Quote:
Originally Posted by Promethius88
I always thought the story was that they were dumped into the East River...not the ocean?
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A ruse IMO, the dumping at sea. Out of character for Topps in that era to spend money on disposal of something they could still sell somewhere. Repackaging and sales through Card Collectors Co and a few other select, employee-affiliated outlets was their MO but some highs also got exported to South America. If they got dumped, Bush Terminal had ample facilities to allow for disposal of bulk items without hiring a tug and scow. In addition, Topps used a carting company at Bush Terminal to haul their refuse.
Were some destroyed? Possibly. Was the print run shorter than the semi-highs? Yes it seems so but not THAT much-there were no penny packs and I believe they only did two packaging runs at most (wax and vending). Check out these comparative figures from a canvass I did of eBay today:
CARD COUNT PLAYER
251 62
252 92
253 80
254 100
255 81
256 107
257 57
258 83
259 87
260 84
261 72 MAYS
262 38
263 57
264 99
265 83
266 78
267 87
268 52
269 69
270 92
271 49
272 31
273 36
274 28
275 60
276 35
277 41
278 53
279 57
280 25
281 36
282 30
283 54
284 55
285 67
286 48
287 25
288 61
289 20
290 41
291 53
292 67
293 61
294 36
295 27
296 27
297 48
298 49
299 60
300 50
301 51
302 51
303 43
304 45
305 42
306 53
307 31 CAMPOS
308 33
309 34
310 37
311 42 MANTLE
312 22 ROBINSON
313 51 THOMSON
314 23 CAMPANELLA
315 26 DUROCHER
316 27
317 22
318 37
319 31
320 30
321 26
322 26
323 37
324 22
325 31
326 47
327 21
328 23
329 20
330 16
331 20
332 7 BARTIROME
333 37 REESE
334 22
335 13
336 38
337 39
338 25
339 14
340 24
341 23
342 23
343 27
344 33
345 24
346 38
347 22
348 26
349 41
350 34
351 38
352 28
353 27
354 17
355 29
356 28
357 19
358 48
359 17
360 28
361 31
362 16
363 41
364 37
365 48
366 45
367 52
368 60
369 13
370 17
371 30
372 30
373 28
374 28
375 26
376 16
377 54
378 23
379 38
380 28
381 32
382 22
383 22
384 21
385 38
386 16
387 41
388 38
389 36
390 38
391 39
392 8 WILHELM
393 33
394 34
395 30
396 19 WILLIAMS
397 31
398 16
399 30
400 20 DICKEY
401 29
402 27
403 19
404 24
405 29
406 19
407 15 MATHEWS
There's a couple of anomalies in the semi's and the high's but roughly speaking for every 2 semi-high's there is a high; some highs in my canvass were available in greater numbers than some semi-highs-there were as many as 60 available of one subject (#368). The highs are in demand and infamous, they are indeed "highnumberesque" but they exist in numbers that I can't consider to be scarce. You could assemble seven high number runs on eBay at this moment if you had the cash and about that many near-runs missing only 3 or 4 numbers. That is not scarce. Availability for the semi-highs ranges from 25-107 cards, vs 7-60 for the highs