Topps Packaging/Production Timeline Help

[toppcat]

Originally Posted by West

My records also show wax first, followed by a mix of vending, rack packs and cellos. These are the case codes I saved for 1989 year:

1989:
112691 - vend
112893 - wax
131693 – vend
120792 – jumbo pack case
122393 - wax
130991 -wax
222393 – Topps Big BB
332093 -wax
332098 - wax


You can see above that there was a 1989 vending case with serial number 112691. Dave from the Topps Archives, Lonnie C. and I figured out the Topps codes a few years ago (the sequence of which I was able to confirm in an interview with a former Topps employee). The first digit is the fiscal quarter, the second digit is the month of that quarter, 3rd and 4th digits the day of the month, 5th digit is the last number of the year and 6th digit was the shift that stamped it. A code of 112691 was stamped on January 26, 1989.

I have good reason to believe these codes were stamped at the shipping dept not when the case box was packed by the factory workers. This is because I have found several Topps cases stamped twice, with a "final sale not to be returned" stamp on it. That means it was returned by a seller/vendor, and restamped when a new bill of lading was filled out. I have found several cases with bill of lading receipts on them that match exactly to the 6 digit case code as well.

This means that vending was shipped out for retail sale in '89 as early as the last week of January.

Let me know if I can help with any other details, but the case codes themselves reveal quite a bit.

Yup, you got it. There is an occasional curve, like with the last digit being anything other than 1, 2 or 3. They are indeed shipping date codes. Wonder if that last one ends in 8 due it being a RE (return privilege) or if it means something else. The one above it is September 20 as well but indicates 3rd shift. I think Lonnie found some that ended in 4, would have to go back and look. Depending on where the product was going, different unions packed and shipped-could mean something in that regard.

[jacksoncoupage]

Originally Posted by toppcat

Yup, you got it. There is an occasional curve, like with the last digit being anything other than 1, 2 or 3. They are indeed shipping date codes. Wonder if that last one ends in 8 due it being a RE (return privilege) or if it means something else. The one above it is September 20 as well but indicates 3rd shift. I think Lonnie found some that ended in 4, would have to go back and look. Depending on where the product was going, different unions packed and shipped-could mean something in that regard.

Originally Posted by West

Topps did still fulfill orders for their current year product in the 4th quarter. I recorded a 1986 Topps Wax Case with the serial number 410261 which would have been shipped out on October 2nd, 1986. I've also recorded a few serial numbers representing shipping dates in July, August and September of the current year product but the vast majority of the codes are from November-March. The earliest case code I can find for early released wax product for the upcoming year product was a 1990 Topps wax case with code dated 11/15/89. These were hobby boxes (Griffey green box). Was Topps base released around Thanksgiving? Seems quite early to me, so perhaps the cases were stamped when the pre-order was filled and then shipped out when the official release date came. Hopefully someone has a good memory as to when they first saw the new release product available at their card shops.

As to your question about Topps wrapping up production, the way I see it, when all the pre-press production was finished and printing was tooled up and ready to produce at scale (mid October?), Topps would send an order to Quebecor or whoever the printer was at that time for, say, 3 million sheets of base. That product starts rolling in to Duryea and they start cutting it up and packing it out. By mid November they have a warehouse that looks like this:


I'd guess uncut sheets keep coming at a rate of 500K sheets/week from early November until the end of March. By this time we have somewhere on the order of 6-10 million produced of each card in 1989 Topps base. Some of that still sits in the warehouse waiting to meet demand but maybe they get rid of a shift in packaging once April rolls around and the season starts. The printers likely just print base product on demand at this point and the same goes for packaging. They've moved on to football or Batman or whatever they need to fill orders for. Just speculation here. I spend a lot of time thinking about this stuff!

I suppose I'd better start with the earliest and latest cases I can find (with an affordability factor). Most of the vending cases I viewed online only had the #951-1989 number stamp, nothing visible for the production stamp as far as I could tell. From there, I should see if continuing to break open this product is worth the time and effort to unravel the mystery of a card almost nobody remembers.

The next challenge is to find contact info for someone who may have worked on the design team at Topps in 1988-1989. A proofer, editor, etc. If you have any leads or know anyone who could put me in touch, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks again for this great chunk of info.

[toppcat]

Originally Posted by jacksoncoupage

The next challenge is to find contact info for someone who may have worked on the design team at Topps in 1988-1989. A proofer, editor, etc. If you have any leads or know anyone who could put me in touch, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks again for this great chunk of info.

NDA's and general reluctance to talk about Topps production processes render this type of attempt moot usually. Topps is opaque and also has almost no records from the past. It's stymied me for years.

[jacksoncoupage]

Originally Posted by toppcat

NDA's and general reluctance to talk about Topps production processes render this type of attempt moot usually. Topps is opaque and also has almost no records from the past. It's stymied me for years.

I figured as much. I’d assume the same for UD (especially regarding their early years).

The production info is just one part of the picture here. Finding some info from a Topps source regarding the changes made to the card is the second, most important part and it is hard to imagine any reason why anyone with knowledge about it would have to worry about breaching any NDA. It seems doubtful that whatever the reason for the changes, they’d be protected trade secrets.

[West]

Originally Posted by jacksoncoupage

I figured as much. I’d assume the same for UD (especially regarding their early years).

The production info is just one part of the picture here. Finding some info from a Topps source regarding the changes made to the card is the second, most important part and it is hard to imagine any reason why anyone with knowledge about it would have to worry about breaching any NDA. It seems doubtful that whatever the reason for the changes, they’d be protected trade secrets.

Just out of curiousity, is there a reason we can't discuss the card in question? I'm quite interested in the general subject as it is, but actually know very little about 1989 Topps errors and misprints.

As for the non disclosure agreements, I have mostly had the same experiences as Dave (Toppcat). Despite numerous attempts I was only able to speak to one former employee.

There are signs that the veil of secrecy is lifting with time. Phil Carter was "Director of Sports" in 1987 for Topps and just last week went on the record for ESPN in the story about Don Mattingly's birthday. However, I've found that the guys who are most visible are often in some kind of PR or upper management position that would have interaction with the press. Topps' employee records were very confidential at the time and I've never had any luck tracking down anyone who had anything to do with pre-production. For example, John Tassoni Jr of Topps printing subcontractor Quebecor was interviewed by SCD last year but he was just a floor worker in 1990.

https://www.sportscollectorsdaily.co...hn-tassoni-jr/

If you're looking for someone who would have been involved in pre-production (plate making, correcting errors, etc), that would have likely been a different department. Depending on the card itself and the nature of the error, you're probably not even looking for a Topps employee. You would likely be wanting to talk to a pre-production worker from 1988-early '89 at Federated Lithographers-Printers (which became Quebecor in Nov. 1989 when they bought it). Let's take a look at the two articles detailing pre-production and see if we can figure out what the process was (and hopefully Steve B can actually answer this question at some point)

When you look at Tassoni's interview, he was at one point quoted as saying that in the early 90's, “The film was sent to us,” Tassoni said. “All we had to do was strip it in.” This implies that while photography, artwork, graphics and design were likely done in house at Topps, once it was all completed and ready to be shot and negatives created to make printing plates, that would be shipped off to the subcontractors at Federated Lithograph Printers/Quebecor to have final negatives created and then used to create the printing plates. This would seem to make sense to me. Since the plates would degrade frequently over the time it takes to produce millions of sheets of sportscards, it would be worthwhile to have platemaking done at the printing facility to decrease turnaround time when new plates are needed. Or when an error is discovered that needs correction. So if you are looking for information on how an error was corrected in the middle of a 10 million sheet press production, my best guess is you would be looking to talk to someone at Federated Lithograph Printers.

It is possible that I have this all wrong and they did all their platemaking and print corrections in Duryea. If you look at the second article I have that goes behind the scenes at Topps, they make it sound as if all printing and pre-production was done right in Duryea at the Topps plant. But the employee I spoke to about the accuracy of this article implied that this was a bit of PR spin. It sounds way better in print to imply that all the work is done in house at Topps rather than to clumsily explain that they've subbed out printing to a Canadian owned company operating in Rhode Island. Here is the article below to compare:

[jacksoncoupage]

Originally Posted by West

Just out of curiousity, is there a reason we can't discuss the card in question? I'm quite interested in the general subject as it is, but actually know very little about 1989 Topps errors and misprints.

Absolutely not, I'd love to share as much about this card to anyone interested. I am working on a lengthy blog entry now. My site focuses on errors and variations (and unmarked promos, proof) from the junk wax era, especially the stuff that didn't make the guides, usually due to discovery after the error fad of the early 90s had passed. The card in question is as fascinating to me the 1990 Topps NNOF or 1989 Fleer Bill Ripken is to others. But warning, this is deep dive into the production lifespan minutia of a common!

1989 Topps Tony Oliva #665 (Turn Back The Clock subset)

Here is what is known:

(3) Versions of the card exist:

1. Missing copyright line on back (blank space were copyright goes)
2. Blacked out copyright line on back (vertical black bar printed over copyright)
3. Copyright line on back (copyright visible in correct placement)

Since 1989/1990 Beckett has listed two versions: "Missing copyright" and "Corrected" versions. Dick Gilkeson's Error & Variation Guide has listed the "Blacked-out" version since at least 1990 (my copy of his guide is from 1990). Since I started down the E&V road in 2002ish, I have been hunting for the "Blacked-out" version. Most hobbyists, I think its fair to say, only know of the two versions. I have seen very few examples of the blacked out card, possibly for this reason. It being a common card likely has something to do with that as well.

Beckett has a parenthetical note next to the card in their annual guide: "Fabricated Card" - which likely refers to the fact that Oliva didn't have a solo card in the 1964 Topps set so Beckett mocked up something based on the photo of his Rookie Stars card (shared with another player). A very common practice today with Topps Archives types sets, not so common then.

So the questions I have are:

What order were these produced? It is commonly believed that there are two versions of the card and a copyright line was originally forgotten and added early on in the run (it is a tough card to find). But the discovery of a third version challenges this. Like the black box on the Ripken or the one on the 1990 Upper Deck Mike Witt, this vertical black bar covers up the copyright line perfectly. So...

Could the copyright line version be the mistake? Copyright line version runs from the beginning throughout the run, word comes in from ?? toward the end of it, requesting the change, card receives black strip over copyright either to A) mark for removal from sheets or as the correction itself. Aesthetically, it doesn't work so Topps changes the plate and removes the copyright line entirely. If so...

Why did Topps need/want to remove it? Does it have something to do with the card being a mockup or "fabricated card" as Beckett calls it? What possible reason could Topps have to remove the copyright line from a product of theirs?

And lastly, if the production order is as generally believed: no copyright followed by a "correction" by adding the copyright, where does the blacked-out version fit in? Is the black bar covering nothing? A marking point for where the copyright is meant to go? Any good reason for this to be the case?

This is where things are right now. I just received a disappointing "blind lot" of 141 copies of the card from Sports Lots. No blacked-out version. I'm looking at cases now online (though this is riskier than buying 100+ copies sight unseen).

I think I've covered everything so far. Let me know your thoughts.

[steve B]

May as well combine the answers as I see them to both questions.

west-

Topps process was much more involved at the design/proofing stage than the place I worked. We probably did one or two photographic proofs based on the customers originals. Some jobs there were no proofs at all*.
After that it was probably very similar. Original art was photographed, (Most likely the meaning of the "board X" markings in the sheet margins.
The negatives went to the stripping dept. which mounted them to an opaque paper called a mask, which made it a full plate size negative of sorts.
Then off to platemaking,
Then plates off to the pressroom.

Our place pretty much held the plates in the plate room until the pressroom needed them.
depending on the press, whoever was printing for Topps, Quebecor or anyone, probably would have made the next needed plate as required. So if say yellow was on the press for 3 days, the cyan plate would probably be made on day 3. If they were really adventurous they might have anticipated the overall need and made multiple plates. (If they were using multi- color presses, which seems likely and/or if they were using two presses at the same time they would have had to anyway. And the cost of a spare plate would be small compared to a production delay)

When Tassoni says “The film was sent to us,” Tassoni said. “All we had to do was strip it in.” To me that means they were sent negatives by Topps and their stripping department made the masks.
That really makes sense, especially if you consider the size of a sheet on the press. Shipping a bunch of negatives that big would have been a bit of a hassle.

Which leads into Dylans questions...

the backs would have only required two masks, one for the underlying color, and another for the black.
If one card didn't get a copyright notice, the correction would be to make a copyright notice negative, cut a window for it into the right spot on the mask and put that small negative in place. Probably with the red stripping tape, which would have been kept away from areas intended to print, like borders etc. Or the tape could have been trimmed once it was in place.

So what I think the sequence is -
1) Incorrect plate with no copyright
2) Correct plate with copyright
3? 2A?) The copyright ends up coming off the mask, leaving a nice rectangular hole, which since it's like the light part of the negative ends up as a printed area.
4) That problem is found, and the mask repaired.

Alternately-
A lot of the elements are sent as sort of clip art negatives. Including the copyright notices, and they're added individually.
except one gets forgotten, leaving the same sort of hole.
1) plate with the bar
2)Darn! can't send them out like that! Tape over that thing and make a new plate right away! = No bar, no copyright
3) Guys! it has to have a copyright! How long have we been printing them without it? Ummm….. Ok, I'll have stripping send you a new plate right away. = corrected version with copyright.

Theres some precedent for the secong maybe being right. The 81 fleer were probably done with clip art style borders, and regular scotch tape. You can see that tape in some of the pictures.

If the first is correct, there will possibly be two ever so slightly different correct versions.




*I did a drawing of the High School for the yearbook, and it came back from the yearbook company cut in half. The next school year the school dept wanted to do a print commemorating the remodeling of the school, and they had the place I had worked for do it (No surprise, they did a lot of printing for the town) I brought the original in and told them what was wanted, and they just said "no problem" Never got a proof of any kind.
The final prints were very nice, and they'd fixed some unevenness where the cut was. And on two different sorts of paper! Turns out they did it for free or almost, and used paper leftover from other jobs.