1962 Bazooka tin printing plate

[Archive]

Posted By: fkw

I just picked this up.


Battey/Spahn/Thomas

I was wondering if these are fairly common?
Was it something that came from some sort of Topps Archive sale in the past?
Or is is fairly unique to find something like this? Does anyone else have one?

PS. the back has very old masking tape with the words "Light Blue" written on it.

[Archive]

Posted By: davidcycleback

I had some very similar aluminum items for 1962 Topps football cards and they came from the 1989 Topps Archive Auction. They were referred to as proofs. I suspect they're scarce as I rarely see them.

If yours says light blue on back, it seem yours is a printing plate. It should be rare, as you rarely see any printing plates for 1950s-80s baseball cards. I don't recall seeing a Bazooka printing plate before.

In practice, lithograph printers often or even usually 'whiped' the plates clean when they were done so they could use the metal for a new printing project. This explains you rarely see old lithograph printing plates, even for newer stuff like 1989 Upper Deck or 1987 Fleer. They wanted the metal for new projects.