1948-1955 Bowman series divisions and sheet layouts

[G1911]

And this #32 Van Brocklin shows 1-32 above a blue card, which would b3 #72 Tittle (i.e., 1-32 above 65-96) or Nomellini (i.e., 1-32 is above 97-128). I strongly suspect it is Tittle.

1-32 above
33-64 above
65-96 above
33-64 above
1-32 above
65-96 (possibly 97-128)

[G1911]

These repeating patterns don't yet seem to fully align into two sheet layouts. This would be awfully big as a sheet to be one sheet, and particularly weird to only have 8 columns but this many rows. Presumably there would be more cards in either case, if this is one gigantic sheet or 2 sheet layouts. I suspect from miscuts after a gap, which could have a thin line in the gap.

This Nomellini (which is allegedly in Ted's rendition of Bowman cards the top right card of sheet 3) shows one of the sheet lines that would be this divider. Such a divider between panel sections on the sheet would make it very difficult to find a miscut so bad that it shows a card to the right of column 8.

[toppcat]

I wonder if Bowman slowly seeded in the higher numbers in successive press runs, while dropping earlier cards. Just a thought but it seems possible to me.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by toppcat

I wonder if Bowman slowly seeded in the higher numbers in successive press runs, while dropping earlier cards. Just a thought but it seems possible to me.

We know they did this in 1955 Baseball so that would make a lot of sense. One more reason there are probably sheet shenanigans and this sequence is not the whole story yet.

I believe that by 1955 Bowman was already wrapping up its card projects. I don't believe any of their non-sport issues are credited to 1955, and that year only saw the baseball and football sets (which I would presume, based on relative scarcities today, were their top sellers), neither of which were lazy releases. 1955 Baseball is notoriously bad for miscutting, the subsequent football set is a lot better cut and centered, especially 97-160. Thankfully only a tiny sliver of the next card is enough, with the design, to place which card is adjacent.

I'm trying to find further miscuts, in the high number cards that are top or bottom of "sheets" 4 and 5. I've found an Alex Langford showing "sheet" #4 had cards beneath it, but it's such a small sliver of the next card I can't make out which card it is. I am trying to do the 1954's as well as I am also confident the current theory there is wrong, but there are not many miscuts to play with.

Apologies if this is in your book and I don't recall it, but do you know the date or month the buyout of Bowman was finalized by Topps? It appears Bowman did a full print run of the football set in all its series (probably 2...) before ceasing operations, with some early designs of the next baseball set in progress. Topps seems to me to have been kind of a mess in 1956 with the buyout, releasing a lazy football set (I love it and it's one of my favorites, but it appears to be a quick meshing of the 55 Topps and 55 Bowman football designs using Bowman's contracted players), a lazy Presidents set copied and pasted from Bowman's work in 1952, and a small size Jets set that was pretty low effort alongside the effort sets of the Round Ups, Flags, Davy Crockett and Elvis issues that were mostly TV cash-ins, and the baseball series. I don't believe Topps copied a Bowman design again until 1966 for the Hockey and Football sets that basically copied the 1955 Bowman Baseball set.

[toppcat]

Originally Posted by G1911

We know they did this in 1955 Baseball so that would make a lot of sense. One more reason there are probably sheet shenanigans and this sequence is not the whole story yet.

I believe that by 1955 Bowman was already wrapping up its card projects. I don't believe any of their non-sport issues are credited to 1955, and that year only saw the baseball and football sets (which I would presume, based on relative scarcities today, were their top sellers), neither of which were lazy releases. 1955 Baseball is notoriously bad for miscutting, the subsequent football set is a lot better cut and centered, especially 97-160. Thankfully only a tiny sliver of the next card is enough, with the design, to place which card is adjacent.

I'm trying to find further miscuts, in the high number cards that are top or bottom of "sheets" 4 and 5. I've found an Alex Langford showing "sheet" #4 had cards beneath it, but it's such a small sliver of the next card I can't make out which card it is. I am trying to do the 1954's as well as I am also confident the current theory there is wrong, but there are not many miscuts to play with.

Apologies if this is in your book and I don't recall it, but do you know the date or month the buyout of Bowman was finalized by Topps? It appears Bowman did a full print run of the football set in all its series (probably 2...) before ceasing operations, with some early designs of the next baseball set in progress. Topps seems to me to have been kind of a mess in 1956 with the buyout, releasing a lazy football set (I love it and it's one of my favorites, but it appears to be a quick meshing of the 55 Topps and 55 Bowman football designs using Bowman's contracted players), a lazy Presidents set copied and pasted from Bowman's work in 1952, and a small size Jets set that was pretty low effort alongside the effort sets of the Round Ups, Flags, Davy Crockett and Elvis issues that were mostly TV cash-ins, and the baseball series. I don't believe Topps copied a Bowman design again until 1966 for the Hockey and Football sets that basically copied the 1955 Bowman Baseball set.

Topps finalized the deal to buy Bowman on January 20, 1956 and announced it on February 18th. The effective date of the sale was April 1st and it included contracts in force, production machinery and all trademarks. They paid $200,000 and I believe it strapped them for most of the rest of the year.

I think a couple of Bowman designs went into sets Topps produced for other parties but my notes are scattered on those right now.

Do you know Mike Thomas? He's pieced together virtual sheets which just recreate the 32 player blocks but also collects miscuts he uses to ID sheet positions. He's not as active as he used to be but does seem to update his website still; he was pretty focused on grabbing miscuts back in the day. You may want to give him a shout:

https://www.footballcardgallery.com/set/55b/1955-bowman-football-cards/?cat=bowman

[G1911]

Originally Posted by toppcat

Topps finalized the deal to buy Bowman on January 20, 1956 and announced it on February 18th. The effective date of the sale was April 1st and it included contracts in force, production machinery and all trademarks. They paid $200,000 and I believe it strapped them for most of the rest of the year.

I think a couple of Bowman designs went into sets Topps produced for other parties but my notes are scattered on those right now.

Do you know Mike Thomas? He's pieced together virtual sheets which just recreate the 32 player blocks but also collects miscuts he uses to ID sheet positions. He's not as active as he used to be but does seem to update his website still; he was pretty focused on grabbing miscuts back in the day. You may want to give him a shout:

https://www.footballcardgallery.com/set/55b/1955-bowman-football-cards/?cat=bowman

Thank you, that makes a lot of sense. The 1956 footballs are very close in design to the last bowman set and use a ton of the same pictures even, feels very hastily thrown together from Bowman's material, as do a lot of the 1956 Topps issues. I figured you would know the details sir. A couple Bowman designs were used for other parties; off the top of my head the 1958 Hires Root Beer cards Topps produced use one of the three 1956 Bowman Baseball prototype designs that I believe Mr. Olbermann has. I'm sure there are others I do not realize.


I posted the same OP on a football board too, where Mr. Thomas was upset that I did not privately contact him instead of sharing information publicly, and believed my counter evidence disproving Ted's theory, the 'more modern rendition of the story', was a cheap shot insult to himself because his site reposts Ted's theory for each Bowman set. I like when research is only about showing facts and not who found what.

[king11]

For the 1953 Bowman set, it looks like the card underneath the miscut of #96 Cross is #8 Averno. This could suggest that the group of cards 1-32 could be beneath the group 65-96.

[toppcat]

Originally Posted by G1911

I posted the same OP on a football board too, where Mr. Thomas was upset that I did not privately contact him instead of sharing information publicly, and believed my counter evidence disproving Ted's theory, the 'more modern rendition of the story', was a cheap shot insult to himself because his site reposts Ted's theory for each Bowman set. I like when research is only about showing facts and not who found what.

That is unfortunate, yikes!

[toppcat]

Originally Posted by G1911

We know they did this in 1955 Baseball so that would make a lot of sense. One more reason there are probably sheet shenanigans and this sequence is not the whole story yet.

I believe that by 1955 Bowman was already wrapping up its card projects. I don't believe any of their non-sport issues are credited to 1955, and that year only saw the baseball and football sets (which I would presume, based on relative scarcities today, were their top sellers), neither of which were lazy releases. 1955 Baseball is notoriously bad for miscutting, the subsequent football set is a lot better cut and centered, especially 97-160. Thankfully only a tiny sliver of the next card is enough, with the design, to place which card is adjacent.

I'm trying to find further miscuts, in the high number cards that are top or bottom of "sheets" 4 and 5. I've found an Alex Langford showing "sheet" #4 had cards beneath it, but it's such a small sliver of the next card I can't make out which card it is. I am trying to do the 1954's as well as I am also confident the current theory there is wrong, but there are not many miscuts to play with.

Apologies if this is in your book and I don't recall it, but do you know the date or month the buyout of Bowman was finalized by Topps? It appears Bowman did a full print run of the football set in all its series (probably 2...) before ceasing operations, with some early designs of the next baseball set in progress. Topps seems to me to have been kind of a mess in 1956 with the buyout, releasing a lazy football set (I love it and it's one of my favorites, but it appears to be a quick meshing of the 55 Topps and 55 Bowman football designs using Bowman's contracted players), a lazy Presidents set copied and pasted from Bowman's work in 1952, and a small size Jets set that was pretty low effort alongside the effort sets of the Round Ups, Flags, Davy Crockett and Elvis issues that were mostly TV cash-ins, and the baseball series. I don't believe Topps copied a Bowman design again until 1966 for the Hockey and Football sets that basically copied the 1955 Bowman Baseball set.

Topps finalized the deal to buy Bowman on January 20, 1956 and announced it on February 18th. The effective date of the sale was April 1st and it included contracts in force, production machinery and all trademarks. They paid $200,000 and I believe it strapped them for most of the rest of the year.

I think a couple of Bowman designs went into sets Topps produced for other parties but my notes are scattered on those right now.

Do you know Mike Thomas? He's pieced together virtual sheets which just recreate the 32 player blocks but also collects miscuts he uses to ID sheet positions. He's not as active as he used to be but does seem to update his website still; he was pretty focused on grabbing miscuts back in the day. You may want to give him a shout:

https://www.footballcardgallery.com/set/55b/1955-bowman-football-cards/?cat=bowman