? about the 4 cards not issued in the 1955 Topps set

MCMLVTopps

At the 2005 National, a 4-card packet of 1955 Topps cards were issued to those with a high level entry fee...or words to that effect.

The card #s not issued were 175; 186; 203 and 209. The cards issued in the event above had card # 175 as Stan Musial; # 186 Whitey Ford; # 203 Bob Feller and # 209 Herb Score.

The question is...can anyone confirm/verify that these were in fact the cards that wouldh've been issued for those #s had the set been offered in the complete 210 card issue.

SDSportsFan

I don't know who was originally slated to be on the four missing cards, but I seriously doubt Stan Musial was one of them.

Stan did not sign a contract with Topps until 1958, so they could not make cards of him until then.

Steve

WinPitcher

The way I understand it is that the 4 were slated to be in the set but Topps could NOT
reach agreements with them and they were under contract with Bowman.

So to answer you, I believe that they were and it just could not get done.

Thus they were pulled and 4 other cards became double printed. Pearce and Borkowski off the top of my head.

Steve

Dboneesq

Taken from the PSA website:

During the 2005 National Sports Card Convention in Chicago, Topps issued a special fiftieth anniversary four card set of the missing players which they claimed would have been #175 Stan Musial, #186 Whitey Ford, #203 Bob Feller, and #209 Herb Score. If you were fortunate to attend the National Convention and acquire these attractive four missing cards, your set fifty years later is now complete! To make up for the missing four cards, Topps double printed cards #170 Jim Pearce, #172 Frank Baumholtz, #184 Harry Perkowski, and #188 Charlie Silvera.

bishop

Good question. It would be interesting to see what actual physical paper trail there may be, if any, about which players might have been slated but pulled from the set, either because of no license agreement with the actual player, or a prior Bowman exclusive contract, or some other issue...like in 58 when the Bouchee card was pulled for other reasons.

If these specific players were identified in some way it would be interesting ( to me anyway) to hear/see how that was done

cougar701

Including the players mentioned, there absolutley should have been a Mantle for sure...

But then, these were the guys(topps) that in 1953 and 1954 were throwing the excess cases of 1952 and 1953 Topps cards unsold by retailers out into the ocean to get rid of them.

where is my time machine??

WinPitcher

Mantle was signed with Bowman.

The other four were unsigned at the time inclusion in the set was
being contemplated.


The thing with Musial was he was under agreement with Rawlings at the time
IIRC and Bowman made a deal with them. Same for Red Man and those regional sets.


Steve

SDSportsFan

Boy, now that I think about it, my rationale yesterday was complete bass-ackwards!

It makes perfect sense that Musial would've been one of the four missing cards, due to Topps not having him under contract.

Carry on.....


Steve

MCMLVTopps

For those who may not have seen the cards...

relaxed

Here is the phantom card of Mickey Mantle. I include this in my set since its number #211 and it comes right after the last real card in the set #210 Duke Snider.

fkw

I wouldnt be surprised if Topps did it on purpose.
How many kids kept buying packs and packs just needing those last 4 cards for a complete set.

In 1933 Goudey did it on purpose by removing the #106 Durocher card and then replacing it with the double printed #144 Ruth.
so why not Topps.... Topps is good at copying others.