[Zach Wheat]

David,

That is a good guess. UPC codes were just starting to be used - prior to the era of the 1975 Twinkies set as you noted. If this is a pre-cursor to the UPC code, then the code would be too long - for the first 5 digits (not 6 as in the number above) of the UPC code were supposed to represent the manufacturing plant.

In Topps products, they made up their own printing codes which are stamped on the bottom of most boxes, cases and wrappers. Only a portion of Topps code (last 5 digits) is included in the current 10 digit UPC right after the 5 digit manufacturing plant.

The example below is a pic of the bottom of a box of 1991 Desert Shield cards. The first 5 digits represents manufacturing plant # 4116, followed by a print run identifier and then their code for regular season baseball cards or "362". Topps swapped out the code for printing machine for a code indicating year of the product on boxed and case products. If you looked at the cardboard case this item was packed in - it would read "1-362-91-XYZ"

The hidden printers code posted by Steve B above your post - you will find a good example of the information coded on the side of most sheets.....and if properly understood, allows collectors to establish when print & stat change variations were made on the associated sheets/cards. But I digress......


Z