Reading the "Comics"

One "test" set that gets little attention by collectors is the 1979 Topps Comics. Now, there are many reasons for that. They were bought by sellers in great quantities, so they're not that difficult to find unopened. Collectors didn't really care for the artwork, despite being very colorful. And since the comics themselves were wrapped around a piece of gum (similar to the way Topps does for its own Bazooka line; in fact, the wrapper itself is identical to the "Bazooka Joe" comic), they're never found in pristine shape.

Fortunately, I'm not all that interested in "pristine" material, so I managed to get the first 11 examples when a hobby friend busted an unopened box a few years back. With 33 total examples that make up a set, they were issued 11 at a time in boxes...and the box my friend busted contained numbers 1-11 in it. Someday, I'll get the rest of the set, but I'm not in a big hurry to do so.

However, I'd like to share some of these here today for the benefit of those who've never seen them before. Here are four Hall of Famers:

Comic #9 -- George Brett, Kansas City Royals

One of the things each comic has is a blurb in the corner explaining a baseball rule. Of all the players to get this little factoid, it's Brett...the guy who came charging out of the dugout four years later when he was declared out after hitting a home run against the Yankees because Billy Martin claimed he used too much pine tar.

Comic #1 -- Eddie Murray, Baltimore Orioles

As the comic states, Eddie was Rookie of the Year in '77 and a team statistical leader in '78. In '79, he helped his team get to the World Series.

Comic #4 -- Nolan Ryan, California Angels

I really don't need to explain how Ryan's career turned out or even say how many more no-hitters he ended up tossing before he was finished. I will say, however, that the artist really could have done a better job with the Angels logo on the comic. The Orioles logo on Murray's was more of a challenge, and it looks great.

Comic #3, Carl Yastrzemski, Boston Red Sox

Yaz did much more than simply win the A.L. MVP award in '67. He won the Triple Crown and is still that last player to have ever done that. He led the "Impossible Dream" team to the World Series and will be forever beloved by the Fenway faithful because of that.

Q&A

Here's an email I received through my website recently:

Q:  "I have an autographed 1954 Wilson's card of Ray Jablonski. Is it of any value?"

(The image here is not mine...and probably a reprinted card. I grabbed this image from an old file I had. It shows the set design so my answer makes a little bit of sense.)

A:  All the 1954 Wilson cards have facsimile autographs across the front, so that part doesn't add value.

However, Jablonski is one of the harder to find cards in the set. Assuming it's the real thing and not a reprint, then yes, there's quite a bit of value there. Depending on condition (I need a scan to know for sure) it could be worth up to $1000.

Number 1

The New York Yankees have retired a bunch of uniform numbers, and #1 was for Billy Martin. He also wore the number while he played and managed elsewhere. In this 1972 Topps card, Martin is shown as the manager of the Detroit Tigers:

Card #33 -- Billy Martin

Billy seemed to really enjoy his uniform number. Looking at the way he's holding the knob of the bat, it appears he's showing the photographer that he's #1 in his heart as well:

I read somewhere in an interview that Martin said he just posed for the picture naturally and nobody realized until much later about the finger. However, he seemed to always have an excuse ready whenever trouble arose (and it did fairly often), so we'll never know for sure now that he's no longer around to talk about it.

But that isn't the only Billy Martin card in the '72 Topps set. He's the only manager to have his own "In Action" card that year. A manager in action is going to be a limited range of events: signaling to a batter, calling in a reliever, talking with a player on the bench...

Card #34 -- Billy Martin In Action

Or...having a friendly discussion about the nuances of the rules with an umpire. Personally, I'd rather see the picture show Billy kicking dirt. I also wish they could have fit an Earl Weaver In Action card in the set as well.

And look, you see the Number 1 on this card, too.

"On-the-Fly" Design

Recently, I did a post about the 1948/'49 Bowman set and mentioned how its design was better than Bowman's since it actually named the player on the front. That's true for the '48 Bowman and the first series of '49 Bowman cards, but it appears they noticed what the competition was doing and made a few changes as they added new cards in '49.





Here's what the first '49 Bowman cards looked like:

Card #5 -- Hank Sauer

In short, it's an improvement in design over what they issued in 1948:

Card #15 -- Eddie Joost

They took a player photo, added color to it and placed a solid color in the background. However, the designers weren't content to simply leave the design alone, not when another company was selling cards as well. So, beginning with card #109, a box was added to the front:

Card #113 -- Ray Lamanno

However, there are a handful of cards from earlier series that were given the new design since they were printed and included in later series. Therefore, they can be found either with or without the name on the front...a complete set checklist on my site tells which ones have that variation.

Bowman also changed the design on the backs in 1949. Here's that back of Sauer's card:

One nice feature Bowman used was the addition of a second ink color (the '48 cards were printed entirely in black). Having the name in red, as well as the send-in offer at the bottom, makes the text stand out better. The back of the Lamanno card shows some differences:

Now, the name is written out in script form, rather than in solid block. Presumably, since the name is in block form on the front in case the kids owning the card hasn't yet learned how to read in cursive, the script gives it a nice flourish. The two backs also show a difference in card stock. Cards 1-3 and 5-73 can be found with either white or gray stock, while the rest of the cards are found in gray only.

As for that last sentence, you might be wondering: why not card #4? When Bowman issued their first card series in 1949, they left card #4 out of that printing. It's been suggested that the intent was to keep kids buying packs to get it, which is underhanded in a way but not nearly as bad as the skip-numbering Leaf did that year. In any case, card #4 would appear later, in the form of Jerry Priddy.

Another Book Review

Take a look at this classic card from 1912:

The player sliding into third base in the center panel of the card is a man who changed the way that baseball was played. He was also a complex individual, shaped as much by geography as the times he lived in. Before he died, he told his story to a young writer named Al Stump. However, Stump wrote the rest of the story later:

Cobb by Al Stump (1994)

Those who've seen the movie (with Tommy Lee Jones as the "Georgia Peach") are already familiar with the story of how Cobb wrote his autobiography with a young writer late in his life. In this book, Stump goes back to the notes he took in 1960 and tells a more complete tale of Tyrus R. Cobb than the one his publishers let him give the first time around.

Many of our sports heroes turn out to be bad role models. That was as true a century ago as it is today. Babe Ruth was legendary for chasing women and was rumored to have several venereal diseases. Near the end of his life, Mickey Mantle regretted that he wasted time drinking and carousing. Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden destroyed promising futures because of drug addiction. Pete Rose's story is still being played out, but it seems safe to say that he wasted what should have been a certain place in baseball immortality. For every Lou Gehrig, Christy Mathewson or Cal Ripken -- men who lived by example -- there are several guys like Bo Belinsky or Ty Cobb.

Ty Cobb was driven to succeed. To borrow a couple of cliches, he was his own worst critic...and his own worst enemy. Like many great players, he constantly looked for ways to make himself better. Cobb drove himself to win eleven batting titles in thirteen seasons (he was runner-up both of those other years), to finish with more hits, more stolen bases and more times on base than any other player before him. Nothing pleased Cobb more than winning, but nothing burned him worse than losing. His fiery nature and aggressive playing style gained him respect; however, those same things made him feared and hated.

Stump gives a lengthy account of Cobb's life, career and battles with the Detroit front office. He goes into great detail about the way baseball was played while Cobb learned it. He tells about Cobb's upbringing and family, tries to explain his relationship with his father, the hard facts about his father's death at the hands of his mother and the small-town innuendo that followed the tragedy. Cobb's successful business dealings and less successful marriages are also laid out for the reader.

Most of all, Stump tries to explain who Cobb was, how he saw himself and how he played the game. Cobb personified baseball's "dead ball" era and was an innovative tactician unwilling to adapt when a livelier ball changed the way the game was played. Stump tells of Cobb's friendships with Tris Speaker and Christy Mathewson, his "feud" with Babe Ruth and often-sour relationships with his teammates.

"Cobb" will be a fascinating read for a baseball fan or anybody who'd like to understand how the game has changed. It sometimes paints a disturbing picture of the man, but does its best to paint the full picture.

In Honor of Today...

Today is April 20, which we show as 4/20. In some circles, that number has a significance that goes far beyond what gets covered in this blog. I'm only mentioning this in case it sends extra hits to the blog from search engines.

(I suppose pictures of hot Russian women would help the hit rate, but I haven't found any that have shown up on a vintage baseball card. But I digress...)

In honor of the day, here's a card I recently received from the 1934-'36 Diamond Stars set that looks to be "smoked out":

Card #8 -- Joe Vosmik, Cleveland Indians

While the actual year of issue for particular Diamond Stars can often be identified by the color of ink used on the back, that's a little bit tough in this instance:

It's hard to tell whether this card has blue or green ink, but fortunately, it mentions in the stat line that Vosmik led the league in hits in 1935 (Clicking on the picture allows you to read it a little better). Therefore, we know it is a 1936 card.

The card is actually not smoky. It appears to have been dipped in paraffin, which some kids used to give an advantage for flipping against a wall. The substance may have allowed the card to get more distance, but it sure didn't protect the poor thing's corners when it was tossed.

That said, I'm not picky about condition when I can cross a 75 year-old card off my wantlist.

Fleer History

From 1933 through the 1980s, baseball cards were widely associated with bubble gum.  For much of this time, cards of all types (sport and non-sport alike) were called "gum cards." The list of gum manufacturers who tried selling cards by the 1950s has been long: Goudey, Tattoo Orbit, National Chicle, Delong, Gum Inc. (later known as Bowman), Leaf, and Topps. One prominent gum maker had resisted getting into the card business but decided to give it a try in 1959. The company was Fleer.

Frank H. Fleer was born in 1860 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but the roots of his company go back to 1849 when his father in-law Otto Holstein started a business that produced flavoring extracts. After marrying into the family, Frank Fleer was running the company by 1885 and continued until selling it in 1909.  During this period, Fleer's company developed the first bubble gum. Premiering in 1906, it was called "Blibber Blubber" and wasn't a tremendous seller because it was known to stick to the chewer's face. Also during this period, Fleer's brother Henry invented "Chicklets," a gum that is still sold today.

The Frank H. Fleer Corporation was founded in 1914. Frank Fleer died in 1921 but his namesake company became an industry leader in 1928 when it started selling a new bubble gum called "Dubble Bubble." According to the story, Dubble Bubble was formulated when an employee with no chemistry training stumbled onto an effective mix of ingredients that kept the gum from sticking to the chewer's face. At the time that Dubble Bubble was first made, the only food coloring available in sufficient quantities at the Fleer plant was pink. Because of that, most bubble gum since -- by any number of companies -- has also been pink.

When Frank Fleer passed away, control of the company was passed to two brothers, "Bud" and Frank Mustin. The Fleer family was devoutly Quaker -- not uncommon in Philadelphia, where Quakers were among the leaders of most industries -- and their bedrock values and principles translated to a very conservative work ethic. They didn't like to take unnecessary gambles. By the dawn of the "gum card" era, Fleer very well may have been able to been a force in the market. With the success of Dubble Bubble, however, Fleer did not feel they needed to follow its competitors into the baseball card business when the first gum cards were issued in 1933. The company had flirted with cards in 1923 when it made a set of 120 "Famous Pictures" and distributed them along with five-cent packages of Bobs and Fruit Hearts. 60 of the cards featured baseball players, and the set has been catalogued as W515. In 1935, Fleer issued a non-sports card set called "Cops and Robbers" along with gum and sporadically issued non-sport sets afterward, but would not print another baseball card set until 1959.

W515 card of Bob Shawkey

During the 1950s, a significant change took place around the country. The second World War had virtually shut down the baseball card business and the gum business was affected by sugar rationing, but when the soldiers came home and began having children they were so productive that the nation saw its highest percentage of young people ever. The "baby boom" brought in a tremendous number of new customers that would benefit both the gum and card makers. As the 1950s progressed and Topps and Bowman -- both major competitors of Fleer -- publicly fought for dominance in the baseball card market, both companies gained a sizeable market share from Fleer. Topps was a formidable gum maker when it started selling Bazooka gum and only gained customers when it eventually bought Bowman. By the end of the decade, Fleer had lost its position as the top gum maker and was forced to fight Topps for its market share.

In 1959, Fleer signed Ted Williams away from Topps and issued an 80-card set chronicling his life and career. While the contract might have shocked Topps, it shouldn't have surprised them; in 1954, Topps began the downfall of Bowman by signing the same Ted Williams away. Fleer's deal with Williams didn't impact Topps nearly as badly, but Topps did object to the picture on card #68 of the '59 Fleer set. The picture showed Williams signing his 1959 Red Sox player contract while sitting next to Boston GM Bucky Harris, who was still under an exclusive Topps contract of his own. Fleer pulled the card from its set and created one of the scarcest cards of the 1950s.

This card was puled from the 1959 Fleer set. It's available, but costly.

Fleer wanted to directly compete with Topps, but was hamstrung by Topps' exclusive player contracts. For 1960, Fleer decided to try a new concept: "old-timer" cards. There were a few notable exceptions (some of the 1940 Play Ball cards, the Callahan Hall of Fame sets), but the idea of featuring some of baseball's past stars in a card set was one that had been seldom used. The 1960 Fleer set was a 79-card issue featuring most of the great past players of major league baseball and one who was still active (Ted Williams). It appears the set was meant to have 80 cards, as a #80 back of Pepper Martin has surfaced on a few of Joe Tinker and Lefty Grove's cards. 

Some of the players in the '60 set were familiar to the kids who bought the cards, since guys like Bob Feller, Hal Newhouser, Marty Marion and Johnny Mize were still playing in the 1950s. Even non-fans recognize the names of Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb. When the cards arrived they weren't incredibly attractive, featured a lot of pictures of old men and even had a few in street clothes, and didn't appeal to kids at all. In 1960, cards of Mickey Mantle and Eddie Mathews were preferred over those of Mickey Cochrane and Eddie Walsh.

Here's an example of an "old man" card. Bender is obviously shown playing after he retired.

Despite the poor sales of the 1960 Baseball Greats cards, Fleer issued a new set of Greats in 1961. This time, there were more stars and a more elaborate design. According to hobby references, the '61 set was actually issued over a two-year period, with the cards numbered 89-154 issued in '62. The larger set and improved design didn't change the minds of collectors who had resisted collecting cards of players their fathers and grandfathers had followed. Despite the lack of success at the time, Fleer's use of retired stars on cards had pioneered a concept that is in wide use today.

The design was spruced up for 1961, even if the players weren't.

While Fleer was issuing its baseball sets, it was delving into other professional sports as well. Fleer issued football cards from 1960-'63, and focused primarily on the new AFL. In 1961, Fleer featured NFL players for the only time during that era (Topps also issued both AFL and NFL cards in its '61 set). Fleer issued a basketball set through the 1961/'62 NBA season and gave the hobby a lot of key rookie cards (Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, Elgin Baylor). The NBA set was significant because it was the third set of pro basketball players in as many different decades by as many different companies, and would be the last NBA set issued until 1969. 

Fleer may have decided to continue its '61 Baseball Greats set into '62 to devote its time toward signing active baseball players to non-exclusive contracts. Among the players Fleer signed early was Maury Wills, one of the few major leaguers who had not signed with Topps. According to the story, the Topps scouts who went to the Dodgers' 1958 spring training camp felt Wills didn't stand much of a chance of ever making the big leagues and offered a contract to all the minor leaguers there but him. Wills eventually made the Dodgers roster in 1959 and was an immediate base-stealing success. Wills felt that Topps had snubbed him and refused to appear on any of their cards. When Fleer approached Wills and asked him to be a player representative, he agreed. Another player who helped Fleer was Jimmy Piersall; eventually, Fleer had enough players signed to begin the first series of 1963 baseball cards.

1963 Fleer...A short-lived issue.

The '63 Fleer cards were not a huge success at first, but were nicely done. The player picture was nice and large, the photography was tasteful, and having Maury Wills (the '62 National League MVP) in the set was a major boost. Joining Wills in the 66-card set were stars like Roberto Clemente, Carl Yastrzemski, Sandy Koufax, Warren Spahn, Bob Gibson, Brooks Robinson and Willie Mays. Attempting to get around Topps' claim of exclusive use of cards sold with confectionary products, Fleer placed a low-sugar cookie in each pack that was roundly drubbed as tasteless. 

Fleer planned to release more series, but was stopped when Topps sued Fleer for violation of its exclusive player contracts. The courts ruled in Topps' favor, stating that Fleer's cookie -- Topps' lawyers referred to it as a "dog biscuit" -- was still an infringement, even if it wasn't a confectionary item. After the ruling, Topps stood as the sole manufacturer of cards that could be released in inexpensive wrapped packages. 

As a result, the 66 cards released by Fleer in '63 would constitute a complete set. Towards the end of the printing run, Fleer would issue an unnumbered checklist to distribute in packs. To make room on the printing sheet, Fleer replaced the card of Joe Adcock. Both the checklist card and the Adcock card have higher values because of their relative scarcity.

(Discussion on this card was not allowed on PSA's message boards because the censor flagged the last name as offensive.)

After the '63 Fleer AFL football set, Topps gave Fleer another headache. When their rights to issue NFL cards were lost to the Philadelphia Gum Company, Topps secured the right to make cards of AFL players and left Fleer out in the cold as far as football cards went. Fleer missed out on printing the rookie cards of guys like Joe Namath, Len Dawson, Daryle Lamonica and Fred Biletnikoff. They got back into the football card market again in 1976 when they started a 13-year run of "Fleer Action" football cards that showed an entire team in both offensive and defensive formation. Despite being shut out of the card market, Fleer still issued non-sports sets through the 1960s, including "Gomer Pyle, USMC," "McHale's Navy" and "The Three Stooges."

Fleer also continued signing baseball players to nonexclusive contracts. Most of the players were minor leaguers, but Fleer's hope was to have those deals in place in the future if they could have the 1963 ruling overturned. In 1965, an examiner for the Federal Trade Commission found Topps in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act but had that ruling reversed by the full FTC. In 1966, Fleer gave up and sold its contracts (including Maury Wills') to Topps for $395 thousand.

Another event in 1966 was significant for the baseball card industry. The players formed a union called the Players' Association and named Marvin Miller as their executive director. One of Miller's first duties was to try and renegotiate the way Topps signed players. During the long, drawn-out process, Miller got frustrated with Topps and offered Fleer the rights to print cards after 1973 with a product besides gum. Fleer declined, saying that they were a gum company, and 1973 was too long to wait. Miller eventually reached a deal with Topps in 1968.

In 1971, Don Peck was named president of Fleer. He had joined the company in 1952 and was one of the designers of the 1960-'63 baseball sets. Peck regretted Fleer's refusal to accommodate Miller and hoped that his company could eventually get a foot in the card market. The Mustin brothers were still running the business and tried to dissuade Peck because they didn't see any way to get around Topps' monopoly. Peck wasn't discouraged, however. By then, Topps and the union had a deal running through 1981, and Peck tried to figure out how to get into the market by then.

1970 Fleer World Series card, featuring Babe Ruth before "The Curse"

Through the early to mid 1970s, Fleer issued some oddball baseball sets. Many of theses sets featured the artwork of Robert Laughlin rather than photos, and others were sized differently than the 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inch standard. 1970 and '71 saw sets that showcased each year's World Series that emphasized the teams instead of individual players. In 1973 a set marked baseball's all-time feats. 1974 and '75 saw oversized sets of baseball and football legends (with photos instead of Laughlin artwork). By '75 the Mustin brothers were hoping to persuade Don Peck to give up the hope of selling baseball cards, but Peck insisted on one final try in the courtroom.

(An example of a Fleer card with Robert McLaughlin's artwork from 1972. The scan doesn't show it, but it's larger than a standard card.)

In July 1975, Fleer filed suit in the Federal Court of Philadelphia (its home city), claiming that Topps' monopolistic practices had violated sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, the same claim that the FTC had dismissed ten years before. In that decade, the card business had changed; in 1965, cards were still regarded as promotional items to sell gum, but by '75 there was a growing secondary market (what is now called "The Hobby"). The suit took five years to wind its way through the court system, but nobody expected the result.

On June 30, 1980, Judge Clarence Newcomer ruled in favor of Fleer and allowed them to enter the market. In the years since the ruling was handed down, it has been noted as one of the few moments that permanently changed the hobby. The decision also gave Fleer enough time to start making a full set of baseball cards for Peck's 1981 target date. 

1981 was a great time to start releasing baseball cards. Throughout the 1970s the baseball card hobby began to shape when the Baby Boomers who had collected cards in the 1950s and 1960s began to spend some of their disposable income on cards again. Some had kept collecting all along, while others wanted to reacquire the cards that their mothers tossed out years before. Card shops began to open, publications started, and people had begun to see that "gum cards" weren't just for kids anymore. In the summer of '80, a 1952 Topps card of Mickey Mantle sold for three thousand dollars in an auction, and a lot of excitement was beginning to swell in the burgeoning hobby.

I'm going to stop the story at this point, since I don't usually go into territory beyond 1980. However, there is a blog called The Fleer Sticker Project that features a lot of the oddball Fleer cards mentioned here. It's well worth getting lost for a couple of hours.