1975 Hostess

[Zach Wheat]

Apologies in advance, I've learned quite a bit more about this set and I thought I would share the information.

In the July 1, 1975 issue of The Trader Speaks (“TTS”), one of the writers for TTS spoke with the Ray Facenda -- Regional Sales Manager for Hostess regarding their foray into baseball cards. Hostess & Twinkie sets were first issued around mid-April of 1975. He indicated the parent company, ITT Continental (“ITTC”) and maker of Hostess / Twinkies snacks, cited rising production costs as the reason ITTC was looking to boost sales and therefore profitability by creating baseball inserts we now refer to as the 1975 Hostess & Twinkies sets. In 1974, ITT Continental added football card inserts in Wonder Bread and were pleased with the results. The 1974 football issue consisted of 30 cards; the planned sets for 1975 baseball season would expand significantly. Mr. Facenda also noted that one side of the cardboard would be coated with a light layer of wax to prevent oil soaking through the cards. The Hostess and Twinkie sets were similar – but contained slight differences. The Twinkies set differentiated from the Hostess set, by having 60 cards instead of 150, had a black bar running through the top and bottom center of the back of Twinkie cards as well as font differences in the statistics section on the reverse of the cards.

The June 27, 1975 issue of Sports Collector News contained an interview Howard Knel, one the Product Managers for Hostess who indicated ITTC would not geographically limit distribution of the cards as other insets like Post cereal cards in the past. Much to the public’s chagrin, ITTC also issued a press release in July 1975, stating they would not sell complete sets to the public. The entire set would have to be obtained by purchasing boxes of Twinkies and other Hostess products. It appears that the 1975 Twinkies set was initially issued in 2 series – with the 1st series being issued in and around southern California around mid-April. By June the entire set was available to collectors in the Midwest, according to Jack Urban, a Hostess baseball card collector as noted in the August 1, 1975 issue of TTS.

Apparently, there were production issues and various spelling errors. Sy Berger – the genius behind many of the early Topps sets from 1952 onward, in a letter published in the August 1, 1975 issue of TTS, noted that…….

“…..permit me to set the record straight…..Topps did not make the set for Hostess Cakes….Topps lent the color photos to the Hostess people. None of the photos used (in the Hostess set)…..were used in the Topps Baseball Photo Series.”

“Further……”, he intoned in a rare moment of honesty, probably noting the spelling mistakes and fuzzy photos in the Twinkies set caused by the light layer of wax coating added to one side of the card,

“….I have seen the full set, and there are too many (errors)….I’m sure our degree of accuracy far exceeds the Hostess series”.

Although this statement is true, it is these errors which are endearing to collectors. The initial Hostess set contains a number of errors encompassing spelling names correctly as well as associating players with the wrong picture. Only 3 error cards in the set were corrected. The 3 key cards can be found in the “corrected” and “uncorrected” version. In all likelihood, the 3 errors were corrected in the original 1975 Hostess set some time prior to June of 1975. These errors are: Radar/Rader, Hooten/Hooton and the (Madlock) Pitcher/Infielder error. The Hooten card has both first name & last name misspelled – quite possibly a first in cards – with the Radar error variation the rarest of the 3 variations. The printer of HoHo panels apparently corrected the spelling of Burt Hooton’s name, with other print runs correcting the name/position of Radar/Madlock in each successive print run, accounting for the differences in rarity of each error. In the Twinkies set, the errors were never corrected.

Each Hostess panel was largely printed in 3 cards panels laid out side-by-side in different configurations to allow for product ingredients and other product packaging information. The Hostess set was produced with 150 cards produced in 3 card panels, while the Twinkies set consisted of 60 skip numbered cards using the same pictures, a smaller player stat line on the reverse, and denoted as Twinkies by the black bar on the reverse of each card. It is likely that the individual printer sheets, were tailored for individual Hostess products accounting for rarities in some panels, which went contrary to what ITT Continental had intended.

Twinkies and Hostess panels appear to have been printed by different printers at different times according to various demand preferences. A number of whole printers sheets for Hostess panels and high grade Twinkie cards exist. These were attributed to employees at various printers picking up test sheets out of the scrap bins.

Test sheets for the Twinkies set appear to have been printed in Cincinnati, OH. I was able to track down the original dealer who acquired perhaps as many as 30 sheets early on – some time in the 1980’s – and re-sold them to many of the early collectors. Over the course of conversation over many months, he indicated that the original sheets originated from a printer in Cincinnati and were printed on a sheet of 10 cards across by 6 cards wide (i.e. a full set) totaling 60 cards on a sheet. This of course, meant that each Twinkies card was printed equally with no short prints. The dealer also indicated that he never saw any variations in the Twinkies set – and the original set is complete with the “error” version of cards. Unlike most Twinkie cards, cards purchased from this dealer did not have food stains. I have almost 200 Twinkies cards including many from the original “scrap” find mentioned above and have yet to find a corrected error card. However, there are variations within the Twinkie set.

In the August 1, 1975 issue of TTS, ITT Continental announced they were already working on a 1976 Hostess baseball set. In all likelihood they were experimenting with various paper stocks to prevent oil soaking through the cards and other ways to maintain picture quality. They used several different styles of inks, with brown ink variation being the most popular ink variation. An example of this is shown in my post above. Successive issues of Hostess & Twinkie cards in 1976 onward can be found with brown ink.

[darkhorse9]

Thanks for the update Zack.

It still doesn't explain why the three card panels numbered between 82 and 99 are so hard to find compared to the rest of the set. The easy culprit to blame would be the product they were exclusively (?) printed on. Was it on Ho-Hos and thus are damaged, or on an unpopular product? Another reason?

[Zach Wheat]

Originally Posted by darkhorse9

Thanks for the update Zack.

It still doesn't explain why the three card panels numbered between 82 and 99 are so hard to find compared to the rest of the set. The easy culprit to blame would be the product they were exclusively (?) printed on. Was it on Ho-Hos and thus are damaged, or on an unpopular product? Another reason?

Hostess clearly intended the cards to be produced in equal numbers - presumably this carried over into producing the panels in equal numbers as well. However, I feel the original intent was more difficult to create in reality. It appears that there were more than 1 printer - and each product had different print configurations because of the product differences ie ingredients, photographs and even layout of the cards.

I suspect the rarity of certain sheets had more to do with the popularity of the products and how the printer printed panels in "batches". If you look on eBay you will find a seller selling 100+ unused Hostess boxes of the same players. I suspect this occurred because the printers and/or ITTC did not print the panels 1-150, but rather the panels were printed in batches of a single panel at a time and then used accordingly.

Good question that remains unanswered.....

Z

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Zach Wheat

Hostess clearly intended the cards to be produced in equal numbers - presumably this carried over into producing the panels in equal numbers as well. However, I feel the original intent was more difficult to create in reality. It appears that there were more than 1 printer - and each product had different print configurations because of the product differences ie ingredients, photographs and even layout of the cards.

I suspect the rarity of certain sheets had more to do with the popularity of the products and how the printer printed panels in "batches". If you look on eBay you will find a seller selling 100+ unused Hostess boxes of the same players. I suspect this occurred because the printers and/or ITTC did not print the panels 1-150, but rather the panels were printed in batches of a single panel at a time and then used accordingly.

Good question that remains unanswered.....

Z

I picked up most of mine new, either from the grocery or from the outlet store which was much cheaper.

I didn't keep track, but my recollection is that there were different panels on the shelf at the same time, even for the same product. But probably a limited group as I don't recall any long searches through the stack on the shelf.

So they probably did batches of a particular group.

Some being tougher than others is almost certainly from the product popularity differences.

Steve B

[mrmopar]

I vaguely remember looking through boxes for "better" players or players I liked, but i didn't get many of the cards new at the time. Most families probably didn't plow through the snack cakes at a frequency that would enable the average kid to get an entire set, let alone most of it. Same with the Kellogg's 3D cards. I remember getting a few and then either the promotion ended or we were buying a different cereal all together.

[steve B]

That's pretty much how it went. Just got what I could and what I could trade for. Moved from a rural area to a more urban one in late 77, and 78 was a pretty crazy hobby year for me.

card shop in town so I get into old cards.
Topps- all four sports
Chillee Willee discs at a local white hen pantry
Papa Ginos Discs
Hostess
RC Cola Baseball AND Football cans. (And basketball, but I never found one in the stores, although I did get one I found in the street near my grandmothers house)
Fleer baseball stickers
Fleer Football
Wiffle ball discs.
I think there were others available locally maybe some ice cream football stickers? NASL stickers? Drakes Superman?
So many sets all at once.

Got pretty close to the RC can set, maybe 80/100, all 40 of the Papa Ginos thanks to a waitress who handled a request to swap the duplicate I got late in the promotion by bringing an entire bucket of the discs to out table and telling us to take what we wanted, and maybe 35/70 chillee Willee discs. The other stuff was somewhat controlled by mom refusing to buy way more snack cakes or cereal than we needed.

Good thing I was young and had the typical runaway metabolism of a teenager or I'd have been 300+ by the end of the year.

Steve B

[bnorth]

Great info guys, I am going to try to complete the 75 Twinkies set. Now what I am about to write is meant in the absolute best way. We have a gentleman on this forum that is like a very bad crack cocaine dealer. He gives out free samples, then forgets so sell the rest of the set at crazy high prices. Thanks to that gentleman and his wonderful gift I have a very good start on the set.

[Cliff Bowman]

Originally Posted by Zach Wheat

It is these errors which are endearing to collectors. The initial Hostess set contains a number of errors encompassing spelling names correctly as well as associating players with the wrong picture. Only 3 error cards in the set were corrected. The 3 key cards can be found in the “corrected” and “uncorrected” version. In all likelihood, the 3 errors were corrected in the original 1975 Hostess set some time prior to June of 1975. These errors are: Radar/Rader, Hooten/Hooton and the (Madlock) Pitcher/Infielder error. The Hooten card has both first name & last name misspelled – quite possibly a first in cards – with the Radar error variation the rarest of the 3 variations. The printer of HoHo panels apparently corrected the spelling of Burt Hooton’s name, with other print runs correcting the name/position of Radar/Madlock in each successive print run, accounting for the differences in rarity of each error. In the Twinkies set, the errors were never corrected.

There is a fourth "error" card that was corrected in the 1975 Hostess set along with Burt Hooton, Bill Madlock, and Doug Rader. Carl Yastrzemski was originally listed as "Outfield", but since he was playing first base more regularly than left field since 1973, the card was corrected to "Infield" later in the press run. The "Infield" version is much more difficult to find, but I don't believe it as rare as the Hooton and Rader corrected cards.