1958 Hires team distribution?

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Posted By: Peter

I have a little more than half of the 66-card 1958 Hires Root Beer set--and I have always wondered about the make up of the set. There are no cards from seven teams--Yankees, Reds, A's, Tigers, Cardinals, Senators, White Sox or Reds. There is only one card for two teams--Hank Aaron from the Milwaukee Braves and Bobby Thomson from the Chicago Cubs.

So 64 of the cards are from the other seven teams--Orioles, Pirates, Indians, Phillies, BoSox, Dodgers and Giants. Can anybody shed some insight on why? MLB licensing? Hires regional distribution? Contractual arrangements with the various teams? Was there going to be a second series?

Have to admit--I'm not complaining. I really don't need to chase one more Mantle from a 50's regional set--but I have been wondering why seven teams were completely omitted from the set.

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Posted By: Paul S

Another question I'd like to know the answer to is, "Why does the card numbering being at 10?"
Anyway, the Hires card design may be my favorite of the regionals.

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Posted By: Anthony

There are 8 cards in the test set, so that would account possibly for the numbering starting at 8, but I have no idea why it starts at 10.

Here's a trivia question- the design for the '58 Hires regular set was originally in the running to be the design for another issue- can anyone name that issue?

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Posted By: Marc S.

1956 Bowman baseball

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Posted By: Chris Counts

Ray Katt is on the Cardinals, although he previously played for the Giants ...

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Posted By: Paul S

That's really interesting about the design being initially intended for '56 Bowman. Makes sense, as if Bowman's plans were to continue with the idea of a novel design for each year, starting with the their 1955s TV motif. Curious how Hires acquired it after a one-to-two year gap (assuming Hires needed to have them planned and printed prior to the start of the 1958 season, i.e., in 1957 -- would make sense in light of Chris's Ray Katt remark.)

*edited to say: Peter, can you upload some of your favorites?

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Posted By: Peter

I haven't posted pictures yet--so I will have to fiddle around with it tonight. I don't have Ray Katt--so I think I was presuming he was on the Giants. But with solo stars on the Braves and Cubs--why not pick Musial from the Cardinals?

I always thought Hires had national distribution--that is why I can't figure out why so many teams weren't included in the oddly numbered set. Also curious why they might have skipped one number in the set?

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Posted By: Anthony

Marc is right, it was one of the 3 potential designs for '56 Bowman, all of which eventually ended up being used on one set or another.
When Topps bought out Bowman they got the designs- I'm pretty sure Topps produced the cards for Hires, and that is how they ended up with the '56 Bowman design.

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Posted By: Chris Counts

Here's another curious aspect of the Hires set. Look at how many cards in the set feature pictures taken in Connie Mack Stadium. The only other set with more pictures from Philly than the Hires set is the 1955 Bowman set. And the photos bear a striking resemblence to the poses and colorization of the '55 Bowman set as well. It's not just the Phillies, but the Indians and Red Sox as well. Also, the A's stopped playing in Philly in '54, so the Indians and Red Sox pictures must date from that year. Where else could the photos have come from if not Bowman? I wouldn't be surprised if Topps used outtakes from the '55 Bowman photos for the Hires set. I just looked at the Frank Sullivan cards from each set. Not only are both shots taken in Philly, but the same guys are in the backgrounds of each photo and the grass is tinted the same unnatural color of green ...