How many to a series? Let's see some 1955 Bowman miscuts and uncut material

[toppcat]

Originally Posted by G1911

I’ll dig through my scans, but from what I’ve seen in 1954 Bowman was not using 224 card sheets. I believe there’s a 1954 Navy sheet showing the full half-sheet was 96 cards printed once. I haven’t seen a full football sheet from 1954 or 1955, just some blocks of a 1954 that indicate they were 32 card series but an unknown number of slots on the sheet. That’s a bigger sheet than what others were doing too (Topps has 100 to each half-sheet in 1955, for example) unless Bowman didn’t do half sheets. Releasing so many at once is also a large break from the past for them, and doesn’t seem to have been done with their next issue. I hope these possible 55 baseball sheets still exist and weren’t destroyed so they can eventually be seen and photographed.

Two 96 subject half sheets does make some sense. 224 (not 244, suspect a typo in the Lemke piece) not so much. Topps went from 100 to 110 card arrays in 1955 and 1956 (EDIT-also 1954) but I believe they used Lord Baltimore Press where Bowman probably had theirs printed by Zabel Brothers, right in Philly. I think the divisors have to make some sense and 96/192 does, although as noted, they may not have done the half sheet shenanigans like Topps did.