1975 Hostess

[darkhorse9]

To me that looks like just discolorization rather than an ink variation. I'm not aware of the ink variation on Twinkies cards.

The brown usually appears on the box cards due to a different printing process used for the different products.

[Zach Wheat]

Mark,

It could be - but they would have had to use 2 types of black ink. I've posted a portion of a cropped card in this post. On all the "brown" ink cards - they appear to have black ink on the front as well around the border. The "brown" ink on the front of the cards is all in the same spot (ie corners and back of card) - never the black trim oval around the players picture. The disparity in color between brown/black is more noticeable in person.

Z

[steve B]

Printing differences are probably from there being different print runs as the summer went on, or from the packaging being printed at different printing plants.

While these aren't from 75, they show the packing plant information that's on the hidden side panel of the boxes.



Most of the info there explains itself. Natick was a packing plant local to me at the time. (Sort of, local from late 77 - 83 anyway..) The CT1933 is a Connecticut license number that's on a lot of food products sold in CT. 1933 would be specific to Hostess, possibly to the Natick plant. I haven't figured out the ING numbers. They might be job numbers that Hostess could relate to orders to the printer, but that's just a guess.


Steve B

[toppcat]

I wonder if ING is shorthand for what ingredient list to print and UPC is to ID, well, the UPC (did these carry those? I know they were just coming out around then).

[Zach Wheat]

David,

That is a good guess. UPC codes were just starting to be used - prior to the era of the 1975 Twinkies set as you noted. If this is a pre-cursor to the UPC code, then the code would be too long - for the first 5 digits (not 6 as in the number above) of the UPC code were supposed to represent the manufacturing plant.

In Topps products, they made up their own printing codes which are stamped on the bottom of most boxes, cases and wrappers. Only a portion of Topps code (last 5 digits) is included in the current 10 digit UPC right after the 5 digit manufacturing plant.

The example below is a pic of the bottom of a box of 1991 Desert Shield cards. The first 5 digits represents manufacturing plant # 4116, followed by a print run identifier and then their code for regular season baseball cards or "362". Topps swapped out the code for printing machine for a code indicating year of the product on boxed and case products. If you looked at the cardboard case this item was packed in - it would read "1-362-91-XYZ"

The hidden printers code posted by Steve B above your post - you will find a good example of the information coded on the side of most sheets.....and if properly understood, allows collectors to establish when print & stat change variations were made on the associated sheets/cards. But I digress......


Z

[steve B]

The point was more to illustrate that boxes were potentially different between packing plants.
They did have UPC codes when the boxes shown were issued. I believe the boxes I scanned were 1979. (The only ones I have scanned)
The UPCs printed on those inner flaps are probably the last 5 and the small number printed outside the barcode to the right. That's the part that indicates the exact product. I can check next time I look at the boxes, which might be quite a while.

Checking Ebay the 75s did have an abbreviated UPC code. Most of the unused full boxes are "King Dons" known under different names regionally - Big wheels or ding dongs. Because of a conflict with a similar Drakes cake.
The ones I see on Ebay have a different set of info from the later boxes I'd scanned.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1975-HOSTESS...jcsU19k_y2rz-Q

The licensing info is in the copyright notice area, and the lower left hidden flap just next to it has some useful info. A CCA logo, Container corporation of America and a position number probably showing where it was on which sheet.

The boxes that have the almost always creased cards are "Ho Hos"
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1975-Hostess...EAAOSwAuNW8JrE

That one has the same copyright info, and the same Pennsylvania licensing, but the logo on the right end panel indicates a different producer of the packaging. (Not a familiar logo to me)

It would be a massive project but maybe a bit fun to make an attempt at listing as many of those differences as possible.

Steve B