1952 Topps #131-190 Gray Backs

[Billwinkle]

I am in Canada and my brother is as well, we never had a car growing up so all these cards are bought in Canada. If you look at the scan you will note that these are higher number "grey backs". To be honest most of the cards he has seem to have the grey back with very few being the lighter back cards. The binder sitting in front of me right now has over 90% of the grey back versions from #2 up to #300. How is that possible There are close to 250 different cards in this binder yet only 5 have the creme colour back and one is a black back. Please pass on an explanation to this? Read next post as well.

[Billwinkle]

A little more history on these cards. My Brother is in his mid 70's and he bought these as a kid. We live about 2 hours from the now closed o-pee-chee factory and we have a long since dead cousin that lived in London. Don't know where he worked but it could have been OPC. Even the Mantle appears to be a grey back. Definitely a different colour than the creme coloured cards. Check em out.

[ALR-bishop]

Bill-- these appear to be normal backs for these cards. In some of the 50s sets Topps alternated the card stock in different series. The 54, 55, 59 and 60 sets also have both grey and white cards within the same series. In other cases all the cards in a series may have the same stock but differ from one series to another. In split series, one color is usually more common, but only in the 52 and 54 sets are the grey back alternatives quite rare. In the 54 set it is the first series and in 52 it is the series of cards highlighted in the title of this thread

[SMPEP]

The 1954s were issued in Canada. It is VERY doubtful that the 1952s were. Since I've been collecting these, every known 1952 grey back has been found stateside - with the exception of ONE - which was found in England of all places. The 1952s just got this moniker because of the similarity with the 1954s.


Cheers,
Patrick

[ALR-bishop]

Bob Lemke has a great discussion of this issue of origin on his blog, including the two different types of gray backs in this series ( white border/glossy versus gray borders). At one time he was debating whether to remove the Canadian designation from the Standard Catalog, but he retired instead

http://boblemke.blogspot.com/2011/05...-canadian.html

[Zach Wheat]

Originally Posted by Billwinkle

I am in Canada and my brother is as well, we never had a car growing up so all these cards are bought in Canada. If you look at the scan you will note that these are higher number "grey backs". To be honest most of the cards he has seem to have the grey back with very few being the lighter back cards. The binder sitting in front of me right now has over 90% of the grey back versions from #2 up to #300. How is that possible There are close to 250 different cards in this binder yet only 5 have the creme colour back and one is a black back. Please pass on an explanation to this? Read next post as well.

Bill,

How many of the mid-series grey backs does your brother have in the binder ie cards 131-190?

Z

[Brianruns10]

My impression was that the discovery of a 146 House Gray Back Yellow Tiger error pretty much proved that the grays and whites were made at the same time and place, and bolstered the theory that the gray backs simply exist because there was leftover gray card stock that they used up along with the new white stock.

[ALR-bishop]

House aside, the Lemke blog, including his interviews with several long term 52 collectors, also seems to debunk the Canadian theory. But it is not just the card stock that differs. The gray fronts seem significantly different than the cream fronts, and as indicated in the blog, there seem to be two different front versions of the grays. The might at least indicate two different printers or sources.

On the House yellow tiger, it seems to exist in cream and gray. Does someone if that is also true of the version which is yellow but has a red tongue ? And can the yellow or yellow/red version be found with both different front versions of the gray backs ?

[Brianruns10]

And then on top of all that, there is the mystery of just why the Pete Reiser card is so much more scarce than the rest?

And as an aside, that nearly complete set of gray backs for sale on REA (59 out of 60, missing only the Reiser) is up to $12,000 with four days left! I wonder how much it'd be up to if it DID have the Reiser?

[flkersn]

The cream-back House "yellow logo" exists in several levels of purity--from red tongue to pink to less that pink to gone. The two or three gray-back yellow logo Houses I have seen seem to be devoid of red. I assume in the cream-back case, the printer was gradually running out of red ink during the printing process. If the latter is true, then the gray stock was used during the end of the run when the red was gone. It seems like it had to be one printer. How likely is it that two machines ran out of red ink? IF all that is true, it would suggest that the cream stock was used before the gray stock.

Regarding the Reiser, I have not heard any good reason about the shortage. It is certainly possible, but not probable, that this card had a tougher life than others (beat to crap, lost, pasted to scrapbooks, collected by relatives, etc). I think it more likely that there are a bunch out there in raw condition, just waiting for the right time. That is what happened with Maxwell, Rogovin, Post, etc. They are still rare, but several raw ones have appeared in the last year. So, bottom line, I think the Reiser is an artificial shortage that may or may not resolve itself.

BTW, in case anyone has a spare Reiser, I have a PSA 4 gray/yellow House....

Bill

[Laxcat]

I think Bill is right. I believe, from my conversation with my father and a few of his old dealer buddies, that there are quite a few raw ones left out there. I made a find of 14 in the old store stock from the Austin store, mixed in with the regular 52's and still have the San Antonio store stock and "collection" to look through.