Question about short prints

interchanges

Or is it single prints?

Anyway my question is, are they all created equal?

1948 Bowman baseball, 1948 Leaf baseball, 1957 Basketball, 1952 Bowman large, 1965 topps football and many other sets have them.

Then there are some sets that only have a couple. 1952 Topps baseball Billy Loes and 1961 Topps baseball only have a few.
I know some short prints are really tough, while others don't seem so.
I thought a short print meant there was 1 short print for every 2 non-short prints, but I don't think that's so.
Is the definition for short print different for each set that has them?

toppsgun

It would take a PhD in Mathematics to fully explain (convincingly) short prints. I don't have the parchment, but here's the layman's version, as I know it.

As far as post -1956 sets go, Topps printed cards on huge sheets, six columns by 11 rows, 66 cards per sheet. But the cards were issued in series, up until 1974 anyway. Most series ran as follows:

1-110
111-197
198-283
284-370
371-446
447-522
523-end of set

Many more sheets were printed of the earlier series(s) than the later series(s). It is generally agreed that the last series in almost every year had doubles of some cards on the sheet to round it out to 66. The only way to prove it is to find uncut sheets or resurrect a Topps Old-Timer for verification.

Since some series had 110 cards, many had 87 cards and a few had 76 cards, there had to be some double-printing going on within each series or else certain players were carried over and replicated on a later series. I know in 1966 Mantle #50 and Rose #30 both are double printed. I don't remember opening boxes from that year, but I suspect Mantle and Rose appeared in 2nd series packs, too.

I did know someone who opened up a 7th series box of 1966. He got about 1/3 6th series cards and 2/3 7th series cards.

I'm aware that this doesn't answer your question, but like I said, I'm no PhD. Furthermore, I doubt it could ever be proven, beyond statistical sampling what the short prints actually are in any given year. Supposedly, some of the bigger, old-time dealers with boxes and boxes of inventory helped Dr. Beckett compile the SP and DP designations in the 80's for his price guide.

mikeschmidt

Toppsgun:

Thanks for the message -- very interesting! Do you know (or do you know anyone that does know) the distribution of the 1955 Bowman baseball set? Even anyone that may have opened up a box of the cards from the Paris, TN find? I would be very interested to know any information available -- as it is one of the few issues I have never seen nor heard of an uncut sheet being found.

toppsgun

Sorry, I don't know anything about the pre-57 issues, nor Bowman in particular. But since that was Bowman's final year, I'd expect there is some good history and probably some uncut sheets somewhere. Unless Topps destroyed all the evidence when they took them over.

If I ever find an uncut sheet of 55 Bowman in MINT condition, would you trade your house for it?

interchanges

toppsgun- "you are the main man"! That does make sense.
I've asked a few dealers at show, and instead of admitting they don't know, they put their hands in their pockets, they look up to the ceiling and start saying"well............"

That's never good.

Then it does appear they are NOT created equal.
I would think it's safe to say post 1956 topps sp's are not as scarce in their set as say 1948 Leaf sp's.
Thanks, Scott

toppsgun

For more research on the subject, check out Leland's auction:

1963_uncut_sheet

crazysc

Only other thing I'd say is almost every full sheet I've seen from 57-modern times from Topps is a 132 card sheet. I had a LOT of the 57 Topps sheets that were found in Philly - maybe 150-200 of them in various pieces. Most of them were 2nd series with Mantle.

So, consider the first three series were all 88 cards, and there are no listed short or double prints in them. Think of the sheet as 11 across by 12 down. So, on each sheet, you'd have 88 different cards (11x8) and then the bottom four rows (11x4) would be a repeat of the first four rows. So you'd have 1/2 the cards being "double printed." HOWEVER, Topps made other sheets in the exact opposite format ("double printing" the other 1/2 of the cards) so assuming both sheets were produced in roughly equal quantity, all cards are equally difficult.

Now, the 4th series from #265-352 (if I remember correctly - doing this off the top of my head) has 88 cards. However, there are many DPs in the series, so I'd wager Topps just made one sheet with 44 of the cards double printed. It also follows because they printed less of this series in total, that they didn't spend the money to make a second sheet. Thus, you have 44 cards double printed in that series.

As Toppsgun explained, most DPs are used to fill out sheets - while I've never seen (or heard of) a full '52 Topps uncut high # sheet, the Mantle, Thomson, and Jackie Robinson are all double printed, which would make sense because there are 97 diff hi numbers, so DPing those 3 would make it a 10x10 sheet.