1948 & 1949 BOWMAN printing trivia

[tedzan]

1948

Printing of the 1948 BOWMAN set is quite interesting, as the printer took their 36-card production sheet and produced a 48-card set. In their 1st press runs
they printed cards #1 - 36. Then in their 2nd press runs they modified their printing plates by replacing 12 cards in the first group of 36 with cards #37 - 48.
The uncut 36-card sheet shown here is from the 2nd press runs where cards #37 - 48 are interspersed among the lower number cards.

Thereby, this process created Double-Prints of 24 low numbers....Single-Prints of 12 low numbers....and, another set of Single-Prints of the 12 high numbers.







1949

The 1949 Bowman set was quite puzzling to collectors of these cards in the 1950's - 1960's - 1970's - and early 1980's. The mystery involved 12 redundant
Low # cards that confused anyone trying to complete what was advertised as a 240-card set.

1st scan here depicts an uncut 36-card sheet....typical of the 7 sheets that were printed in the production of this set.





Now, consider this....7 x 36 cards = 252 cards. But, aren't there only 240 numbered subjects in this set ?

The Bowman printers filled in the additional 12 slots in the printing of their 7th sheet by including 12 subjects from their lower # sheets. The first 6 (36-card)
sheets of the 1949 Bowman set have been found. An uncut 7th sheet has yet to be found; therefore, I have diagrammed its card arrangement here. The 12
cards enclosed in red are the "re-printed" cards. Furthermore, these D-P cards were modified to conform to the design of the other 24 cards on this sheet.






One of the most popular cards in the 1949 BOWMAN set is this card of "Satchell" Paige. Trust me, when us "dinosaurs" (as kids) opened up a 5-cent Bowman
waxpack in the Fall of '49 and found this Paige card, it generated some really great excitement.




Rookie cards of Gerry Coleman, Larry Doby, Bob Lemon, Ed Lopat and Duke Snider were also printed on this 7th sheet.



Hey guys....If you have any 1949 Bowman High #'s (#145 - 240) with OVERPRINTED backs....please show or tell us of them.

Thanks,

TED Z