Reconstructing 1957 Topps Football uncut sheets

[Cliff Bowman]

I ran the numbers of the non superstar players from each row and the 10 DP rows are roughly the same, and the 4 SP rows are roughly the same. I didn't see any evidence that any of the 10 DP rows were printed more than the other 9, and I didn't see any evidence that any of the 4 SP rows were printed more than the other 3. I think Topps made two different 264 card super sheets (four 132 card Slits) with each Slit having one each of the 10 DP rows and 2 of the Slits having 2 of the 4 SP rows and the other 2 Slits having the 2 other SP rows. Why they would do that I don't know.

[nearmint]

I ran the numbers of the non superstar players from each row and the 10 DP rows are roughly the same, and the 4 SP rows are roughly the same. I didn't see any evidence that any of the 10 DP rows were printed more than the other 9, and I didn't see any evidence that any of the 4 SP rows were printed more than the other 3. I think Topps made two different 264 super sheets (four 132 card Slits) with each Slit having one each of the 10 DP rows and 2 of the Slits having 2 of the 4 SP rows and the other 2 Slits having the 2 other SP rows. Why they would do that I don't know.

I can't imagine why they would have done that, either, but I found the same clear SP/DP split when I compared common cards in PSA's population report.

[Cliff Bowman]

Unless I have a flaw somewhere (wouldn't be the first time) I believe I have completed the seven missing rows from the 1957 Topps Football set. I found a miscut Bill Forester showing a sliver of the card to its left, which has to be either Perry Jeter, Johnny Olszewski, or Jim Patton. The border line of the bottom of the cartoon on the miscut Forester has a unique flaw where the black line gets very thin in two spots towards the left, I compared it to the black line on Jeter, Olszewski, and Patton, and it is a perfect match with Patton. That puts the five card run of Forester-Rogel-Womble-Bassett-B Wilson into C4-C8 of the Stonesifer row, Jeter in C9 of the Stonesifer row, and the five card run of Boyd-Gifford-Howton-Butler-Ameche into C4-C8 of the Retzlaff row.

[Cliff Bowman]

Since the Ed Brown row is above three different rows, Tasseff, Bingham, Carpenter, I don't think there is any way possible for it to work on one 264 card super sheet of two 132 card slits. I came up with a possible scenario of two different 264 card super sheets with one having two 132 card slits of the 1st Series 1-88 that would go:

Tasseff
T Rote
Stonesifer
Retzlaff
Watkins
McCormack
Tarasovic
E Brown
Tasseff
T Rote
Stonesifer
Retzlaff

and the other one would go:

Watkins
McCormack
Tarasovic
E Brown
Tasseff
T Rote
Stonesifer
Retzlaff
Watkins
McCormack
Tarasovic
E Brown

and then the other 264 card super sheet would have two 132 card slits that contain both the 1st Series 1-88 and the 2nd Series 89-144 with one slit going:

Tasseff
T Rote
Stonesifer
Retzlaff
Watkins
McCormack
Tarasovic
E Brown
Bingham
Nickel
Carpenter
Bratkowski

and the other:

Hornung
McElheeny
Tasseff
T Rote
Stonesifer
Retzlaff
Watkins
McCormack
Tarasovic
E Brown
Carpenter
Bratkowski

This would satisfy the three known row changes and explain why there are no known cards above the Hornung row or under the Bratkowski row. The only possible problem I have is that the quantities of the 1st Series cards 1-88 should be noticeably higher than the 2nd Series DP rows of Carpenter and Bratkowski but they don't seem to be. ETA maybe Topps printed many more of the two slits with all 144 cards than the two slits with only 1-88.

[Cliff Bowman]

A little while after writing the previous post it dawned on me what is probably the solution to the dilemma on how the 1957 Topps Football Slits were printed. Yes, there are three 9 card panels showing the Ed Brown row directly above the Carl Tasseff row, but they are all blank backed and I now believe these are pre-production proof panels cut from a full pre-production proof sheet and were never actually printed and issued in packs. There are no known miscuts of E Brown row cards above Tasseff row cards that I am aware of. This would result in the most plausible explanation that there was only one 264 card super sheet with two Slits that went:

Tasseff
T Rote
Stonesifer
Retzlaff
Watkins
McCormack
Tarasovic
E Brown
Bingham SP
Nickel SP
Carpenter
Bratkowski

and

Hornung SP
McElheeny SP
Tasseff
T Rote
Stonesifer
Retzlaff
Watkins
McCormack
Tarasovic
E Brown
Carpenter
Bratkowski

This would explain why the ten DP rows have very similar quantities and the four SP rows have very similar quantities. https://www.worthpoint.com/worthoped...cut-2147615596

[stevepoland]

I have not caught up with this entire thread yet, but possibly instead of looking for 2-row or 4-row duplicates, it’s possible there are 1-row duplicates as seen in the 1957 Topps Basketball sheet. Thus, maybe things were just not standardized at all in 1957, versus even as early as 1958 sheets, which seem to have more of a pattern.

[Cliff Bowman]

I know nothing about the 1957-58 Topps Basketball set (I knew nothing about the 1957 Topps Football set a month ago) but that is just a standard Topps 88 card slit there, 8 unique rows and then repeat the first 4 rows. The other slit would be just the opposite. ETA okay, I see it now, six cards were double printed on the fifth and sixth rows. That is pretty wild. I read that the 1957-8 Topps Basketball set is 80 cards so I guess that means 8 total cards would be double printed over the two slits.