tough card, and the printing layout bears this out...it's often found with a large left border.

[toppcat]

Here's three more, top one is from the high numbers

[Oil Can Dan]

Originally Posted by SMPEP

Dan - some cards are off center, because they were laid out off center on the printing press. I don't know the printing of the 1959 Topps set as well as I know the 1952 Topps set, but in that set there are many cards that were not laid out evenly (Charley Maxwell is the most famous example - but Antonelli, Don Johnson and Gus Bell also all suffer from significant issues - and there are more than this). I would assume the same thing happened with the 1959 set.

Cheers,
Patrick

Thanks Patrick. I'm still a bit confused though. So you're saying that it's less about the cutting and more about the printing press, but I still don't get how one could be 'off' and the rest are not. For example - you'll see Bobby Shantz in the top left corner of the sheet above, and that's a notoriously tough card to find centered. But the one immediately to the right of him, Jack Sanford, is not. How could Bobby's card be off center but the one right next to him not be? Regardless of whether it's due to cutting or printing the sheet, I just don't get how in a row of 11 cards that the first one could be off center while the ten others are not (or are materially better).

I'm sure it's an obvious thing that's right in front of me that I'm just not getting, but I'm not getting it.

[steve B]

The card can be setup slightly off center compared to other cards on the sheet. Then when they're cut even if the cutting is perfect that one will be off center.

Another thing that can happen is if the entire sheet is slightly off. If the spacing is off by 1/100th of an inch, once you've made eleven cuts the error is nearly an eighth of an inch, but the width can still be 2.5 inches.

Similarly, an error in width will also move the centering as more cuts are done.

That's one reason why cutting into strips is not a good practice. But Topps probably did it that way. The 79s with 78 backs were originally found as strips If I remember it right. (They were sold as strips, but may have been found as complete sheets.)

Steve B

[toppcat]

Corner cards are notoriously tough-don't forget all that waste area in the gutters.

[SMPEP]

Dan - Steve answerd your question much better than I could have.

Cheers,
Patrick