Results of Year Four of The Great Bubble Gum Card War: 1954

by +Dean Hanley
By 1954, baseball card collecting continued to achieve new heights. A new magazine, Sports Illustrated, debuted in August of 1954. The first issue of SI featured an article about the Bubble Gum War between Topps and Bowman.

 The SI article details how the hobby of collecting cards had become the obsession of American boys. The first two issues of SI also featured Topps baseball cards. The cards were getting better each year and most kids were collecting the cards of both manufacturers, but as more players began to sign exclusive contracts the number of players appearing in both sets was steadily decreasing each year.

 Some historical perspective 

While the kids of the day were enjoying the selection of the beautiful new baseball cards available, Topps and Bowman were locked in a competitive death struggle. Topps and Bowman cards sat side-by-side on every local candy counter across America, each desperately trying to grab the attention of the boys that would appear every day after school with coins in hand.

Production costs were high for both Bowman and Topps because of the competitive environment. Since the Baseball Gum Card War had begun, Bowman was forced to make their cards bigger and better. The nickel packs now contained seven cards instead of five. Both companies were under pressure to sign the best players to contracts, then to out-design, produce, innovate and market the other in order to survive.

It had become clear to both companies that the gum card market would be much more profitable with only one company making cards. Unlike many industries, a monopoly was possible because the most important ingredient to the cards, the images of the professional athletes, could be signed to exclusive contracts that courts would uphold.

If a monopoly could be re-established by either company, kids would only have one type of baseball and football card to buy and that company would get all the sales. The winning company could steadily reduce design, production and marketing costs and increase the price of the product.

 Bowman bounces back from 1953

It had been three years since Topps had launched its surprise attack on the Philadelphia-based Bowman Gum Company, shaking up the entire card collecting hobby with its groundbreaking 1952 Topps baseball card set. It was the 1952 Topps Baseball card set that catapulted Topps into a lead over Bowman in the baseball card market, one that they would never relinquish. By 1954, Topps baseball card related gum sales had surpassed the one million dollar mark.

The good news for Bowman was that their revenues from baseball cards rebounded in 1954 to $602,000, which was exactly double the sales of 1953, but far less than their 1951 sales revenues, back in the days before Topps was a serious competitor. Bowman had also reduced production costs in 1954 by issuing a more cost effective set of cards.

As noted earlier, Bowman was also doing a better job of signing the star players of the day to exclusive contracts than Topps, but Bowman was still finishing second in sales. Second place is not a good position to finish, especially when it is a two team race.

Bowman as a company was still strong, but was definitely feeling the competitive pressure around it in the market. Sales of all Bowman products had declined from over $3 million in 1951 to just less than $2.5 million in 1954.

When Haelan Labs bought the Bowman Gum Co. in 1952, they ended up getting much more than they initially bargained for. In 1951, Bowman Gum was the leading bubble gum producer in a growing, profitable market niche, including the sports cards business that was well-protected by exclusive contracts. This was the company Haelan thought that they were buying, but when Topps issued its 1952 set, everything had changed. Bowman was now losing money and was locked in the fight of its life, with an aggressive and innovative competitor. Worse yet, baseball cards and bubble gum were an area market in which Haelan executives had little experience.

Warren Bowman had succeeded at one of the hardest decisions that any entrepreneur has to make. He had cashed out of the business that he built at just the right time.



This article is taken from Dean’s book “The Gum Card War and the Great Bowman & Topps Baseball Card Sets of 1948-1955”, which is now available for sale at Amazon.com.

Dean Hanley is an authority on vintage sports cards and has written numerous articles on the topic. Mr. Hanley is the founder DeansCards.com, and with well-over one million vintage cards in inventory, DeansCards.com is the largest seller of vintage cards on the web. Dean has also published “Before there was Bubble Gum: Our Favorite Pre-World War I Baseball Cards”, which is also available in eBook form at Amazon.com and has just released a T207 reprint set. For more information, please visit www.DeansCards.com

If you are looking to sell your cards we would be happy to hear from you. Please fill out our sell your collection form here and we will be in touch.

1954 Bowman: A star-packed variation

by +Dean Hanley
The 1954 Bowman baseball card set has 224 total cards that are printed in two series: #1-128 and #129-224. Both series were printed in roughly the same numbers. Bowman employed some creativity in its numbering of the set. There is a sixteen card rotation, meaning that one team, in this case, the Yankees, would have card numbers 1, 17, 33, 49, etc, while the second team, the Red Sox, would have 2, 18, 34, 50, etc. This team rotation arrangement is not seen in any other vintage set.

Variations Galore

While nearly every baseball card set has a few variations, due to misprints and small errors the 1954 Bowman issue easily sets the record for post-war vintage sets. As for the printing mistakes in the 1954 Bowman baseball card set, a surprising 40 out of 224 total cards have some sort of variation.

The most prominent and valuable variation is the #66 Ted Williams card. Williams had been flying jets in Korea and returned to baseball for the 1954 season. Once home, Williams signed an exclusive contract with Topps. The Bowman Company, which had rushed to get its set out before Topps, had to withdraw the Williams card and replace it with Jimmy Piersall, who was already featured on card #210. Due to the extreme rarity and high cost of the #66 Williams card, the standard 1954 Bowman set is considered complete without the Williams card, when it contains both the #66 and #210 Jimmy Piersall cards.

Bowman’s hurry to get its set released before Topps resulted in many other variations in addition to the Williams/Piersall variation on card #66. Variation cards have differences in statistics, birthplaces, trades and even answers to the quiz questions on the back.

One example is the #12 Roy McMillan card. The first card that Bowman released for McMillan has the following stat line: 551 season ABs, 1290 lifetime ABs. The correct stat line should read 557 season ABs, 1290 lifetime ABs. Although this seems like a minute difference to the casual observer, Bowman had to correct similar mistakes 40 different times throughout the set.

Lots of established stars, but few star rookies


With Don Larsen being the only well-known rookie card in the set, Bowman clearly lost the annual battle of “set with the best rookie cards” to Topps. Although rookie cards are much more valued by today’s collectors, the 1954 Topps set featured Hall-of-Famers: Ernie Banks, Hank Aaron, Al Kaline, and Tommy Lasorda. It should be noted, that Lasorda made his name as a manager and added little star power to the Topps set in 1954.

Despite its lack of rookies, Bowman did a superior job of getting commitments of the baseball’s best players to appear on their cards. There were eleven Hall of Fame players that were exclusively in the Bowman set in 1954: Roy Campanella, Bob Feller, Nellie Fox, George Kell, Ralph Kiner, Bob Lemon, Mickey Mantle, Pee Wee Reese, Robin Roberts, Red Schoendiest and Enos Slaughter. Comparatively, the 1954 Topps set only had 3 veteran players signed to exclusive contracts (not counting the rookies) that were eventually elected to the Hall of Fame: Ted Williams, Warren Spahn, and Jackie Robinson.

The loss of Ted Williams in 1954 was a shock to Bowman, despite clearly getting a larger number of the games’ stars to sign exclusive contracts. Some other stars that went exclusively with Bowman in 1954 were: Bobby Avila, Gus Bell, Lew Burdette, Sal Maglie, Smokey Burgess, Billy Cox, Al Dark, Del Ennis, Carl Erskine, Dee Fondy, Carl Furillo, Whitey Lockman, Gil McDonald, Jimmy Piersall, Minnie Minoso, Eddie Yost, Jerry Coleman and Billy Pierce.

One big star was still missing from both the 1954 Topps and Bowman sets. In a declaration reminiscent of Honus Wagner, Stan Musial did not want his picture on a card. He continued to hold out for another four years before finally appearing in the 1958 Topps set.

Completely New Card Design 

The Bowman Gum Co. was still reeling from the loss of market share that they suffered in 1952 and again in 1953. In both 1953 and 1954, Topps took the previous year’s card design and added features to make it even better. Unfortunately, Bowman did not have that luxury in 1954, as the color photography used in 1953 proved to be way too expensive to expand upon.

The 1954 Bowman baseball cards demonstrated a clear attempt to scale back the production costs that derailed the 1953 Bowman in mid-issue. For this set, Bowman again used the painted portrait for the player’s image except chose to put it on the larger-sized card. Bowman tried to emulate the “pure color” concept that they employed on the 1953 Bowman cards, but without the beautiful color photography the technique fell short. As a result, the 1954 Bowman baseball card design was very plain when compared to the exciting design of the Topps issue. The 1954 Bowman card also has a colored box at the bottom of the card that contained a facsimile of the player’s autograph.

The main problem with the portraits on the 1954 Bowman cards is that they make poor use of the entire canvas of the card. The pictures of the player’s faces seem too small and do not pop off the card, especially compared to the 1955 Topps cards. The smaller sized portrait leaves too much “dead” space on the card. Also, whereas the backgrounds on the 1953 Bowman baseball cards catch the viewer’s eye and add to the charm and beauty of the set. The blurry, painted backgrounds on the 1954 Bowman cards have the opposite effect. They completely fail to catch one’s eye or interest. By simply increasing the size of the player’s portrait, the Bowman cards would have been much more appealing.

The back of the 1954 Bowman baseball cards are even more disappointing than the card fronts. The only new features added to the cards were trivia questions, but most of the questions and answers are not interesting enough to bother reading. Although the card backs contain player information and statistics, they fall far short of the exciting card backs of the 1954 Topps set. The grey cardboard that the 1954 Bowman cards were printed on (probably another effort to cut production costs), made the very plain card backs look even darker and less attractive.

Summary

The 1954 Bowman baseball card set was issued at the pinnacle of the Bubble Gum War and was a good representation of the strategies employed by both combatants. Bowman dedicated more effort (and money) to securing the images of the marquee players of the day to place on their cards, while Topps did a better job of signing the young exciting rookies to exclusive contracts. Players such as: Aaron, Banks, Kaline and Kuehn. Topps also focused on designing and producing a more attractive baseball card that had far less printing errors.

Bowman was clearly winning the battle to get the most stars of the game onto their cards, but it is a shame that Bowman did not design a better product on which to display the images of these marquee players. This missed opportunity resulted in yet another second place finish; in both popularity and sales for the Bowman Baseball Card Set in 1954. The clock was ticking for Bowman, both in time and in money, and they were beginning to run both short.










This article is taken from Dean’s  book “The Gum Card War and the Great Bowman & Topps Baseball Card Sets of 1948-1955”, which is now available for sale at Amazon.com. 

Dean Hanley is an authority on vintage sports cards and has written numerous articles on the topic. Mr. Hanley is the founder DeansCards.com, and with well-over one million vintage cards in inventory, DeansCards.com is the largest seller of vintage cards on the web. Dean has also published “Before there was Bubble Gum: Our Favorite Pre-World War I Baseball Cards”, which is also available in eBook form at Amazon.com and has just released a T207 reprint set. For more information, please visit www.DeansCards.com 

 If you are looking to sell your cards we would be happy to hear from you. Please fill out our sell your collection form here and we will be in touch.

The Bubble Gum Card War: The Great Bowman & Topps Sets from 1948 to 1955 by Dean Hanley.

 Dean’s new book The Bubble Gum Card War: The Great Bowman & Topps Sets from 1948 to 1955 is now available for purchase. For over two years, everyone here at Dean’s Cards worked hard to put this book together.

The Bubble Gum Card War: The Great Bowman & Topps Sets from 1948 to 1955, by Dean Hanley is now available on Amazon.com in both e book and paperback.


 “In 1951, Bowman's short-lived baseball card monopoly was broken by Topps and the great Baseball Gum Card War was in full swing. Consumers almost always benefit from competition in the marketplace and the card collectors were no exception during the Baseball Bubble Gum Card War. The result was the birth and rapid evolution of the modern baseball card.

 Each spring during the years of 1952 to 1955, American boys had their choice between two great sets of baseball cards. The boys would cast their votes for their favorite issue of the year by sliding nickels across the counter of America's dime-stores to purchase baseball cards from either Topps or Bowman. These wonderful Topps and Bowman sets of the early 1950s sparked the addiction of an entire generation of boys to the hobby of collecting baseball cards.By the end of the decade, 89% of American boys would be collecting baseball cards.

 This battle between Topps and Bowman, for control of the baseball card market, became known as "The Great Baseball Card Bubble Gum War." This contest was fought with such ferocity, that shortly after the war began it became clear that only one company would be left standing at the conclusion of hostilities. The winner would take all.

 This epic conflict for the control of America's favorite collectible is brought to life by the author, Dean Hanley, who is a long-time collector and the founder of DeansCards.com, which has the largest online inventory of vintage sports cards ever assembled. Dean writes a popular blog and has had dozens of articles about vintage baseball cards published in the "Sports Collectors Digest."

 Mr. Hanley is also the co-author of the eBook, "Before there was Bubble Gum: Our Favorite Pre-World War I Baseball Cards."

Mr. Hanley combines his love of vintage sports cards, over forty years of card collecting experience, and extensive research to bring to life this fascinating battle for control of the bubble gum card market. Hanley examines each of these vintage baseball card sets from the era, details the evolution in the design of the cards, the companies that produced them, and the two visionary men that made these wonderful cards a reality and started a hobby that continues to this day.

"The Bubble Gum Card War: The Great Bowman & Topps Sets from 1948 to 1955" is a must for baseball card collectors and a fun read for fans of any age.”

  

 Dean Hanley is the founder of DeansCards.com Dean’s Cards is the #1 seller of vintage sports cards and has over a million cards posted online for sale. If you are looking to sell your cards we would be happy to hear from you. Please fill out our sell your collection form here and we will be in touch.

1954 Bowman Baseball Card Variations

DeansCards.com recently received a 1954 Bowman baseball card complete set and it got us thinking about one of the special features of this unique set - the variation cards.  The set itself has 224 total cards that were broken up into two series for distribution: #1-128 and #129-224.  However, many pricing guides maintain only a single pricing series, meaning that all common cards have the same value throughout the entire set.  Interestingly, the 1954 Bowman baseball card set does not have many marquee rookie cards.  Don Larsen provides the only well known rookie card in the set.  Aside from the rookies, this set is also missing many of the popular star players of the time.  Bowman did, however, employ some creativity in its numbering of the set.  There is a 16 card rotation, meaning that one team, in this case, the Yankees, would have card numbers 1, 17, 33, 49, etc, while the second team, the Red Sox, would have 2, 18, 34, 50, etc.  This team rotation arrangement would not be seen in another vintage set.

#12 Roy McMillan variations

As for the variations, a surprising 40 card out of 224 total have some sort of variation.  The most prominent variation by far is the #66 Ted Williams card.  Williams had been serving in Korea, as his 1959 Fleer baseball card set dutifully memorializes, and made his return to baseball in 1954.  However, Williams signed an exclusive contract with Topps, so the Bowman Company, which had rushed to get its set out before Topps, had to withdraw the Williams card and replace it with Jimmy Piersall, who already had card #210.  Bowman’s hurry to get its set released before Topps resulted in not only the Williams/Piersall variation but many others.  Variation cards have differences in statistics, birthplaces, trades, and even answers to the quiz questions on the back.  The example we have included is the #12 Roy McMillan card.  The first card that Bowman released for McMillan has the following stat line: 551 season ABs, 1290 lifetime ABs.  The correct stat line should read 557 season ABs, 1290 lifetime ABs.  Although this seems like a minute difference to the casual observer, Bowman had to correct a similar mistake 40 times throughout the set.
 

This set represents the pinnacle of the competitive baseball card era and we certainly appreciate the rich history that resulted from this heated competition.