Info on print runs for 1952 topps?

[autograf]

I don't think you'll ever see any print runs on many cards unless it's new stuff that's numbered......I don't even know how you'd throw some number at the 1950's and 1960's Topps but I can assure you that if the number of dealers at the National with those cards is any indication, there were bazillions of 1950's/1960's Topps cards printed. Remember, they were effectively the only game for many of those years other than the Bowman run and the Fleer foray in the early 1960's. All the way up until 1981.

Newer Topps cards were printed on sheets of 132 cards....not sure about the larger 1952-1956 format. With 132 cards per sheet, you have 132,264,396,528,660,792,etc. Any time you had a different number than that in a set, you had either blank cards or Topps would duplicate a card in that blank spot to fill up a full 132 card sheet. Many of the 1970's sets had 660 cards in them. Earlier Topps sets were put out in series--like 5,6,7 series that typically had 66 or 132 cards in a series. In a 66 card series, you'd have two of each card on the sheet. In a 132 card series, one of each card on a sheet.

A lot of research has gone into price guides identifying which cards are double-prints and how many cards were printed within series, etc. Most of the work was done from finding full sheets of cards from those respective years and probably people looking through Topps or Gelman's archives out there.

[Republicaninmass]

I always thought based on simple math the first series has 80 cards so a possible 3 to a sheet, would give a total of 240 cards. The 3rd series has 60 cards would be four to a sheet giving the same total 240 count. I guess I didn't account for dp or sp cards?

[steve B]

Except the sheets were 100 card sheets, and maybe printed an actual two sheets wide so 80 with 20 double prints, or a total of 200 with 80 double prints and 20 triple prints.

They went to 110 card sheets by 56, and double wide 132 card sheets 57-58 (Not sure about 57)

Steve B

[parkerj33]

check out this article: http://www.oldbaseball.com/refs/5253printing.html

[journeyto407]

Originally Posted by parkerj33

check out this article: http://www.oldbaseball.com/refs/5253printing.html

That's the article I referenced (tho I didn't give the link) and I still came away interested if there was any sort of numbers of how many cards per player there was. Or even just an estimate...probably not, but it was worth asking.

[toppcat]

There is a way to roughly figure this. Bob Lemke deciphered the figures in the FTC case against Topps in the 60's and found they sold $800,000 worth of cards with gum in 1952. There would have been a small fraction of cards sold without gum as well in cellos and vending, maybe another 3-4%. So lets call it $825,000. They sold their cards to jobbers at 60% of retail, so 825,000/60 *100 = $1,375,000.

The 6 card nickel packs screw it up a bit so maybe instead of multiplying by 100 (a penny per card) we use 110 and get 151,500,000 cards. There are DP's but if you figure the semi highs were produced at half the rate of the low numbers and the high numbers the same as the semi's (which I think was how they did it), then the first four series count twice as much as the last two, so 12 series worth of cards. So approximately 25 Million cards per four low numbered series counts and 12.5 million apiece for the last two. I know the series counts vary but each was a separate run and since they were printed 200 at a time I think the number of individual cards still holds.

So I figure 250,000 of each "slot" then in each of the four low number series and 125,000 per slot for the last two were printed if my math is correct. Roughly speaking. One of you math majors can do the ciphering on the DP's and individual series if you like.

Bob's link, with figures for other years and companies as well: http://boblemke.blogspot.com/search?q=bowman+sales

[journeyto407]

Originally Posted by toppcat

There is a way to roughly figure this. Bob Lemke deciphered the figures in the FTC case against Topps in the 60's and found they sold $800,000 worth of cards with gum in 1952. There would have been a small fraction of cards sold without gum as well in cellos and vending, maybe another 3-4%. So lets call it $825,000. They sold their cards to jobbers at 60% of retail, so 825,000/60 *100 = $1,375,000.

The 6 card nickel packs screw it up a bit so maybe instead of multiplying by 100 (a penny per card) we use 110 and get 151,500,000 cards. There are DP's but if you figure the semi highs were produced at half the rate of the low numbers and the high numbers the same as the semi's (which I think was how they did it), then the first four series count twice as much as the last two, so 12 series worth of cards. So approximately 25 Million cards per four low numbered series counts and 12.5 million apiece for the last two. I know the series counts vary but each was a separate run and since they were printed 200 at a time I think the number of individual cards still holds.

So I figure 250,000 of each "slot" then in each of the four low number series and 125,000 per slot for the last two were printed if my math is correct. Roughly speaking. One of you math majors can do the ciphering on the DP's and individual series if you like.

Bob's link, with figures for other years and companies as well: http://boblemke.blogspot.com/search?q=bowman+sales

This is perfect Toppcat! And thanks for the link to the Lemke piece, I hadn't seen that.

[journeyto407]

Originally Posted by toppcat

There is a way to roughly figure this. Bob Lemke deciphered the figures in the FTC case against Topps in the 60's and found they sold $800,000 worth of cards with gum in 1952. There would have been a small fraction of cards sold without gum as well in cellos and vending, maybe another 3-4%. So lets call it $825,000. They sold their cards to jobbers at 60% of retail, so 825,000/60 *100 = $1,375,000.

The 6 card nickel packs screw it up a bit so maybe instead of multiplying by 100 (a penny per card) we use 110 and get 151,500,000 cards. There are DP's but if you figure the semi highs were produced at half the rate of the low numbers and the high numbers the same as the semi's (which I think was how they did it), then the first four series count twice as much as the last two, so 12 series worth of cards. So approximately 25 Million cards per four low numbered series counts and 12.5 million apiece for the last two. I know the series counts vary but each was a separate run and since they were printed 200 at a time I think the number of individual cards still holds.

So I figure 250,000 of each "slot" then in each of the four low number series and 125,000 per slot for the last two were printed if my math is correct. Roughly speaking. One of you math majors can do the ciphering on the DP's and individual series if you like.

Bob's link, with figures for other years and companies as well: http://boblemke.blogspot.com/search?q=bowman+sales

This is perfect Toppcat! And thanks for the link to the Lemke piece, I hadn't seen that.