1953 Topps -- Card Gallery

[GoldenAge50s]

A popular Red Soxer!

[ALR-bishop]

KinderVariations

[Harliduck]

Wow...I had to give up and google the variation, now I see it. Thanks Al!


45 cards down!

[egri]

[Volod]

Originally Posted by ALR-bishop

KinderVariations

Right, Al. As is known, card numbers 10, 44, 61, 72 and 81 were shifted from the first series into the second by Topps for inscrutable reasons.

[bobsbbcards]

Grady Edgebert

[jayshum]

Grady

[egri]

[GoldenAge50s]

Last 2 days: Grady is a bit OC but the Black on both is flawless.

[ALR-bishop]

Originally Posted by Volod

Right, Al. As is known, card numbers 10, 44, 61, 72 and 81 were shifted from the first series into the second by Topps for inscrutable reasons.

I think Bowman was the reason. The DPs covered the unissued cards in the second series likely caused by player contract issues with Bowman

[Harliduck]

Heres....Johnny...

[egri]

[Harliduck]

This card came from my original small lot where a kid probably in the 50's wrote some pencil marks on the cards...I see Los Angeles on this card, and no idea why...ol' Bubba never played or lived near there...

[Volod]

Originally Posted by ALR-bishop

I think Bowman was the reason. The DPs covered the unissued cards in the second series likely caused by player contract issues with Bowman

I dunno, Al. I think maybe contract issues are the easy explanation in lieu of evidence. Three of the guys on those five cards appeared in Bowman sets from 1951 to 1953 but while Ellis Kinder had a '51 Bowman card, he had none in '52 or '53. And, Joe Black had no Bowman cards - just Topps cards in '52 and '53. Of course, the other usual explanation is that Topps shifted the five cards in order to keep kids looking for missing numbers, but that has always seemed specious to me. As a nine-year-old in '53, I paid absolutely no attention to the card numbers, and it would never have occurred to me to thumb through my collection looking for a "missing" number. I can't imagine that anyone at Topps actually thought that would be an effective sales strategy. But the card numbers were arbitrary - those five "missing" numbers could have been assigned to any players. All the printshop needed to fill a sheet was one hundred faces, so why futz around with the numbers?

[ALR-bishop]

Agree the unissued cards created chase cards but think it was unintentional and due to contract issues. Cards 10,44,61,72 and 81 in series 1were skipped. In Series 2 the skipped cards were 94,107,131and 156. According to Dean Hanley the skipping was to fill holes on subsequent sheets due to failure to secure contracts for players (unknown) that were originally planned to be in the series. That skipping worked until they got to the last series when they ran out of players under contract resulting in the 6 unissued cards in the last series.

Here is George Vrechek's take on the 53 printing

https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrJ...ebLZyxhR7kh1U-

[egri]