1952 Topps 6th Series - Were They Really Dumped in the Ocean

[Zach Wheat]

Great stuff David, thanks for responding. So to summarize some of the issues, Sy was certainly a salesman, and the story about the garbage scow appears to arise around 1975. The origin of the story seems coincidental with a number of other events outlined by Toppcat in several areas of Topps Archives some of which are detailed below.

Additionally, according to interviews with Sy, the 6th and last "set" was printed at half the quantitiy of the other series. Presumably he means the 1st - 4th series as the 5th series of "semi-high #'s" is more rare than the other series. If up to 2 "truckloads" of cases of cards were thrown in to a garbage scow and dumped this equates to 74K - 150K 6th series cards or 1,500-3,000 Mantles. Or if you use a previous interpretation of Sy's story perhaps several million sheets were dumped.

Sy's reasoning for dumping cards in the ocean rather than going to the dumpster - was due to the possibility of theft. Topps had established pipelines for card distribution in Venezuela (Thanks Dave) with 6th series cards turning up there. However, the dumping story seems embellished.

https://www.thetoppsarchives.com/201...-dimaggio.html

Oddly, 5th & 6th series cards turned up at an OPC warehouse in London, Ontario when they were clearing it out. A Youtube video and Toppcat's coverage of that issue is here:

https://www.thetoppsarchives.com/sea...High%20Numbers

Per Mastro's subsequent auction, the box contained both 5th and 6th series cards, which is odd. How did this happen? No clue. Although some jobbers refused to carry the 6th series cards to their retailers, it is clear product was distributed in some fashion nationwide as cards made it to the east and west coast. Were cards really dumped in the ocean? A count of the cards in each series might give us some indication. As previously noted, Sy had indicated the 6th series cards were printed at about half the quantity of other series. D Hanley of Dean's Cards indicated the best way to approximate print ratio for each series was to review his inventory which would follow the approximate print distribution in the set. Assuming this is correct - perhaps a big assumption - the percentage of cards in each series as a % of total inventory of 3,559 cards, is as follows:

1st Series - 25.1%
2nd Series - 18.7%
3rd Series - 17.6%
4th Series 18.7%
5th Series - 10.8%
6th Series - 9%

I am making huge assumptions here, but this appears to follow what Sy had indicated in interviews about the total production of the 6th series. No clue what all this means or if it is even accurate but it does not appear that millions of sheets were dumped. Perhaps the truth is some cards were disposed of in some fashion and the story got embellished over the years. Who really knows.....