1952 Topps #131-190 Gray Backs

[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