Info on print runs for 1952 topps?

[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.

[SMPEP]

No offense to Dave and Bob ... but those numbers don't pass the smell test.

IF there were 151,500,000 total cards sold .... that would mean on AVERAGE (ignore DP and SP, which is the wrong way to think about it anyway, for a minute) that 372,236 copies were printed for every single card in the set. And actually, it has to be more than this, because there are uncut sheets that were not sold ... and cards which were given away out of the back of the trucks ... and most famously cards dumped in the harbor.

Now let's look at population reports of graded cards. We know that PSA has graded 1,194 Mickey Mantle cards, and SGC has graded another 346. There are probably a few more of these in random holders, or still raw ... but there aren't going to be that many ... so it's pretty generous to say that roughly 2,000 Mickey Mantles have been graded (by all the services). And then let's remember that Mantle was a DP for his series ... meaning that if he was a single print he would have about 1,000 cards. And that's still high when we look at 563 for Mathews, 432 for Dickey, 455 for Reese, 522 for Campy, etc.

Now we know that large quantities of the high numbers were never distributed ... but we know that there should have been roughly 100,000 (1,000*100 players(counting Mantle, Jacke and bobby twice)) of the final series cards distributed. This number may be low given that many cards got thrown away ... so for giggles ... let's double this already generous number and say 200,000 high numbers were distributed.

That means that instead of an average of 372,236 per card, we're now looking at 488,065 per non high number card ((151,500,000 -200,000)/310. [And even we tripled my estimate for high numbers distributed, you're still talking about 475,000+ cards per player.]

Out of this half million copies per card, we have 1,448 graded Willie Mats cards at PSA and another 309 at SGC. Now there are a lot of ungraded Mays' cards out there ... but if we multiply this by 4 (to be generous) you're saying that there are 8,000 copies in existence today.

So you're trying to tell me ... that Willie Mays ... one of the most popular players of that era .... had 480,000 cards thrown away by parents ... and only 8,000 now remain? That means that only 1.6% of the Mays that were originally printed survived.

Sorry.

Those numbers just don't pass the smell test to me. (And lest you want to say ... well, maybe not 1.6% survived ... but I could see 5% ... that would mean that 160,000 Mays cards were originally printed ... not the 488,065 claimed above. And if you start going up from 5% ... this looks even more ridiculous).

Cheers,
Patrick

[SMPEP]

Oh, and on the SP versus DP issue ... that is a nonensical term with regard to this set.

You could talk about SP and DP per SERIES ... but not across the whole set ... because there were different amounts of each series printed/distributed.

But if you really want to talk about this you should be comparing DPs to TPs and QPs per SERIES ... because there is no such thing as a SP in this set (actually it is mathematically possible for a SP in the first series, but statistically it is very unlikely).

Cheers,
Patrick

[toppcat]

Actually I was a little low, it's more like 30 Million per low numbered series and 15 Million apiece for the higher two to get to the overall figure. That brings us back to about 150 Million total. The yield is then 300,000 per slot in the first four series and 150,000 in the last two.

Patrick the question was print runs, not surviving cards and the sales figures came from evidence introduced at the FTC hearings, so what sort of smell test would you want? I mean I could randomly throw out numbers like you just did......

[ALR-bishop]

I remember reading a lot of FTC cases about Topps sales and sales practices in researching whether Topps really took any legal action to stop the 1963 Fleer offering. To the best I know, they did not. I do not still have copies of those cases and do not recall sales or production numbers, but there were some as there were several FTC cases over a long period involving reviews of complaints about or by Topps, Bowman and Fleer about packaging and sale of baseball cards with another product, usually gum or candy on an exclusive basis. I do know a lot of Topps sales and production info show up in some of those cases as a result of FTC subpoenas .

Separately I find the question of what the survival rate is for Topps cards from 1952, or any older year to be an interesting one. I wonder if there has been any statistical analysis of that

[SMPEP]

Not sure if we're talking past each other here ... you just claimed 300,000 per slot for Series 1-4 and 150,000 per slot for series 5-6 ... but that's not what I'm talking about.

How many of each card does this mean were distributed?

If you take 150 million cards and divide by 407 ... that's 368,551 per card on average. That isn't some number I made up. It's just the math.

Now that number doesn't work because some cards were printed on the sheets more often than others. Some series were distributed more than others.

But in essence, for your total number of cards printed to be correct, you have to claim that half million Bob Feller (for example) cards were printed.

For that to be true .... we'd have to have single digit (low single digit) surviving rates for these cards.

I can concede that that type of survival rate is possible for the high numbers (given most were dumped). I'm not buying it for the rest of the set.

What seems likely is that the number from the case is inaccurate. Maybe it included more than cards. Not sure, but those totals just don't match the reality (99 out of 100 kids did not have their cards thrown away).

Cheers,
Patrick

[SMPEP]

... oh and ironically ... the survival rate for the high numbers is likely higher than the other series. Why? Because your number is distributed, not printed. The printed survival rate will be very low. But the distributed surviving rate is likely to be equal (or better becayse there were fewer and kids saved on of each example?).