Wyatt Earp customs added to TV Westerns

I've just completed a major addition to my recent work on custom cards done in the style of Topps' 1958 TV Westerns bubblegum cards.

Presented here is my quartet of cards based on the long-running (1955-61) series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, starring Hugh O'Brian.

The show was more "legend" than "life," but that's been the case for the past 140 years. I spent a lot of time on the internet researching Wyatt Earp and have come to conclude that much of what we have seen from Hollywood about the frontier lawman has been, shall we say, embellished. Even the first comprehensive biography, 1931's Wyatt Earp Frontier Marshal, by Stuart N. Lake, was largely made up of whole cloth. His fictionalized accounts have been picked up and reworked time and again ever since in movies and films.

The Wyatt Earp TV show drew heavily upon Lake's book. I've chosen to base my cards on the show, rather than strictly historical fact.

Fortunately for my process, there are lots of great color photos of Hugh O'Brian as the title character, so I had no trouble coming up with four cards.

Here they are . . .

While it is not at all pertinent to my TV Westerns Wyatt Earp custom cards, I want to put in a plug for the Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership programs.

Inspired by meetings in Africa with Dr. Albert Schweitzer, O'Brian in 1958 founded an organization to inspire youth to take leadership roles locally and thereby positively affect the global future. You can read about it here: www.hoby.org/mission .

I became aware of HOBY when my daughter was a high school sophomore in the mid-1990s and was selected (heck, she may have been the only kid in her school interested) to attand a stateside HOBY conference.

That weekend seminar inspired many of the subsequent educational and career choices that have brought her to where she is today.

For that, I have to thank Hugh O'Brian.

Iconic London black taxi on new WoW custom

Back in 1990 then-president of Krause Publications Don Nicolay called me into his office. He floored me when he asked me to name my own reward for the continuing success of the sports collectors' periodicals that I was in responsible for as publisher.

In particular, he wanted to acknowledge the success of Baseball Card Price Guide, which had debuted in 1988 and -- virtually unprecedented in the world of specialty magazines -- which had been profitable from the very first issue.

By 1990, the sports division accounted for about half of KP's revenues, grossing around $18 million.

After giving the  matter some thought, I told Nicolay that I would like to take my wife and daughter on a tour of Great Britain. Which we did that summer, spending two weeks in England, Wales and Scotland.

The pubs and castles were a highlight for me. The one thing my wife wanted to do was have a ride in a London black taxi cab. So one morning the doorman at the Kensington Gardens Hotel hailed a cab and we climbed in. Today, 25 years later, I honestly don't remember where we went, but it made me feel good to be able to provide such a simple desire for my spouse.

In the spirit of that encounter, I've now added a card to my World on Wheels customs of a circa 1948 Austin FX3 black cab.

There's really not a lot else that I can say about the new card. So I'll just give you a look.

Standard Catalog Update #3 : 1955 Hocus Focus

The obscure multi-subject Topps Hocus Focus cards were issued nearly 55 years ago and we still don't have a complete checklist of the 23 players that make up the baseball subset. For many years the Standard Catalog checklist has reflected that cards #11, 17, 19, 22 and 23 are "Unknown."

Now, thanks to a report from Indiana collector Tom Akins, we're three subjects closer to finishing off the checklist. Some of you may remember Tom from his days as a show producer in the Indianapolis area. He's given up that endeavor, but is still actively collecting.

He has sent scans of three discovery cards for 1955 Topps Hocus Focus. Tom has corraled #11 Mayo Smith, #19 Wally Moon and #22 Spook Jacobs.

As might be inferred from the incomplete checklist, '55 HFs are very scarce cards, particularly in what collectors call "well-developed" condition. Hocus Focus cards were one of a genre of "spit-to-see" card novelties that Topps tinkered with in the 1940s and 1950s. Instructions called for wetting the front surface of the card and holding it to the light to develop the hidden picture. The quality of the resulting image resulted from the volume and evenness of application of the wetting agent, the exposure time and intensity of the light source, and probably other factors that neither Topps nor kids of that generation completely understood. I'm guessing that a quick dip in a tray of water probably was more effective at evoking a decent image than the spit-spray method employed by most kids on the sidewalk out front of the candy store.

There is a lot of confusion about how, and even when, the Hocus Focus cards were issued. There was a 252-card set issued in 1948 known as Magic Photos. They measure 7/8" x 1-1/2", but neither the name Magic Photos nor Topps appears on the cards. There are 19 baseball subjects in that issue.

The 1955 set may or may not be complete at 126 subjects, half the number of 1948 Magic Pictures cards, but no complete checklist exists. Besides the ballplayers, there are subsets of airplanes, world leaders, "Westerners," sports cars and other non-sport topics. These cards are 7/8" x 1-3/8," carry the name Hocus Focus on the back (but no mention of Topps) and, according to information seen on other forums, were probably issued in six-card strips in a nickel bubblegum pack. Besides the number at top on back, designating the card within the 23-subject baseball series, there is a number in the lower-right corner in a black circle indicating its position among the complete set.

The same format was repeated in (presumably) 1956 when a slightly larger -- 1" x 1-5/8" -- version was issued with 18 baseball players. It is interesting to note that card #3-18 of the 1955 HFs have the same players in the same order as cards #1-16 in the 1956s. Based on that, I'd bet money that if it ever shows up, card #17 in 1955 will be Hal Smith. Since Mel Parnell is #18 in 1956, I'd look for him to eventually turns up as #23 in 1955.
Here are the checklists for 1955 and 1956 Hocus Focus:

1. Babe Ruth
2. Lou Gehrig
3. Dick Groat
4. Ed Lopat
5. Hank Sauer
6. "Dusty" Rhodes
7. Ted Williams
8. Harvey Haddix
9. Ray Boone
10. Al Rosen
11. Mayo Smith
12. Warren Spahn
13. Jim Rivera
14. Ted Kluszewski
15. Gus Zernial
16. Jackie Robinson
17. Unknown (possibly Hall Smith)
18. Johnny Schmitz
19. Wally Moon
20. Karl Spooner
21. Ed Mathews
22. "Spook" Jacobs
23. Unknown (possibly Mel Parnell)

1956

1. Dick Groat
2. Ed Lopat
3. Hank Sauer
4. "Dusty" Rhodes
5. Ted Williams
6. Harvey Haddix
7. Ray Boone
8. Al Rosen
9. Mayo Smith

Warren Spahn

Jim Rivera

Ted Kluszewski

Gus Zernial

Jackie Robinson

Hal Smith

Johnny Schmitz

"Spook" Jacobs

Mel Parnell