Joy of a Completed Completed Set - 1956 Topps

I completed this one a while ago, but Night Owl sent me the last Team Card variation I needed. So I may as well show it off again. This time with card backs!

 I think there might be some card stock variations out there too. Oh well, they'll just give me another excuse to post this set again once I find 'em. Gotta fill that last empty pocket with something.

September Vintage Card Show - '56 Set Needs

Either my scanner is busted or the computer it's hooked up to is busted or maybe they're both busted or perhaps I died in a tragic violent accident and the idea that I am typing on my laptop right now is just a desperate dream of my subconscious soul in the afterlife, refusing to accept harsh reality and finally accept my own death so I can move on in this astral journey. I'm thinking it's the USB port on the computer though or maybe the cable if I'm really lucky. In other words, no team set right now, I'm going to show off more card show pickups from months ago because they're already scanned and what else is a wandering soul to do? Have some 1956 Topps cards.

Not gonna fib, I've completely forgotten why I picked these particular 4 cards to add to my '56 Topps set. This one might have been a buck but I don't think so. It's a Pirate card with the odd batting helmet hat and it looks like it's a rookie card and I don't like the birthday. Part of me wants to check to see Art's career on Baseball-Reference but a small voice is warning me that it's quite possible that those two innings with four earned runs are all there is to see. I shall simply wonder, for now.

Here's Smok(e)y Forrest of the Cincinnati "We hate those damned commies" Redlegs. They hated commies so much they changed the primary color on the uniform to blue and looked like a Chicago Cubs farm team. That's dedication to hatin' commies. When I was about ten years old I went to a local card shop and one of the cards I picked out was a 1959 Topps Smokey Burgess card. The guy behind the counter actually made fun of me for wanting to buy a Smokey Burgess card. That guy was, is, and will always be, an asshole.

So, anyway, fuck that guy. This card has an awesome shot of a play at second base.

WHAAAAAA MICKEY. I know why I picked this card, Mickey's a helluva player even though nobody knows who the hell he is anymore. Look at the back, he's wearing TWO PUFFY HATS AT THE SAME TIME. Now look at the front. Someone's lying in a cloud of dust looking through an umpire's crotch. Do you see that on today's flagship? Nope.

BOOOOOOOOOOONE. Is the MLB done with Boones yet? We got Ray, Bob and Bret, is there a fourth hiding somewhere in the minors ready to continue the tradition? Maybe Boone IV said forget all the baseball nonsense, I'm going to work in the automotive industry but TRAGEDY it was destroyed by home runs. Thanks Obama. Ray's action photo is the actioniest and that's saying something in this set.

1956 Topps Hank Thompson

It's draft folder Friday! Check out this awesome 1956 Topps Hank Thompson card!

I got this card for a BUCK! How the heck can you get a great looking card like this for only a buck??

OH. That's how.

Joy of a Completed Page - 1956 Topps

I was doing some maintenance on my '50s binders last night when I discovered this gem.

I can't remember if I have posted this before, but if I did I'm posting it again. Because Spahnnie Banks.

Top 20 Intermission - Checkin' Lists 56 & 65

One of the things I always focus on at a card show is vintage stuff off my wantlists. Yes, I get distracted by shiny dime boxes, but like a dog that returns to its vomit, I always end up at the vintage tables.

While I would very much like to buy up every single vintage card I see, I'm a temporarily embarrassed millionaire at the moment so I have to make some hard choices with my card purchases. '50s, '60s or '70s? One really nice card or a pile of crummy ones? Chase the team or the set? I narrowed my focus this time on four years: 1953, 1956, 1965 and 1972. Didn't do too badly either. Pretty dang good with 1972 actually. 1965 and 1956 got a few numbers checked too:

1956 Topps #119 Larry Jackson

How much would you pay for a rookie card of a pitcher who would go on to win 194 games in the bigs? Larry pitched 14 years in the National League for the Cardinals, Cubs and Phillies. He won 194 games and had an above average career ERA of 3.40 to go along with 1700 Ks. In 1964 he won 24 games and finished second to Dean Chance in the Cy Young voting (this is where there was one winner in all of baseball). Tack on four all-star appearances for the righty from Idaho and you got a nice little career there. Think Steven Strasburg will end up with those numbers? I got this rookie for a buck. Yeah, rookie cards!

1956 Topps #280 Chico Carrasquel

Quick! Who was the first Latin player to go to the All-Star game? That's right, Chico! Chico went to the All Star game four times as a member of the White Sox. He still couldn't hold off fellow Venezuelan shortstop Luis Aparicio and got shipped off to the Indians for the '56 season. He had his best season at the plate as in Indian in 1957, hitting .276 with a 100 OPS+. Let's just say Chico was better known for his defense. This card was also a buck, probably because someone bookmarked it on the corner by his name.

1956 Topps #247 Bill Sarni 

Play at the plate! Who is that, Jackie? Jim Gilliam maybe? This is why 1956 Topps is the best. If you're wondering about the NY scribbled up top, that's because Bill was traded to the Giants during the '565 season. Sadly this was Sarni's last MLB season as he retired after suffering a heart attack before the '57 season.

1965 Topps #41 White Sox Rookie Stars

The coveted double rookie card! So were these guys champs or chumps? Bruce Howard pitched for 6 years, all but one for the Sox. He ended up winning 26 games, and fathering future Royals infielder David Howard. Marv Staehle played one full year in the majors for the Expos but picked up a few games in six others. He has two items of note in his career: His only home run was hit off the immortal Lowell Palmer, and he played 22 to games for the Braves in 1971 resulting in a difficult high series card I had to chase down for my team set.

 

Let's finish up with the first series checklist. I'm somewhat humbled by the fact that I have more first series 1965 Topps cards than the original owner of this card. You can tell this guy is a serious collector, he checked off the card and filled in the box on the checklist. That's dedication there.

1956 Topps Granny Hamner

It's almost 1:30 in the morning and I've been futzing around trying to install a cheap wireless adapter for my son's desktop for at least an hour now. Damn thing won't work and Belkin is no help at all. I'm about to run a network cable across the living room floor and be done with it.

Here's a Granny for my fellow insomniacs and madmen.

Good Old Granny...

1956 Topps Jackie Jensen

This dude won an MVP! I bought him for a buck!

Ok, so he wouldn't win the MVP until 1958. And there's a big crease going through the top of the card. But MVP! Buck! Madness! Two great things about this card: The background with the outfield ads and what I guess is a scoreboard is fun to look at and try to figure out the ads and the scores Jackie's autograph is interesting as well. I like the neat, sensible legible signature with the HUGE out of control Js. Also: no ie on Jack. That's Jack Jensen to you, mister.

Today's edition of 1956 Topps surreal comic theater:

Jackie Jensen hit a foul ball into a football game on the next field over but all the runners came home anyway. Meanwhile Baseball Robin, the Boy Wonder, is blown to smithereens by the Joker's second base land mine gag!

If you don't agree that old Topps comics are meant to be surrealist, just look at those goalposts. Ever sen goalposts that look like warped barber poles?

1956 Topps Joe Astroth

All filler, all day! Here's a Kansas City A from 1956.

Do people from Kansas actually collect Kansas City A cards? Are there any old timers who refuse to root for the Royals and instead follow their beloved A's? Is Joe looking up at a pop fly or a falling bomb in his actoin picture? Why did this man have to play his entire career before Houston had a franchise? Did the Astros ever hire him as a coach? If not, why not? SO MANY QUESTIONS

The 1956 set is basically one long avant-garde surrealist comic book. Joe steals a bus, plows through the front gate right onto the field and runs down the opposing team leaving naught but carnage in his wake. Joe talks down a wigged out pitcher who stupidly got wasted on salvia thinking it was a fancy brand of chewing tobacco. Joe the con man talks his way into the Iowa Caucuses and ends up with 32% of the vote for Republican candidate for the 1956 Presidential race, later absconding with 5 million dollars in campaign donations and fleeing to Fiji, where he would live out his life in luxurious opulence, surrounded by mostly naked island girls. Joe lived a wild and crazy life apparently! Good for you, Joe!

Weekend Vintage

NO SLEEP TILL

BROOKLYN

I had a game plan when I walked into the vintage show this weekend. I had very little time and less money, so I had to be prepared. Here were my goals:

1) FIND SOME BRAVES YOU DON'T GOT

2) KNOCK SOME NAMES OFF YOUR '50s TOPPS LISTS IN THIS ORDER:

1. 1953 Topps
2. 1956 Topps
3. 1951 Topps
4. 1954 Topps
5. 1955 Topps

3) PICK A FEW COOL CARDS OUT OF THE NON-SPORTS BIN

4) IF THERE'S MONEY LEFT, FIND SOMETHING UNIQUE

I managed to hit every goal, in the allotted time. Now that's planning and organization, kiddos. I wish I could do that with any other aspect of my life at all, but I got my act together for a fleeting half hour on a Sunday at least.  Goal #4 was met with the Bob Feller Wheaties card. This post shows off a couple of victories in goal #2.

There were a few plastic boxes full of $2 and $3 cards from 1953, 1954, 1955 and 1956 Topps out on one of the tables. I scrounged through them and managed to find three $2 cards I liked and needed. There were a ton of '55 Topps there. I could have knocked about twenty 1955 cards off my list, but I'm not too crazy about that set so I passed. I eventually settled on what I considered to be the best cards out of the 1954 and 1956 Topps $2 boxes. Oddly enough, the best cards were Bums.

1954 Topps Rube Walker

Rube was basically the Charlie Silvera of the National League. A light hitting, savvy catcher who made a damn good living sitting on the bench behind a Hall of Famer. Rube backed up Roy Campanella in Brooklyn from 1951 to 1957 and picked up four World Series bonus checks along the way. When his playing days were done, he became a pitching coach and was on the staff of the 1982 Western Division Champion Atlanta Braves and 1969 Mets who did something or other mildly impressive. 1954 Topps wasn't a favorite of mine as a kid, but it has really grown on me. It's probably my third favorite set of the decade now behind 1953 and 1956. Speaking of '56...

1956 Topps Don Zimmer

Don Zimmer was young once! Oh yes he was! Zim is better known for his days as a manager and coach, but he spent a nice 12-year career in the bigs as a utility infielder type for the Dodgers, Cubs, Mets, Reds and Senators. Of course he's best known for a little fracas with Pedro Martinez, but the man has more rings than Dominican Pete will ever see, and don't you forget it. He also has a rather awesome MySpace page. I especially enjoy the quizzical look on Don's face here. He seems to be thinking "The Brooklyn Dodgers won WHAT???"

I also did some damage to another of my '50s wantlists, but that will have to wait for another post...

1956 Topps Wantlist

Pay no attention to this folks, I'm just working on getting all my vintage lists together for an upcoming card show.

1956 Topps:
4 Carlos Paula
5 Ted Williams
20 Al Kaline
23 Freddie Marsh
30 Jackie Robinson
33 Roberto Clemente
42 Sandy Amoros
45 Gus Zernial
48 Jim Hegan
49 Pedro Ramos
52 Bob Grim
57 Duke Maas
68 Chuck Stobbs
70 Jim Rivera
71 Frank Sullivan
79 Sandy Koufax84 Babe Birrer
85 Indians Team
90 Cincinnati Redlegs Team
93 George Susce Jr.
97 Jerry Lynch
98 Camilo Pascual
100 Orioles Team
101 Roy Campanella
110 Yogi Berra
113 Phil Rizzuto
117 Virgil Trucks
121 Pirates Team
122 Willard Nixon
124 Don Kaiser
126 Jim Brady
129 "Jake" Martin
130 Willie Mays
133 Ray Narleski
134 Cardinals Team
135 Mickey Mantle
141 Joe Frazier
145 Gil Hodges

152 Billy Hoeft155 Harvey Kuenn
163 Gene Woodling
164 Harmon Killebrew
165 "Red" Schoendienst
166 Dodgers Team
168 Sammy White
179 Harry Chiti
183 Stan Lopata
184 Don Bessent
187 Early Wynn
189 Ned Garver
190 Carl Furillo
191 Frank Lary
193 Wilmer Mizell
195 George Kell
196 Tom Poholsky
199 Hank Thompson
200 Bob Feller
202 Jim Hearn
203 Bill Tuttle
206 Erv Palica
209 Max Surkont
210 Mike Garcia
212 Johnny Temple
213 Tigers Team
216 Jerry Schoonmaker
217 Billy Klaus
221 Bob Friend
222 Dave Philley
225 Gil McDougald
226 Giants Team
233 Carl Erskine234 "Pete" Runnels
236 Athletics Team
237 Jose Valdivielso
238 Walt Dropo
240 "Whitey" Ford
241 Don Mueller
243 Sherm Lollar
245 Billy Goodman
248 Bob Porterfield
249 Johnny Klippstein
251 Yankees Team
253 Irv Noren (have, but horrible)
256 Tom Hurd
258 Art Ditmar
260 "Pee Wee" Reese
263 Bob Miller
265 Sandy Consuegra
266 Don Ferrarese
267 Bob Nieman
268 Dale Mitchell
270 Billy Loes
274 Frank Baumholtz
276 George Zuverink
279 Johnny Groth
281 Art Houtteman
283 Hal Smith
286 Bill Wight
288 Bob Cerv
289 Hal Jeffcoat
291 Frank Kellert
292 Luis Aparicio
293 Stu Miller
295 Clem Labine
298 Johnny Schmitz
299 Charley Neal
300 Vic Wertz
303 Jim Dyck
306 Curt Roberts
308 Chuck Harmon
310 Steve Gromek
311 Hal Naragon
313 Gene Stephens
319 Jack Crimian
321 Jim Konstanty
324 Rocky Bridges
329 Lou Berberet
331 Dick Hall
332 Don Larsen
334 Bob Miller
340 Mickey McDermott
2/4 Checklist

Have 217/340 cards from the set - 63.2% completed

Updated 5/15/15

1956 Topps Football

Set size: 120 cards plus one checklist and 5 contest cards
Short printed High Series: None, but Chicago Cardinals and Washington Redskins cards are short printed
Card Size: 2 5/8" x 3 5/8"
Corrected Errors and Variations: none
Best card: Lenny Moore RC
Key Rookies: Moore, Joe Schmidt, Roosevelt Grier
Subsets: Team cards (1st appearance)
Gimmick: Trivia cartoon
Back ink colors: Red and black
League: NFL
Team Logos? Yes
Night Owl Style Nickname: The Big Set
Teams included in the set: Baltimore Colts, Chicago Bears, Chicago Cardinals, Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, Los Angeles Rams, New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers, San Francisco 49ers, Washington Redskins (Italics indicates first appearance for the team in a Topps set)
Why I chose this card: A 228 pound Tank (back when 228 lbs. meant something) rumbling ahead at full steam.

This is the very first NFL set put out by Topps and the only one in the 1952-1956 "large" card size of 2 5/8" x 3 5/8". The design is pretty simple. A photo of the player surrounded by a white border on top of a solid color background. The player's name, team and position in found in a small box at the bottom. In the upper corner, there is also a team logo. I'm not sure if these were official team logos or something Topps hashed together, but they're quirky and pretty neat looking.

The backs have large, very readable number on the top left corner inside a football. Get used to the number in a football motif, you'll be seeing it A LOT. The backs also feature the typical biographical info, a paragraph write up on the player, a bar of stats featuring the past year and career statistics and a trivia cartoon. I'm not sure a card back can get much better than this.

There is no scarce high series in this set, but Cardinals and Redskins cards are significantly harder to find than other teams. The toughest card in this set is the no-numbered checklist. Don't even think about finding one of these in any kind of decent shape for less than a Franklin. Also expect to pay a premium for team cards as many of them were probably chucked by frustrated kiddos who wanted individual player cards back in the day. There are no variation cards in the set, but there is one uncorrected error. Even though the Cleveland Browns were NFL champions in 1955, the Rams (who were pounded in the championship game 38-14) were credited as NFL champs on their team card. Cleveland fans just can't catch a break, can they?

1956 Topps Football Card Gallery from www.footballcardgallery.com.

Topps Card Numbers - 1955-1959

We'll do the numbers in groups of five years from now on. Topps was very consistent with their numbering in the early years. They found a winning formula and they mostly stuck with it for a couple of decades.

1955 Topps

This here is the standard card number Topps used in the early days. A baseball with the Topps logo on the top of the ball and the card number in between the seams. 1955 has a black number inside red seams. The green TOPPS logo is in an italic font instead of the old timey logo they used in '53 and '54. This is a pretty awesome number, it's large and very easy to read.

Topps also was very consistent about putting the number on the top left corner. Normally it is exactly in the corner but Topps put it underneath the player name in this set.

1956 Topps

Not much to say, baseball, old time Topps logo, number between the seams. The black number between the red seams is very readable.

Card numbers are almost always easier to read on the lighter card stock, but you can still see the number fine on the gray stock.

The card number is slightly smaller than the 1955 numbers but is all the way up in that left corner.

1956 is the first set that had specialty cards including the two league president cards. The back design is vertical instead of horizontal, but the number is exactly the same and in the same left corner.


Team cards also make their debut and they are noted as such just in case you couldn't tell.

1957 Topps

1957 has red numbers inside a blue ball. The entire set is on gray card stock, so the red pops out a little better than black numbers would. The ball is as large as the 1955 set's numbers to make it that much easier to read.

Top left corner again (you'll get sick of me saying this after a while) and the number caps the end of the bar with all the biographical information for the player.

Team cards are marked again, a practice that would unfortunately not be brought back in 1958.

1958 Topps

This probably isn't the best number Topps came up with - the number is kind of small and gets lost inside the busy logo - but it sure is the most fun number they ever made. The smilin' Charlie Brown baseball head numbering system made 1958 Topps one of my favorites ever since I was a little kid.

I thought about saving some typing and just shortening the number location to TLC, but most people would think that was either a female R&B pop group or a formerly educational channel that has devolved into fluff.

'58 Topps also changed the numbering for several of their specialty subsets. The combo cards are essentially the same except the background is solid and the cap's bill is half tone which is opposite the base cards.


All Star cards make their debut and get a star for their numbers. you can't get better contrast than white numbers on a black background.

The team cards don't get similar treatment. Topps used a black number on a red background which is a little tough to read. Dark number on dark background is bad. Since the team cards doubles as checklists, there wasn't a lot of room for a big number but Topps could have done better. Luckily there's only 16 of them to deal with.

1959 Topps

For the first time, Topps completely abandons the baseball motif and goes with a bold white number inside a green box right up in that corner. This is a great number for blind bats like me.

The number is still easily seen on the gray stock. It might actually have more contrast since the green looks darker.

Topps used the tiny number on red again for the team cards. It's actually green ink on red, not black. Of course green and red ink pretty much makes black.

The high numbered cards used actual black ink. You can't get any more readable this side of '53 Topps.

The high series All-Star cards got an elaborate police badge for their card numbers.

Since they are also on the top left corner of the vertically oriented card, they end up being on the bottom left corner when you shuffle through them. Since it's a subset with an extremely different design as the base cards (and is in the scarce high series as well) it's not a big deal.

I'm not sure which one of these I'd consider to be the best. 1958 is my favorite. The '59's are stout. The 1955 number is an archetype. The '59 All-Star number is a work of art. I know one thing though, the '58 and '59 team card numbers are the pits.

Up next: 1960-1964. Bold, boring, and blinding.