How common is a gum stain on the obverse of a card? What does it look like anyway? I opened wax packs in 1952, but seem to recall that Bowman - maybe not Topps - placed a buffer in the pack to separate the gum from the cards. My memory may be off on that though. That has always caused to wonder if the very common stains on the reverse of early '50's cards is actually from something other than gum, since in all the packs presumably with no buffer, only one card would likely be touching the chewable item - the other five to six not touching. Of course, there was plenty of gum dust in the pack, the aroma of which is something that never left my data storage facility, but I don't think that dust could produce any staining. Anyone have any thoughts or evidence to bear on this conundrum?
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