Rich Klein and I have a brief subthread going over on the pre-war board concerning the four missing numbers in the 1955 Topps high numbers and possible substitutes for them. Have a look below and feel free to chime in:
"The 1955 high numbers have four cards that were withdrawn from distribution and have never been identified except by number: 175, 186, 203 and 209. These were probably newly signed players that also had a Bowman contract that took precedence and the timing of this indicates Topps and Bowman were still engaged in legal wrangling well into 1955. It is alleged by Beckett that nos. 170, 172, 184 and 188 were double printed to fill in for the four missing numbers. If true, this means the players were identified early enough to have been changed out no later than the final proofing process and were not pulled after printing and cutting as had been the case in 1953."
The pre-war thread is here and you can follow along starting with post #17:
http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=165043