A Chicle a day through the end of May

[jefferyepayne]

Card #27 in the Chicle set is Bull Tosi. It is the third of 12 short prints in the 1935 National Chicle set and one of the most difficult short prints to obtain.

Flavio Joseph "Bull" Tosi was born in Beverly, MA in 1912. He was a standout pass receiver and defender at Boston College, receiving All-American and All-East honors his senior year in 1934. Tosi set a school record against Holy Cross with 10 QB sacks and was the first player from Boston College to play in the NFL. He ran track for BC as well.

Tosi played End for the Boston Redskins from 1934 - 1936 after which they relocated to Washington DC. Many articles about Tosi suggest that he was very tied to his community / Italian-American heritage which makes me wonder whether he decided to quit pro football instead of moving with the Redskins. I could find nothing to substantiate this theory.

After retiring from the NFL, Tosi coached at Providence College in MA and was player/coach for the Steam Rollers, a local semi-pro football team. He served in the U.S. Navy during WWII before returning to his hometown to be an employee benefits administrator for General Electric Co. for 34 years. Tosi died in Beverly, MA in 1994.

Bull Tosi is a member of the Boston College Varsity Club Athletic Hall of Fame.

tosi35front.jpg
tosi35back.jpg

jeff

[jefferyepayne]

Hey all,

Anybody still reading this thread? I thought the SP's would get some dialog going. Particularly Bull Tosi. Any theories on why this particular card is so scarce?

jeff

[finalscore]

Hi Jeff, really enjoying your thread! Those high numbers are tough. When putting my set together Tosi and Isola were two of the more difficult ones to find in higher grades. I have always held to the theory that the product didn't sell as well as expected resulting in a shorter print run for the highs. Several years ago I acquired several letters (correspondence) exchanged between the National Chicle Company and the Philadelphia Eagles regarding requests for player photos and bios - really interesting material. I also have the original artwork for one of the cards (Ernie Caddel) which I will post after you highlight his card.

Thanks again for keeping this thread going!
Mike

[finalscore]

Here is one of the letters between the National Chicle Co and the Eagles.

[jefferyepayne]

Thanks Mike! That letter is awesome. I agree that the first twenty four probably didn't sell as well as anticipated and they cut production of the last 12 and decided not to print the final 216. The question I have is why some of the SP's are more rare and valuable than others? Why Bull Tosi vs. one of the other players who was a bigger star?

One theory is that the cards on the corners of sheets were more likely to be damaged during printing and therefore are often the players with the least amount of high grade / quality cards. I have never been able to identify an uncut sheet of chicle's to substantiate this theory but I know others have done analysis on other sets and the theory often holds for these sets.

jeff

[finalscore]

Hi Jeff, I have never seen an uncut sheet of the Chicle's either and your theory is a possibility. 30+ years ago, there was an archive find of National Chicle Gum materials which included artwork and a couple of uncut proof sheets of several non-sports issues as well as original artwork for the football set (and a few baseball). If I remember correctly the non-sport proof sheets were 12-card sheets - a multiple of the 36 card football set. Rumor has it that there was also unissued football artwork found at the time.

It is interesting that the original plans were for 240 cards. With only 8 NFL teams at the time that would have meant cards for just about all of the players in the league. If you look at the letter I posted it states "it is our intention to publish a photo of every professional league player". I think there are a couple reasons why the set never reached 240. First, the cards didn't sell as well as expected. Second, the letters I have between Chicle and the Eagles include request after request from the Chicle Company for player/team photographs. I imagine Chicle had a difficult time getting the photos from the teams which also made their lofty goal of 240 impossible to reach.

Another interesting note about the set is the back variations that can be found with the first 24 cards.

Mike

[jefferyepayne]

Hi Mike,

Given that there are 12 short prints in this 36 card set, it does make sense that each sheet was 12 cards. I took a few images of the non-sports, 12 card Chicle sheets a while back and tried to build a layout by card number to see how these sets were put together. Also looked at where the sideways cards were located on these sheets. My hope was that there would be a pattern to their layout that I could copy for the '35 Chicle short-prints and piece together what an uncut sheet might look like if they had used the same pattern.

In summary, I could not find a pattern that made it clear how the '35 Chicle SP's may have been laid out on a 12 card sheet. I've been looking for miscuts of these cards as well to see if I could determine which cards where next to others and on the edges but so far no luck there either. Anyone have any miscut Chicle's?

I'm at a loss as to what to try next to validate the theory that the location of SP's on the sheet is the cause of some being more scarce than others. Without a find of an uncut sheet, it is unclear how these 12 SP's were positioned on a sheet.

jeff