Early Bowman Print Runs
 

I am currently reviewing some court documents from the Bowman v. Topps litigation, and came across the following info in a filing by Bowman. I'm not sure if these numbers have been reported before, but thought that I'd type them out here should they be of interest to anyone:

1939 Play Ball - 24,000,000 cards distributed (on sales of $82,000)

1940 Play Ball - 30,900,000 cards distributed (on sales of $99,000)

1941 Play Ball - 31,600,000 cards distributed (on sales of $43,000)

1942 Play Ball (presumably subsequently printed 1941 cards) - 15,700,000 cards distributed (on sales of $72,000)

1948 Bowman - 63,600,000 cards distributed (on sales of $361,000)

1949 Bowman - 76,000,000 cards distributed (on sales of $420,000)

1950 Bowman - 128,300,000 cards distributed (on sales of $716,000)

1951 Bowman - 100,000,000 cards distributed as of June 15, 1951, with another 100,000,000 in production for distribution the remainder of the season.

1951 confirmed for the new start time of the Junk Wax Era.

What a great (bit of a) peek behind the curtain! That is one heckuva lot of cards being distributed so long ago. Yowza!

bowman production
 

Im thinking ....safe to say...at least 75 % of that total are no longer around today

Do those legal documents specify that the production numbers are for baseball cards only? If not specified, it probably indicates the total card production amounts for all sports and non-sports.

If they are just baseball card production numbers, I utilized a handy calculator to obtain the average production amount for EACH card in the baseball set that I have listed below. Of course each card could be quite a bit different from this amount, depending upon short prints and less printed, tougher series. I lumped the 1939 to 1941 Play Ball issues together, because the 1942 production numbers would seem to involve later distribution as mentioned, and this same time lag could have possibly occurred in the 1939 and 1940 sets as well.

1939 to 1941 Play Ball:

102 million divided by 473 total cards = 215,645 distributed per each card


1948 Bowman:

63.6 million divided by 48 in set = 1,325,000


1949 Bowman:

76 million divided by 240 in set = 316,667


1950 Bowman:

128.3 million divided by 252 in set = 507,396


1951 Bowman:

200 million divided by 324 in set = 617,284


What makes me think these distribution numbers probably include non-baseball issues is the relatively out of proportion per card numbers for the 1948 set, as this issue is definitely not as common as cards from the early 1950 baseball sets.


Brian

The complaint says those numbers are all just for baseball card production. For instance, for 1949 it says Bowman "distributed more than 76,000,000 cards bearing the names and pictures of baseball players." Similar language is used for the other years.

Now it's always possible something got lost in translation between the company and its lawyers, and that total card run got mistaken for baseball card run. But Bowman's treasurer swore to the accuracy of the document under penalty of perjury.

Thanks, that is great info. I don't think we have any numbers like these for any other vintage card issues.

It still seems to me that the 1948 amount is out of line based upon current availability of this set versus the other years. Maybe my brain automatically skips over 1948 Bowman listings.


Brian

Agreed that 1948 seems high, although frankly 1949-51 surprised me as well.

This is great stuff, though I suspect this doesn't necessarily mean X number of Y years design, but may include stock from previous years or shipments of leftover cards from the prior year or something?

1948 really does not make any sense at all. This cannot be a straight up accounting of 1948 Bowman Baseball print run, and there was no 1947 set to carryover into the next year's distribution.

PSA Pop
1948 - 27,751
1949 - 64,873
1950 - 60,551 (less big rookies driving submissions, probably a little more common than 49)
1951 - 109,867

This part is confusing. I get the years are not quite directly equal to a set, as above, but... half as many cards for almost twice as many sales? They sold 1941 Play Ball's in 1942 at almost 4x the price of the original issue run? I'm an idiot or something must be off here.

I don't disagree, although I do know that there were pretty significant shortages of chicle and jelutong once WWII started, along with sugar rationing, so a price spike due to a shortage of gum wouldn't be totally inconceivable. Now whether that gets you to 4X the price or not, I don't know.

Those stats are from the time before baseball cards began to rule the world, so can you even imagine what the production numbers of (a random year) 1973 Topps cards were??? Whatever you think the highest possible number could be, you'd have to make it tenfold, a hundredfold or perhaps even a thousandfold!!

We simply don't realize how colossally overabundant these things we collect are. :eek:

Imagine what the cumulative print run of T206s must be with 282K graded by PSA and 40 more years to destroy them than 1948 Bowman - plus way more SGC than ‘48 Bowman too.

Guessing those 1949 numbers include their PCL cards.

Wondering whether any reasonable speculation can be made on the production numbers of the PCL cards?

That's a lot of mothers in a lot of attics throwing away a lot of cards!