1967/68 Target Moon Salmon Backs Warning Long Read!!
thedutymon
Posts: 4,323 ✭
Good day,
Several years ago I was asked to write an article for NSU on the Illustrious and Mysterious 1958 (Wrong!) 1967/68 Topps Target Moon Salmon Back Non Sports Card set as I had extensive experience with the set and some personal information. I did a rough draft of my article and became concerned because all of my information was anecdotal and could not be corobarrated. So my contact at NSU read through it and agreed and we decided to not do it. For some reason I saved the draft on my hard drive. I just found it and am posting it here.
So no critiquing of my writing, remember this was a once thru first draft, with no revisions!!
Sometime in 2006/7
Good day,
So sit back and I’ll tell you a tale…………………………………. First a couple of ground rules, as to the PSA part of the picture (From a first paragraph I must have edited out while writing, but it will still be explained below), I’ll get to that in awhile. Secondly, understand that cards are not manufactured in just one specific year. Lets do an example. Leaf makes a card set in 1961 called Spook Stories, it is very successful so in 1962, 1963, ect. they manufacture more and still sell them. They will still forever be known as 1961 Leaf Spook Stories, even though most of them were actually printed in 1962 and 1963 all the way to some time in 1964.
So, lets start this story, 3 or 4 years ago I was involved in a deal for a large amount of Target Moon Salmon Back cards, not on E-Bay, but through a trade magazine. During the course of this deal, the guy I was buying them from said he had an Uncle who had worked for Topps for 35 years and did I want to hear some info on the cards I was buying. I said of course and he put me in direct contact with this guy through e-mail. So over the course of a couple of days he told me the following story.
Sometime in early 1967 he was at a production meeting at Topps, (He was a production manager in the Non-Sport division). They were brainstorming ideas for Non-Sport cards. At the time Topps was in a little bit of a lull on the Non-sport production side. He explained that at the time there was a lot of talk about how to cash in on the upcoming Moon landing expected to happen sometime before 1970 rolled around. They had already started Pre-Production on the 1969 Man on the Moon series which still had to get OK’s from NASA ect. And layouts, ect. had not even been plotted, so it was way down the pike.
So, somebody at this meeting brought up the idea of why not re-release the 1957/58 Space/Target Moon cards. The artwork was already done, art all paid for, no licensing to worry about and all of the production work was archived. So in essence they could have cards in shops in matter of just a couple of weeks to a month or two. With no costs normally associated with starting a new card series. At this meeting it was decided to explore this possibility and a second meeting was scheduled in a couple of weeks. The guy I talked to was one of two people assigned to explore the feasibility of doing this. After they did there research they came back to the next meeting with some bad news. After reviewing the cards from the series, about half of them had factual inaccuracies in the descriptions on the back, or technological inaccuracies due to 10 years having past since first production, or just plain information that with the passage of 10 years did not make sense.
So at this meeting somebody had the idea of why not just use the cards that still worked to make a new set and number them accordingly. The problem with that was when they determined which cards to use they would have to renumber them for the new set, so it was back to high production costs, when the whole point had been to come up with a way to use this set with no new costs. Then somebody came up with the idea of why bother with the numbering issue, lets just use the ones that make sense and re-release those as the new set with no explanation to the end user as to why. They agreed that this is what they would do. Then in a subsequent meeting of the production team I was told, they did an inventory of what they had in house already as far as paper stock and what there manufacturing machinery was tooled up for at that time and Salmon was the prevalent color being used at that time. So thus is born the Salmon Back Target Moon set with 44 cards.
Anyway it was a great story. But with out some sort of corroboration, it was just that a great story. Nor is this the first time I had or other collectors had heard stories like this. Rumors and speculation about the manufacturing date of the Salmon backs has run rampant for years. And Topps has no information to provide, mainly because until the 1970’s, there Non-Sport production was the Red Headed step child, providing les than 1% of there total sales. So the record keeping was abysmal at best.
Then, this last summer I was doing my usual cruising around E-Bay and found a very interesting auction. It was for a 1960’s uncut production sheet of 3 different types of Topps cards on one sheet. About 2 1/2 ft. by 4 ft,. normal size for a production sheet. And then the evidence hit me like a ton of bricks. It was not unusual at that time for Topps and other company’s to produce several sets on one sheet during the production phase, I have seen many sheets and have owned a couple myself.
What was unique about this sheet is that the backs were all Salmon back and 1/3rd of the sheet was Target Moon. But this is where it gets good !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The other 2/3rds were made up of the following, 1967 Topps Who Am I? and another set of something to do with cars (Later confimed 1967/8 Topps Hot Rods). So if you are to believe that the Who am I? and Hot Rods were produced in 1967 and 1968 which there is no argument on this anywhere, then this is the smoking gun which proves the story from the Topps guy. He wasn’t making it up.
Now to the PSA part, first you must understand that PSA does not have some sort of direct line to the card manufacturers to get there info from. They get it from collectors, Guides such as the Benjamin Non Sport Guide (Which as a side note, Chris Benjamin has identified the Target Moon Salmon Back in two of the three editions I have as 1958 and in the third as 1968) and Trade magazines like the Non-Sport Update and the Wrapper. Anyway there is this collector, I will call, for future reference Collector A. He is probably the largest collector of Non-Sport stuff on the planet. He is a great guy and nothing I say here is in any way meant as a disparagement of him, we just don’t agree on the date of the Salmon backs. He has the #1 all time finest sets in the PSA registry of most of the Non Sport sets and has submitted literally 10’s of thousands to PSA for grading. Whereas I have submitted 6-8 thousand. So years ago Collector A told the PSA Set Registry that the Salmon Backs were from 1958, so that is when they were made, period. Anyway, when I got the E-Bay auction that I considered the smoking gun I contacted him, started a debate with him, Les at the Wrapper, and attempted to get Chris Benjamin involved. I also contacted PSA set registry and had them look at the E-Bay Auction. They said they agreed with me, but had to check with Collector A to see what his opinion was. Collector A told PSA that he did not know what this auction was for, but he stood by his assertion that the Salmon back were made in 1958, end of story. And since Collector A will not tell PSA any different, that is where it will stay.
So that is the gist of my story. I still believe that the Salmon Back were produced in 1967/68 and will always believe this. As do many other collectors. My one big regret is that I did not bid on and win the auction for that sheet, but at $600.00 + dollars it was a way more than it was actually worth. (A year later this same sheet sold from Mastro, I think for $300-400) And I contacted the Seller and Buyer many times but could not get any answer from either of them.
So, I hope you enjoyed the story, and have a great day.
Neil N. Duty
thedutymon
I myself am 100% convinced the cards were produced in 1967/68. Sometime after this occurred I lost the guy's E-mail and lost contact so could not get his approval to be in the story (Another reason I didn't want to do it), so could use no names. he also was very old school and was still concerned that Topps would get wind and somehow 40 years later come and prosecute him for stealing the 2000 each Salmon back cards he stole off the production floor and sold me. The bigger question for me is besides the large lot I got that time (Which came straight from production), why is it that of the other 1000 or so I've had my hands on over the years have at least 70-80 % of them have some sort of Wax Flash, Wax Stain, Gum Residue, Glue Stain issues? My guess is that they came in one or two card packs!!!
Neil
Several years ago I was asked to write an article for NSU on the Illustrious and Mysterious 1958 (Wrong!) 1967/68 Topps Target Moon Salmon Back Non Sports Card set as I had extensive experience with the set and some personal information. I did a rough draft of my article and became concerned because all of my information was anecdotal and could not be corobarrated. So my contact at NSU read through it and agreed and we decided to not do it. For some reason I saved the draft on my hard drive. I just found it and am posting it here.
So no critiquing of my writing, remember this was a once thru first draft, with no revisions!!
Sometime in 2006/7
Good day,
So sit back and I’ll tell you a tale…………………………………. First a couple of ground rules, as to the PSA part of the picture (From a first paragraph I must have edited out while writing, but it will still be explained below), I’ll get to that in awhile. Secondly, understand that cards are not manufactured in just one specific year. Lets do an example. Leaf makes a card set in 1961 called Spook Stories, it is very successful so in 1962, 1963, ect. they manufacture more and still sell them. They will still forever be known as 1961 Leaf Spook Stories, even though most of them were actually printed in 1962 and 1963 all the way to some time in 1964.
So, lets start this story, 3 or 4 years ago I was involved in a deal for a large amount of Target Moon Salmon Back cards, not on E-Bay, but through a trade magazine. During the course of this deal, the guy I was buying them from said he had an Uncle who had worked for Topps for 35 years and did I want to hear some info on the cards I was buying. I said of course and he put me in direct contact with this guy through e-mail. So over the course of a couple of days he told me the following story.
Sometime in early 1967 he was at a production meeting at Topps, (He was a production manager in the Non-Sport division). They were brainstorming ideas for Non-Sport cards. At the time Topps was in a little bit of a lull on the Non-sport production side. He explained that at the time there was a lot of talk about how to cash in on the upcoming Moon landing expected to happen sometime before 1970 rolled around. They had already started Pre-Production on the 1969 Man on the Moon series which still had to get OK’s from NASA ect. And layouts, ect. had not even been plotted, so it was way down the pike.
So, somebody at this meeting brought up the idea of why not re-release the 1957/58 Space/Target Moon cards. The artwork was already done, art all paid for, no licensing to worry about and all of the production work was archived. So in essence they could have cards in shops in matter of just a couple of weeks to a month or two. With no costs normally associated with starting a new card series. At this meeting it was decided to explore this possibility and a second meeting was scheduled in a couple of weeks. The guy I talked to was one of two people assigned to explore the feasibility of doing this. After they did there research they came back to the next meeting with some bad news. After reviewing the cards from the series, about half of them had factual inaccuracies in the descriptions on the back, or technological inaccuracies due to 10 years having past since first production, or just plain information that with the passage of 10 years did not make sense.
So at this meeting somebody had the idea of why not just use the cards that still worked to make a new set and number them accordingly. The problem with that was when they determined which cards to use they would have to renumber them for the new set, so it was back to high production costs, when the whole point had been to come up with a way to use this set with no new costs. Then somebody came up with the idea of why bother with the numbering issue, lets just use the ones that make sense and re-release those as the new set with no explanation to the end user as to why. They agreed that this is what they would do. Then in a subsequent meeting of the production team I was told, they did an inventory of what they had in house already as far as paper stock and what there manufacturing machinery was tooled up for at that time and Salmon was the prevalent color being used at that time. So thus is born the Salmon Back Target Moon set with 44 cards.
Anyway it was a great story. But with out some sort of corroboration, it was just that a great story. Nor is this the first time I had or other collectors had heard stories like this. Rumors and speculation about the manufacturing date of the Salmon backs has run rampant for years. And Topps has no information to provide, mainly because until the 1970’s, there Non-Sport production was the Red Headed step child, providing les than 1% of there total sales. So the record keeping was abysmal at best.
Then, this last summer I was doing my usual cruising around E-Bay and found a very interesting auction. It was for a 1960’s uncut production sheet of 3 different types of Topps cards on one sheet. About 2 1/2 ft. by 4 ft,. normal size for a production sheet. And then the evidence hit me like a ton of bricks. It was not unusual at that time for Topps and other company’s to produce several sets on one sheet during the production phase, I have seen many sheets and have owned a couple myself.
What was unique about this sheet is that the backs were all Salmon back and 1/3rd of the sheet was Target Moon. But this is where it gets good !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The other 2/3rds were made up of the following, 1967 Topps Who Am I? and another set of something to do with cars (Later confimed 1967/8 Topps Hot Rods). So if you are to believe that the Who am I? and Hot Rods were produced in 1967 and 1968 which there is no argument on this anywhere, then this is the smoking gun which proves the story from the Topps guy. He wasn’t making it up.
Now to the PSA part, first you must understand that PSA does not have some sort of direct line to the card manufacturers to get there info from. They get it from collectors, Guides such as the Benjamin Non Sport Guide (Which as a side note, Chris Benjamin has identified the Target Moon Salmon Back in two of the three editions I have as 1958 and in the third as 1968) and Trade magazines like the Non-Sport Update and the Wrapper. Anyway there is this collector, I will call, for future reference Collector A. He is probably the largest collector of Non-Sport stuff on the planet. He is a great guy and nothing I say here is in any way meant as a disparagement of him, we just don’t agree on the date of the Salmon backs. He has the #1 all time finest sets in the PSA registry of most of the Non Sport sets and has submitted literally 10’s of thousands to PSA for grading. Whereas I have submitted 6-8 thousand. So years ago Collector A told the PSA Set Registry that the Salmon Backs were from 1958, so that is when they were made, period. Anyway, when I got the E-Bay auction that I considered the smoking gun I contacted him, started a debate with him, Les at the Wrapper, and attempted to get Chris Benjamin involved. I also contacted PSA set registry and had them look at the E-Bay Auction. They said they agreed with me, but had to check with Collector A to see what his opinion was. Collector A told PSA that he did not know what this auction was for, but he stood by his assertion that the Salmon back were made in 1958, end of story. And since Collector A will not tell PSA any different, that is where it will stay.
So that is the gist of my story. I still believe that the Salmon Back were produced in 1967/68 and will always believe this. As do many other collectors. My one big regret is that I did not bid on and win the auction for that sheet, but at $600.00 + dollars it was a way more than it was actually worth. (A year later this same sheet sold from Mastro, I think for $300-400) And I contacted the Seller and Buyer many times but could not get any answer from either of them.
So, I hope you enjoyed the story, and have a great day.
Neil N. Duty
thedutymon
I myself am 100% convinced the cards were produced in 1967/68. Sometime after this occurred I lost the guy's E-mail and lost contact so could not get his approval to be in the story (Another reason I didn't want to do it), so could use no names. he also was very old school and was still concerned that Topps would get wind and somehow 40 years later come and prosecute him for stealing the 2000 each Salmon back cards he stole off the production floor and sold me. The bigger question for me is besides the large lot I got that time (Which came straight from production), why is it that of the other 1000 or so I've had my hands on over the years have at least 70-80 % of them have some sort of Wax Flash, Wax Stain, Gum Residue, Glue Stain issues? My guess is that they came in one or two card packs!!!
Neil
Actually Collect Non Sport, but am just so full of myself I post all over the place !!!!!!!
0
Comments
Take it easy,
Jared
Caught between the Scylla and Charibdes,
Hypnotized by you if I should linger,
Staring at the ring around your finger" - Sting
Ray Thiel (1964-2007) - the man who showed me more wonderful games & gaming sessions than I ever dreamed possible... you ran out of hit points too young, my friend.
<< <i>I myself am 100% convinced the cards were produced in 1967/68. >>
Me too.
Steve
"All evil needs to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
Thanks for sharing.
Bob
email bcmiller7@comcast.net
Mark
I think the 1956 Crockett Orange backs are basically the same as the 'salmon backs'
I have some 'salmon backs' that are more orange than salmon and have heard them being called orange backs
too.
Steve
<< <i>Mark
I think the 1956 Crockett Orange backs are basically the same as the 'salmon backs'
I have some 'salmon backs' that are more orange than salmon and have heard them being called orange backs
too.
Steve >>
Steve,
I am holding in my hand as I speak, Three (3) 1956 Davy Orange backs, three different versions (Shades of Orange, or mostly accent colors Whites/Grays/Tans) and I can tell you without hesitation the Salmon back I am holding in my other hand is a different color...Period....Not even an event for discussion, not only a different color, but looks of a different, more modern age, more processed manufacturing!!!!! Even the pixels are better more consistent, more uniform....!!!
Neil
<< <i>Not even an event for discussion >>
Ok.
Sorry I brought it into the thread.
Steve