1953 Topps -- Card Gallery

[Volod]

Originally Posted by ALR-bishop

I think Bowman was the reason. The DPs covered the unissued cards in the second series likely caused by player contract issues with Bowman

I dunno, Al. I think maybe contract issues are the easy explanation in lieu of evidence. Three of the guys on those five cards appeared in Bowman sets from 1951 to 1953 but while Ellis Kinder had a '51 Bowman card, he had none in '52 or '53. And, Joe Black had no Bowman cards - just Topps cards in '52 and '53. Of course, the other usual explanation is that Topps shifted the five cards in order to keep kids looking for missing numbers, but that has always seemed specious to me. As a nine-year-old in '53, I paid absolutely no attention to the card numbers, and it would never have occurred to me to thumb through my collection looking for a "missing" number. I can't imagine that anyone at Topps actually thought that would be an effective sales strategy. But the card numbers were arbitrary - those five "missing" numbers could have been assigned to any players. All the printshop needed to fill a sheet was one hundred faces, so why futz around with the numbers?