1952 Topps Sheet

[Volod]

Musings of a mad cartologist, I guess, but what if one had one of these and was interested in liquidating it. Assuming it would bring a higher return if cut up into individual cards - by a very precise, professional type slicer, of course - since, after all, there have to be many, many more set collectors than there are uncut sheet collectors, would it be worth considering? The only ethical thing to do on such a course, would be to inform the grading company that the perfectly centered cards were newly cut, but what would they be - altered, authentic? In that grade, would they be more or less valuable than the uncut sheet?

[ALR-bishop]

Speaking strictly for me as a collector I would keep the sheet.... for me

[steve B]

The "right" thing to do is to keep it together.

If... there was a grading company that could tell, they would all grade "A"

From the look of the right border, and maybe the bottom, all the cards would have to be cut off center to be the right size, unless you lost the right column and maybe bottom row, making for only 16 cards instead of 25.

[irv]

Wow!
All high numbers too!

No real answer on your dilemma but it sure would be a nice piece to own.

[Jcfowler6]

I would be a crime to cut that up.


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[Republicaninmass]

A sheet of low series with May's did 50k. You should consign it as is in a major auction house immediately at the top of this crazed market.

[hcv123]

Awesome sheet. If cut and disclosed or not disclosed and determined would all grade "A" as previously stated. It is unique (I don't recall seeing or hearing of a high number sheet before) - I think it would do really well as is at auction.

[profholt82]

Please don't cut that sheet, sir.

[tedzan]

Back in 1982, Bill Bossert, who had a BB Card Shop in Swarthmore, PA had a complete 100-card sheet of the 1952 TOPPS Hi #s.
It was quite a sight to be seen with Double-Printed Mickey Mantle, Jackie Robinson, and Bobby Thomson cards on it.
The partial sheet in Post #1 here represents the lower-most right quarter of the complete Hi # sheet.

Whatever you do....leave it intact.

I collect uncut sheets BOWMAN, FLEER, LEAF, TOPPS, and a few pre-war sheets. Needless to say, the older they are, the scarcer
they are, nowadays.


TED Z

T206 Reference
.

[Volod]

Originally Posted by steve B

The "right" thing to do is to keep it together.

If... there was a grading company that could tell, they would all grade "A"

From the look of the right border, and maybe the bottom, all the cards would have to be cut off center to be the right size, unless you lost the right column and maybe bottom row, making for only 16 cards instead of 25.

Right, Steve - but can you imagine how steely your nerves would have to be to put that thing in your local library's guillotine cutter?

[hcv123]

Originally Posted by tedzan

Back in 1982, Bill Bossert, who had a BB Card Shop in Swarthmore, PA had a complete 100-card sheet of the 1952 TOPPS Hi #s.
It was quite a sight to be seen with Double-Printed Mickey Mantle, Jackie Robinson, and Bobby Thomson cards on it.
The partial sheet in Post #1 here represents the lower-most right quarter of the complete Hi # sheet.

Whatever you do....leave it intact.

I collect uncut sheets BOWMAN, FLEER, LEAF, TOPPS, and a few pre-war sheets. Needless to say, the older they are, the scarcer
they are, nowadays.


TED Z

T206 Reference
.

What happened to the sheet??!! Pictures?

[Cliff Bowman]

After Ted Z pointed out that the partial sheet is the bottom right corner of the 1952 Topps high number sheet I figured I would try to figure out the complete 1952 Topps high number sheet. I found two more 25 card partial sheets on Google and after a little investigating it dawned on me that the whole sheet was printed in numerical order. I'm sure this is already known to many but I didn't know it. The top fifty are #311 Mantle to #360 Crowe, then the bottom fifty are the double prints of #311 Mantle, #312 Robinson, #313 Thomson and then #361 Posedel to #407 Mathews.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Volod

Right, Steve - but can you imagine how steely your nerves would have to be to put that thing in your local library's guillotine cutter?

That's not the cutter I'd use...

[mikemb]

Originally Posted by steve B

That's not the cutter I'd use...

Maybe Bill Mastro?

Mike

[Volod]

Originally Posted by steve B

That's not the cutter I'd use...

Yeah, I know, but it will not be chopped up in any case... I was just speculating to get a thread going. Incidentally, I think actually it was a sales promo item, not part of a full printing sheet, since the top and left side borders are much wider than would be found had it been cut from a larger sheet.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Volod

Yeah, I know, but it will not be chopped up in any case... I was just speculating to get a thread going. Incidentally, I think actually it was a sales promo item, not part of a full printing sheet, since the top and left side borders are much wider than would be found had it been cut from a larger sheet.

It's interesting that the two other blocks of 25 shown in the other thread also have wide margins that are opposite of what would be expected.

A few ideas..

The sheets once had wide margins, AND wide gutters in between panels of 25 but the wide margins had been removed.
or
The sheets were set up using 4 panels of 25 cards, arranged as if they would be in number order on the complete sheet, but for the high numbers they were placed slightly out of order. maybe to make the collation more random?
or
these are slightly cut down final stage proofs of each block of 25 and not actual production cards.(and maybe used as a point of sale display or part of one?

I don't know if the 100 card sheets were doubled on the actual sheet that went through the press like the 132 card sheets were. If they were, it's possible the left and right sheets had different sequences like many 132 card sheets.

[tedzan]

Originally Posted by Cliff Bowman

After Ted Z pointed out that the partial sheet is the bottom right corner of the 1952 Topps high number sheet I figured I would try to figure out the complete 1952 Topps high number sheet. I found two more 25 card partial sheets on Google and after a little investigating it dawned on me that the whole sheet was printed in numerical order. I'm sure this is already known to many but I didn't know it. The top fifty are #311 Mantle to #360 Crowe, then the bottom fifty are the double prints of #311 Mantle, #312 Robinson, #313 Thomson and then #361 Posedel to #407 Mathews.

Hi Cliff Bowman....interesting coincidence, since I am about to talk of the BOWMAN cards. I applaud your research on this. As I have already said on this subject.....
in 1982 I was fortunate to see a complete 100-card sheet of 1952 TOPPS Hi #s. My recollection is in agreement with your simulated 1952 sheet arrangement.

Here is an illustration of my simulated BOWMAN uncut 6th series sheet. This is not guess-work. I visited with the BOWMAN's design Executive, George Moll, in 1982.
He showed me many of BOWMAN's uncut sheets. And he talked about the printing process. Zabel Brothers, Inc. was BOWMAN's printer in Philadelphia. They printed
the 1948 - 1952 cards using a 4-color process with a 38-inch (track width) press. To compete with TOPPS in 1953, they switched to a larger press (43-inch track).

TOPPS printed their 1952 cards using a similar process, but on a wider press (53-inch), which accommodated two adjacent 100-card sheets (similar to my BOWMAN
example here).




l<--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 38-inches -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->l



TED Z

T206 Reference
.

[toppcat]

Originally Posted by steve B

It's interesting that the two other blocks of 25 shown in the other thread also have wide margins that are opposite of what would be expected.

....

I don't know if the 100 card sheets were doubled on the actual sheet that went through the press like the 132 card sheets were. If they were, it's possible the left and right sheets had different sequences like many 132 card sheets.

I tend to agree with this but maybe with quadrants rearranged between A and B slits vs. the rows like they did later on. The known proof sheet (with the 2 extreme left columns and one extreme right column excised after the fact) from series two shows a wide gutter between the 2 slits but not between the rows on each slit (except for the gap before the "repeat rows" and I suspect but cannot prove the attached was prepared to show the full series as proofed, vs how they ended up rolling of the presses with a portion of two consecutive sheets shown; the slits should run left to right not top to bottom when printed for real). Related question: the 3 DP's with backwards stitching-on both sheets are they arranged 1 left pointing, 1 right or one sheet with 2 left pointing and the other with 2 right?

[steve B]

Originally Posted by toppcat

I tend to agree with this but maybe with quadrants rearranged between A and B slits vs. row The known proof sheet from series one shows a wide gutter between the 2 slits but not between the rows on each slit. Related question: the 3 DP's with backwards stitching-on both sheets are they arranged 1 left pointing, 1 right or one sheet with 2 left pointing and the other with 2 right?

That's sort of what I was thinking, that one would be
AB
CD

while the other might be
BA
DC

or any of the other arrangements.

I don't know how the two different stitchings were arranged.
To me it makes sense to have both of each type together, as an indicator of what part of the sheet was being looked at if there was a problem.
Sort of like how a bunch of injection molded stuff has numbers molded in to identify which cavity of a multi cavity mold a part came from.

[toppcat]

Originally Posted by steve B

That's sort of what I was thinking, that one would be
AB
CD

while the other might be
BA
DC

or any of the other arrangements.

I don't know how the two different stitchings were arranged.
To me it makes sense to have both of each type together, as an indicator of what part of the sheet was being looked at if there was a problem.
Sort of like how a bunch of injection molded stuff has numbers molded in to identify which cavity of a multi cavity mold a part came from.

Yes, possibly like the * vs ** indicators after production and packaging moved to Duryea in 1966. The asterisks were introduced at that time by Ben Solomon (who was at Topps when the 52's were printed BTW) so he knew which slit he was looking at in the proofing process.

I added the referenced proof sheet and edited my post after you responded Steve.