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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. Last edited by ngrow9; 04-26-2024 at 02:32 PM. |
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1951 confirmed for the new start time of the Junk Wax Era.
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What a great (bit of a) peek behind the curtain! That is one heckuva lot of cards being distributed so long ago. Yowza!
__________________
All the cool kids love my YouTube Channel:
Elm's Adventures in Cardboard Land https://www.youtube.com/@TheJollyElm Looking to trade? Here's my bucket: https://www.flickr.com/photos/152396...57685904801706 “I was such a dangerous hitter I even got intentional walks during batting practice.” Casey Stengel Spelling "Yastrzemski" correctly without needing to look it up since the 1980s. Overpaying yesterday is simply underpaying tomorrow. |
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bowman production
Im thinking ....safe to say...at least 75 % of that total are no longer around today
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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 Last edited by brianp-beme; 04-26-2024 at 05:13 PM. |
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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. |
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Quote:
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 Last edited by brianp-beme; 04-27-2024 at 09:32 AM. |
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Agreed that 1948 seems high, although frankly 1949-51 surprised me as well.
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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. |
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Quote:
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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.
__________________
All the cool kids love my YouTube Channel:
Elm's Adventures in Cardboard Land https://www.youtube.com/@TheJollyElm Looking to trade? Here's my bucket: https://www.flickr.com/photos/152396...57685904801706 “I was such a dangerous hitter I even got intentional walks during batting practice.” Casey Stengel Spelling "Yastrzemski" correctly without needing to look it up since the 1980s. Overpaying yesterday is simply underpaying tomorrow. |
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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.
Last edited by brad31; 04-29-2024 at 12:19 PM. |
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Guessing those 1949 numbers include their PCL cards.
Wondering whether any reasonable speculation can be made on the production numbers of the PCL cards? |
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