My own thoughts, probably unprovable at this point, were that Bowman decided not to pay Joe DiMaggio any more royalties for his image and name in promoting the color set. His contract very well could have specified he was endorsing "color" picture cards. Switch to B&W, remove Joe's image and there you go. I can't see printing in color added that much to the cost overall. Joe's cut was probably on a percentage deal and it got too expensive in this scenario. Like I said, unprovable but a possibility to my mind.
|