Probably the most "famous" Double-Printed (DP) card is the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle (card #311). The 1952 Topps cards were printed on 100-card sheets. The
track width of their printing press was 54 inch, resulting in the printing of two adjacent 100-card sheets. The 1952 Topps Hi # sheet includes 97 subjects (cards
#311-407). Therefore, to fill out a 100-card sheet, Topps had to DP three of their subjects. Very smartly, they selected the 3 most popular players of that era....
Jackie Robinson, Bobby Thomson, and Mickey Mantle.
The printing of the Mantle cards by the use of the two plates resulted in some minor differences. These have been identified as Type 1 and Type 2. Illustrated
here are these differences........
....
Type 2 .................................................. .............................................
Type 1
....
...../\---- glossy arm -----/\............../\......../\---- rough border on name box
Next post will return to
PRE-WAR printing practices.
TED Z