?? About 1955 Topps

daverat

I'm working on a 1955 low grade set and notice several cards are denoted DP. Which I assume means "double print", correct? What does "double print" mean? I have seen this denotion since I have been collecting but, never understood the meaning.

EX:
172 - Frank Baumholtz DP


Thanks, David

detroitfan2

David, generally speaking, the term double print means that a card appears on an uncut sheet two times (in order to fill the sheet). The easiest example is the late 1970's Topps baseball sets, when the total cards went from 660 to 726. At that time, cards were printed on sheets of 132 cards. With 660 in the set, every card appeared on a sheet one time (5 different sheets). With 726 cards, they added a 6th sheet but only 66 cards, so each card was printed twice to fill the 132 card sheet (and thus they are twice as easy to obtain).

With regards to the 55's, while #172 is a DP, remember that it is a DP in the higher number series, so while it is twice as plentiful as other cards from the same series, it is still rarer than cards in the low number series.

jimmyg

When Topps went to 726, each sheet contained two rows which were doubled (rather than the last sheet consisting of all DPs). Each sheet was 11 cards across and 12 cards vertically. I can't for the life of me figure out how Topps chose which players got to be double prints. In '78, Pete Rose was doubled. '79 had Bench and Morgan and Garvey and Jackson. '81 had only obscure players doubled.

judgebuck

PM sent.

daverat

Thank you for the answers, judge pm replied.