1952 bowman question

[Volod]

Originally Posted by thatkidfromjerrymaguire

In looking at the horizontal numbers listed above, it looks like none of the cards with numbers higher than 197 were horizontal....so there aren't any in the shorter printed "high numbers". I wonder if there was a reason behind that?

The number of horizontal cards differed greatly on all seven printing sheets. The second series of 36 had the most, third series had just one, etc.. Seems to me that the choice of horizontal format simply depended on the player's pose in whatever photo the line-drawing artist had to work with. If the artist had only one photo and the player was a catcher, or was posed in full swing or with arms spread out, his card was a likely horizontal. On the other hand, if the artist had only an ordinary portrait shot, no choice but vertical. For the seventh and last sheet, photo options were probably pretty limited, so all vertical.