1948-1955 Bowman series divisions and sheet layouts

G1911 · #1 06-15-2024, 07:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by toppcat

I wonder if Bowman slowly seeded in the higher numbers in successive press runs, while dropping earlier cards. Just a thought but it seems possible to me.

We know they did this in 1955 Baseball so that would make a lot of sense. One more reason there are probably sheet shenanigans and this sequence is not the whole story yet.

I believe that by 1955 Bowman was already wrapping up its card projects. I don't believe any of their non-sport issues are credited to 1955, and that year only saw the baseball and football sets (which I would presume, based on relative scarcities today, were their top sellers), neither of which were lazy releases. 1955 Baseball is notoriously bad for miscutting, the subsequent football set is a lot better cut and centered, especially 97-160. Thankfully only a tiny sliver of the next card is enough, with the design, to place which card is adjacent.

I'm trying to find further miscuts, in the high number cards that are top or bottom of "sheets" 4 and 5. I've found an Alex Langford showing "sheet" #4 had cards beneath it, but it's such a small sliver of the next card I can't make out which card it is. I am trying to do the 1954's as well as I am also confident the current theory there is wrong, but there are not many miscuts to play with.

Apologies if this is in your book and I don't recall it, but do you know the date or month the buyout of Bowman was finalized by Topps? It appears Bowman did a full print run of the football set in all its series (probably 2...) before ceasing operations, with some early designs of the next baseball set in progress. Topps seems to me to have been kind of a mess in 1956 with the buyout, releasing a lazy football set (I love it and it's one of my favorites, but it appears to be a quick meshing of the 55 Topps and 55 Bowman football designs using Bowman's contracted players), a lazy Presidents set copied and pasted from Bowman's work in 1952, and a small size Jets set that was pretty low effort alongside the effort sets of the Round Ups, Flags, Davy Crockett and Elvis issues that were mostly TV cash-ins, and the baseball series. I don't believe Topps copied a Bowman design again until 1966 for the Hockey and Football sets that basically copied the 1955 Bowman Baseball set.

toppcat · #2 06-16-2024, 11:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by G1911

We know they did this in 1955 Baseball so that would make a lot of sense. One more reason there are probably sheet shenanigans and this sequence is not the whole story yet.

I believe that by 1955 Bowman was already wrapping up its card projects. I don't believe any of their non-sport issues are credited to 1955, and that year only saw the baseball and football sets (which I would presume, based on relative scarcities today, were their top sellers), neither of which were lazy releases. 1955 Baseball is notoriously bad for miscutting, the subsequent football set is a lot better cut and centered, especially 97-160. Thankfully only a tiny sliver of the next card is enough, with the design, to place which card is adjacent.

I'm trying to find further miscuts, in the high number cards that are top or bottom of "sheets" 4 and 5. I've found an Alex Langford showing "sheet" #4 had cards beneath it, but it's such a small sliver of the next card I can't make out which card it is. I am trying to do the 1954's as well as I am also confident the current theory there is wrong, but there are not many miscuts to play with.

Apologies if this is in your book and I don't recall it, but do you know the date or month the buyout of Bowman was finalized by Topps? It appears Bowman did a full print run of the football set in all its series (probably 2...) before ceasing operations, with some early designs of the next baseball set in progress. Topps seems to me to have been kind of a mess in 1956 with the buyout, releasing a lazy football set (I love it and it's one of my favorites, but it appears to be a quick meshing of the 55 Topps and 55 Bowman football designs using Bowman's contracted players), a lazy Presidents set copied and pasted from Bowman's work in 1952, and a small size Jets set that was pretty low effort alongside the effort sets of the Round Ups, Flags, Davy Crockett and Elvis issues that were mostly TV cash-ins, and the baseball series. I don't believe Topps copied a Bowman design again until 1966 for the Hockey and Football sets that basically copied the 1955 Bowman Baseball set.

Topps finalized the deal to buy Bowman on January 20, 1956 and announced it on February 18th. The effective date of the sale was April 1st and it included contracts in force, production machinery and all trademarks. They paid $200,000 and I believe it strapped them for most of the rest of the year.

I think a couple of Bowman designs went into sets Topps produced for other parties but my notes are scattered on those right now.

Do you know Mike Thomas? He's pieced together virtual sheets which just recreate the 32 player blocks but also collects miscuts he uses to ID sheet positions. He's not as active as he used to be but does seem to update his website still; he was pretty focused on grabbing miscuts back in the day. You may want to give him a shout:

https://www.footballcardgallery.com/set/55b/1955-bowman-football-cards/?cat=bowman

G1911 · #3 06-16-2024, 01:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by toppcat

Topps finalized the deal to buy Bowman on January 20, 1956 and announced it on February 18th. The effective date of the sale was April 1st and it included contracts in force, production machinery and all trademarks. They paid $200,000 and I believe it strapped them for most of the rest of the year.

I think a couple of Bowman designs went into sets Topps produced for other parties but my notes are scattered on those right now.

Do you know Mike Thomas? He's pieced together virtual sheets which just recreate the 32 player blocks but also collects miscuts he uses to ID sheet positions. He's not as active as he used to be but does seem to update his website still; he was pretty focused on grabbing miscuts back in the day. You may want to give him a shout:

https://www.footballcardgallery.com/set/55b/1955-bowman-football-cards/?cat=bowman

Thank you, that makes a lot of sense. The 1956 footballs are very close in design to the last bowman set and use a ton of the same pictures even, feels very hastily thrown together from Bowman's material, as do a lot of the 1956 Topps issues. I figured you would know the details sir. A couple Bowman designs were used for other parties; off the top of my head the 1958 Hires Root Beer cards Topps produced use one of the three 1956 Bowman Baseball prototype designs that I believe Mr. Olbermann has. I'm sure there are others I do not realize.

I posted the same OP on a football board too, where Mr. Thomas was upset that I did not privately contact him instead of sharing information publicly, and believed my counter evidence disproving Ted's theory, the 'more modern rendition of the story', was a cheap shot insult to himself because his site reposts Ted's theory for each Bowman set. I like when research is only about showing facts and not who found what.

king11 · #4 06-16-2024, 01:29 PM

For the 1953 Bowman set, it looks like the card underneath the miscut of #96 Cross is #8 Averno. This could suggest that the group of cards 1-32 could be beneath the group 65-96.

G1911 · #5 06-16-2024, 09:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by king11

For the 1953 Bowman set, it looks like the card underneath the miscut of #96 Cross is #8 Averno. This could suggest that the group of cards 1-32 could be beneath the group 65-96.

It is 100% Averno, the back lines up too with the text on Averno�s card, so 8 was printed below 96 on at least one slot on the sheet. Almost certainly 1-32 appeared below this 65-96 section at least once. Definitely a 1 series set now, not 3.

toppcat · #6 06-17-2024, 01:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by G1911

I posted the same OP on a football board too, where Mr. Thomas was upset that I did not privately contact him instead of sharing information publicly, and believed my counter evidence disproving Ted's theory, the 'more modern rendition of the story', was a cheap shot insult to himself because his site reposts Ted's theory for each Bowman set. I like when research is only about showing facts and not who found what.

That is unfortunate, yikes!

JustinD · #7 06-17-2024, 08:28 PM

Seems like a well thought discussion. For instance if Lansford was in the lower right hand position would we have this -

G1911 · #8 06-17-2024, 11:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JustinD

Seems like a well thought discussion. For instance if Lansford was in the lower right hand position would we have this -

That is a very nice find. 52 Large's narrative, which is the one most often cited alongside 1948, is definitely also wrong. I think we will also find in 1952 that the 'short printed' columns are also not as has been claimed. The POP report strongly suggests the short prints are a fantasy.

On the large size Bowman's, the 'internal rows' miscuts all suggest that they are in 32 card sequential sequences, as far as I have seen (with Bowman's 1955 baseball stratagem, possibly used in 1954 too, of replacing blocks of cards with new cards to have a 'living sheet' instead of a Topps style full replacement sheet, we may well find a counter-example, but I have not succeeded in locating such a card). I would love to see a card that does not follow that pattern.

Lansford would likely be above either #117 O'Donohue (representing "series 4"), 81 Kastan (representing "series 3"), #45 Steve Van Buren (representing "series 2"), or #9 Spencer. It is not Kastan, that card has a purple backdrop that does not match the sliver. So this Lansford looks to me like it is probably over another block of "series 1", "series 2" or "series 4".

G1911 · #9 06-18-2024, 12:01 AM

And here is the #126 Lansford (supposed to be bottom row, column 5). Can see just a tiny sliver of the card below, which is not a sheet mark or line as it begins exactly where the edge of a next card would instead of intruding into the margin. I can't deduce the color, but maybe a dark red?

The options to be beneath him, if what we have seen holds consistent are
Hugh Taylor (light purple)
Tank Younger (dark red)
Jim Ringo (Yellow)
Al Carmichael (same block, so less likely - darker yellow)
Ernie Stautner (blue)

97-160 do seem to be better centered so far, I am having an issue finding miscuts in the border cards going the right direction.

toppcat · #10 06-16-2024, 11:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by G1911

We know they did this in 1955 Baseball so that would make a lot of sense. One more reason there are probably sheet shenanigans and this sequence is not the whole story yet.

I believe that by 1955 Bowman was already wrapping up its card projects. I don't believe any of their non-sport issues are credited to 1955, and that year only saw the baseball and football sets (which I would presume, based on relative scarcities today, were their top sellers), neither of which were lazy releases. 1955 Baseball is notoriously bad for miscutting, the subsequent football set is a lot better cut and centered, especially 97-160. Thankfully only a tiny sliver of the next card is enough, with the design, to place which card is adjacent.

I'm trying to find further miscuts, in the high number cards that are top or bottom of "sheets" 4 and 5. I've found an Alex Langford showing "sheet" #4 had cards beneath it, but it's such a small sliver of the next card I can't make out which card it is. I am trying to do the 1954's as well as I am also confident the current theory there is wrong, but there are not many miscuts to play with.

Apologies if this is in your book and I don't recall it, but do you know the date or month the buyout of Bowman was finalized by Topps? It appears Bowman did a full print run of the football set in all its series (probably 2...) before ceasing operations, with some early designs of the next baseball set in progress. Topps seems to me to have been kind of a mess in 1956 with the buyout, releasing a lazy football set (I love it and it's one of my favorites, but it appears to be a quick meshing of the 55 Topps and 55 Bowman football designs using Bowman's contracted players), a lazy Presidents set copied and pasted from Bowman's work in 1952, and a small size Jets set that was pretty low effort alongside the effort sets of the Round Ups, Flags, Davy Crockett and Elvis issues that were mostly TV cash-ins, and the baseball series. I don't believe Topps copied a Bowman design again until 1966 for the Hockey and Football sets that basically copied the 1955 Bowman Baseball set.

Topps finalized the deal to buy Bowman on January 20, 1956 and announced it on February 18th. The effective date of the sale was April 1st and it included contracts in force, production machinery and all trademarks. They paid $200,000 and I believe it strapped them for most of the rest of the year.

I think a couple of Bowman designs went into sets Topps produced for other parties but my notes are scattered on those right now.

Do you know Mike Thomas? He's pieced together virtual sheets which just recreate the 32 player blocks but also collects miscuts he uses to ID sheet positions. He's not as active as he used to be but does seem to update his website still; he was pretty focused on grabbing miscuts back in the day. You may want to give him a shout:

https://www.footballcardgallery.com/set/55b/1955-bowman-football-cards/?cat=bowman

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
If MLB still did 2 divisions per league	Tripredacus	Watercooler Talk- ALL sports talk	7	02-19-2020 06:45 PM
1953 Bowman series question	darkhorse9	Postwar Baseball Cards Forum (Pre-1980)	6	07-23-2018 10:33 PM
E92 Miscut fronts and sheet layouts	x2drich2000	Net54baseball Vintage (WWII & Older) Baseball Cards & New Member Introductions	10	11-28-2017 04:18 PM
T206 "printer's mark" and sheet layouts	t206hound	Net54baseball Vintage (WWII & Older) Baseball Cards & New Member Introductions	89	07-09-2017 09:06 PM
Question on T206 Sheet Layouts - RE: Mastro Wagner Card	wolf441	Net54baseball Vintage (WWII & Older) Baseball Cards & New Member Introductions	14	07-21-2013 12:25 AM