1959 Topps Uncut Sheets?

[SMPEP]

The 1959 Topps cards were printed on a Lord Baltimore Printing press with a splitter attached. Meaning that a full sheet is 264 cards - but it is probably impossible (or close to it!) to find any sheets bigger than 132 because they were intended to be cut into two sheets right off the press. (The cutting of the 132 card sheets was done in Brooklyn at the Topps factory).

So, the two fourth series sheets you have show what the complete sheet looked like (before being split). I do not know which side was on the left and which was on the right.

Cheers,
Patrick

[jmoran19]

All 88 card series have each card printed 3 times (264 total cards) laid out as follows:

Left half of 264 card sheet
Row a
Row b
Row c
Row d
Row e
Row f
Row g
Row h
Row a
Row b
Row c
Row d

The right half (132 cards) would be:
Row e
Row f
Row g
Row h
Row a
Row b
Row c
Row d
Row e
Row f
Row g
Row h

66 card series have each card printed 4 times in 6 row blocks on the 264 card sheet

John

[Oil Can Dan]

That's interesting - thanks for that. Do you have any other insight on how the cards were individually cut? One thing I don't really understand is how certain cards suffer from off-center cutting more than others. For example, #104 Del Rice is really hard to find centered, but even if that were to be say a corner card then how could it be just that one that's off? I mean there are other series 1 cards that are seemingly more off center than others but I assume that the cards were cut the way you'd cut a pizza or something, so I don't really get how some are more off than others. If one were off, wouldn't the entire sheet be off?

[jmoran19]

I believe they were cut into 11 card strips first but not 100% positive. Corner cards are always the hardest to find centered, top and bottom row cards on the 132 card half sheets are the next hardest, 3rd are the other cards on the left and right edges and coming in last would be all the cards that don't qualify in the 3 scenarios above.

110 card series would have 2 rows double printed so the 264 card count would be:

88 cards printed 2 times
22 cards printed 4 times

[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