1963 Topps "Bowed" cards. Why?
 

When I was a kid I owned a great incomplete set of 1963 Topps. I remember they were curved or bowed up. This was before penny sleeves and Card Saver IIs. They were incredibly high grade and I regret selling them. So, a couple weeks ago I found a lot of about 150 cards on fleabay and went after them pretty hard and won the auction. In the photos they looked just like the ones I used to own and, upon receiving them, I'm happy to say they are "pack fresh" amazing examples. Even the centering on them is way above average. I just wonder about the curve in them. Are they from vending? Not one had a gum or wax stain.

I'm super happy I scored this lot. Anybody else run into this, especially 1963?

Scott

This is a great question...I noticed the same thing. 63s seem to be the only year that it is that pronounced of a almost natural "bend". Was there different stock used for that year??

63 t
 

Yes, I also saw a collection of 63T cards from a relative ..that hadn't been touched in many yrs..and all had that curl to them ??

Way back in the day, I used to buy a complete series from some company that advertised in the back of Boys Life magazine (or at least I believe is was this magazine). I remember receiving a series from 1963, 1967, and 1968. All purchased at different times. All arrived bowed and pack fresh or better.

-John

Is it possible this is due to the general level of humidity (or lack thereof) in the air? We talked about it regarding the cracking and bending of Kellogg's 3-D cards and I'm thinking this may be the culprit here as well. In New York, my Kellogg's cards would eventually curl up like crazy over time, but out here in the ridiculous desert-like Northern California area, the cards I have remain as flat as boards. The problem could be a function of what part of the country the 63's have been kept in all of these years.

My childhood 63s home was Southern CA. When I buy lots for set building, I put them in penny sleeves and then Card Saver IIs. Once I get within about 100 cards I stick them in a binder. I almost hate to do that to these beauties.

The lot I purchased recently spans several series. The humidity theory sounds good but would affect other years and I've not seen this with any other issue yet. But, if I do, I will probably buy them. :D

The stock does seem a lot more different to me than the previous several years. Before 63 they all have that shopping bag brown cardboard feel to me. Kinda rough and thick. The 63 stock seems more bleached out and "slick" if that makes sense.

63t
 

The big box of 63 T I looked at was Cherry Hill NJ area

In recent years, I have bought through ebay a number of vintage card lots from what remained of Renata Galasso's inventory. The cards have all been shipped out of the NY (Brooklyn) area where RG was once headquartered. With these more recent purchases, most all of the cards are "bowed" to some extent or another.


However, back in the early 80s, I purchased multiple bulk vintage lots from RG and I remember there being very little to no bowing to the cards at all. Obviously in the early 80s, RG was moving cards at a much quicker rate so cards did not sit in her inventory as long.

Could the 30+ years that my more recent purchases sat in storage have caused the bowing?...very possible.

Interesting. The 63s from my childhood would have been 13 years old at the time I acquired them (it was 1976). 13 years is enough time for the bowing to occur. For me, I associate high quality with the bowing as I've never seen mid-grade or lower with this phenomenon. My sample size is too small to make any conclusions though.

Here is a link to the original auction of my new bowed 63s. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-1963...p2047675.l2557

Hi Guys,

Card Collectors Company in New York was one of the biggest dealers in the 1960s-1980s, and they had massive amounts of brand new Topps cards from the 60s & 70s. Somewhere in the late 70s - early 80s they had a fire in their warehouse and thousands upon thousands of cards were water damaged from the sprinklers. The cards show up on ebay generally in lots and they will look pristine except for the warping from the water.

I got a lot of about 100 1963s from a collector in MN that looked perfect in the scan, but when they arrived all the cards were bent and some had dark water stains on them. It is possible that the cards you have just won were from Card Collectors Co., but that does not, of course, explain the general tendency of 1963s to bend somewhat. I once saw a dealer's stock who had bought about 100,000 or so cards from Card Collectors Co. in the early 1980s, and the cards were all warped. He had some of them in huge stacks on a large table and they were all bent in unison. The boxes they had come in (and about the first 25 cards in each stack) all showed dirty water stains on them from the sprinkler water and smoke, but if you saw them from a distance they all looked perfectly mint.

Hope this helps,

Jeff

Seems the common thread is moisture/humidity. The cards from my childhood predate CCC but the ones I just acquired, who knows? I wonder if TPGs care about this when examining a card. Unless super extreme, I wouldn't think so.

Most cards that use a different material on one side vs the other have this. For example, more recent Chrome cards for Bowman and Topps will do this. They are one side plastic and the other is cardboard. I am thinking that one side is contracting vs the other, and they end up in a bend. For cards without a plastic portion like Chrome or Kellogg's 3D, it could also be that the front uses a gloss that makes that side act the same way as the plastic counterpart.

You can also get a similar effect on some different types of cards by leaving them in the sun for too long.

I have seen water or moisture damaged cards turn out this way also.

I think that it could be a variety of reasons why a card may end up being that way.