1948-1955 Bowman - Series by Series breakdown and identification

[toppcat]

Ted, I've been to Chicago the last several Nationals and seem to be arriving when you are leaving. I probably will not be in AC this year.

No it was the smaller cards I think but was more like a Topps sized sheet; there were a number of 32 card groupings on it, maybe in a 4 x 3 array with gutters in between each 32 card panel. I may be misrembering if it was yours but I do recall it being posted here a long while back. I lost some scans in a hard drive crash awhile back and that was one of them. Only time I've ever seen something like that.

[samosa4u]

Steve,

Thank you so much for posting this Zanidakis article. I couldn't read it on my desktop at first, but then I looked at the pages on my wife's iPad, with the brightness turned all the way up, and I managed to read the whole thing pretty quickly. It's an amazing piece of work and it answers so many of my questions.

Did you actually read these baseball card magazines back in the 1980s? Are there any other interesting articles you have? If so, I would love to read them! Please PM me.

____________________________________________

G1911 (what's your name, dude?)

I found this interesting paragraph in the Zanidakis article posted above:

Usually, the later series were not printed or sold in as high a quantity as the first few series, because the novelty of the new set would have worn off by mid-summer OR the cards would be competing with football cards on the store shelves.

Zanidakis has listed two possible explanations as to why Bowman would short-print their high numbers. This takes us back to my earlier question, and that is how early did Bowman start printing their football cards? Bowman started printing their baseball cards during the same month the 51' baseball season started, which was in April, but it looks like they did not do this with their football cards. In other words, Bowman issued their football cards way before the football season even started.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by samosa4u

Steve,

G1911 (what's your name, dude?)

I found this interesting paragraph in the Zanidakis article posted above:

Usually, the later series were not printed or sold in as high a quantity as the first few series, because the novelty of the new set would have worn off by mid-summer OR the cards would be competing with football cards on the store shelves.

Zanidakis has listed two possible explanations as to why Bowman would short-print their high numbers. This takes us back to my earlier question, and that is how early did Bowman start printing their football cards? Bowman started printing their baseball cards during the same month the 51' baseball season started, which was in April, but it looks like they did not do this with their football cards. In other words, Bowman issued their football cards way before the football season even started.

I'm Greg. I think the more likely explanation is the first; sales of baseball series at retail (Hobby isn't really comparable, I think, as an investment based product) even now fall off independent of football. At the time, the baseball series would have always had competition from other card sets by Topps and Bowman, they released several other sets every year, some of which appear to have been issued during the same time periods. There doesn't seem to me to be any reason to think only one set from a manufacturer could be in development or release at one time. I think the Football explanation that is oft-repeated stems more from what we tend to focus on today; baseball sets first, football sets second, everything else relegated to a footnote if ever mentioned at all, than it is fact.


Going off memory - the 51 Bowman Footballs almost all have a "[Name] was on blank team/did [achievement] in 1950" and most of the rest of the text is about the few years before 1950, less of a 'live update' type approach that is on some of the baseball cards. I have near sets of the 54-55 Bowman and 56 Topps football issues I can scour the backs for to see latest/earliest possible dates.

[toppcat]

Steve, thanks for the two links. The sheet I recall seeing isn't among either unfortunately. Probably not a Teddy Z post then, adding to the mystery. Well, I will keep digging.

[G1911]

It should be possible to narrow down the 1955's using physical evidence, due to the change in border color starting at card 65, making even slight miscuts show the border type of the adjacent card.

Because there was a tiny 'margin of error' between miscut cards of a different color adjacent to each other, they are easy to find. Here are some of of the lower number cards showing dark brown TV borders to the left or right side (I don't believe I've seen one top or bottom). Minoso in particular seems to be very easy to find off center and showing this. Schoendienst is another one found this way, though my card is cut properly. I hope this shows up clearly, as this site's software caps image sizes at only a few percent of the original photo size.

[G1911]

The off-center cards in the light-colored numbers tell us that both color TV's were in that printing. Most likely, this would include at least 32 dark color TV cards, 65-96. However, going through my set, I found miscuts showing light TV cards, 1-64, must have been adjacent at much higher numbers. Pictured here are 121 Russ Crawford, 128 Mike Garcia, 218 Joe Adcock, and 222 Russ Kemmerrer.

These are hardly unique, other copies of these cards and others can be found easily on comc or eBay.

None of my high series cards show a light TV wood pattern border, as expected, since the scarcity difference between the high number and the other cards is readily apparent, even if they aren't tough.

It seems to me there are 3 possible explanations. A) all low numbers were printed together as one massive series, B) Bowman printed a light frame wood border around their sheets just because), C) Bowman released the cards in a skip numbered pattern until the high series.

[Volod]

Originally Posted by toppcat

Ted, I've been to Chicago the last several Nationals and seem to be arriving when you are leaving. I probably will not be in AC this year.

No it was the smaller cards I think but was more like a Topps sized sheet; there were a number of 32 card groupings on it, maybe in a 4 x 3 array with gutters in between each 32 card panel. I may be misrembering if it was yours but I do recall it being posted here a long while back. I lost some scans in a hard drive crash awhile back and that was one of them. Only time I've ever seen something like that.

Dave: Are the sheets at this link what you are referring to?
https://www.footballcardgallery.com/...+Bowman+Large/

[Volod]

Here is an old thread from nine years ago that has a lot of very salient information on the same subject.

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=120822