Posted By:
Chris CountsI always figured Bowman went to the hand-colored photos in '54 because the process was cheaper. The fact that Bowman issued its black and white series '53 after its color series leads me to this conclusion. I've also read on several occassions that Bowman invested heavily in the '53 set and lost a lot of money in the process. Regardless, the '54 and '55 sets pale in comparison to the '53 set, in my opinion. In defense of the '54 and '55 sets, I believe the sets Bowmans issued from 1950 to 1953 contain more great images and better artwork than any other comparably large sets in baseball card history, so they had a hard act to follow ...