1950s Topps Production Numbers - A clue

[scottglevy]

Originally Posted by ALBB

interesting... now that's dollars your showing ? how would that break down to actual cards distributed ?

Real quick back of the envelope math. These are whole dollars. Assuming that each card retailed for 1 penny ... which is about right for the early 50s ... they probably wholesaled for less than half that. But to keep the math simple let’s just say half a cent each. If your total gum sales were $1 million and your price per card were half a penny, you produced and sold 200 million cards each year during the early 50s. If each set had roughly 400 cards ... 500,000 of each player was printed. Now of course series vary, survival rates vary, etc etc. but looks like a decent starting point to me.