Hope everyone is having a happy holiday. Mine has been particularly enjoyable because I have been working with a discovery that was hidden in plain sight: unchecklisted "Topps" images, more than 100 of them. And more than 2,000 upgrades!
I have been clearing clutter off my aging desktop computer when I re-discovered a folder I had forgotten about, labeled FLICKR. I opened it to realize there were more than 3,300 color and black-and-white images. What initially caught my eye, oddly enough, were some of the Fleer images that I had been trying to ID from several Lexibell files. So back in September, 2015, when the baseball-birthdays site shut down, I saved this folder along with as many Topps Vault checklists and folders as I could save. I did a good job of the latter, so my attention has been turned to them.
An aside – I have attempted to contact BB-birthdays at two different contact points, with no response.
But this past week, as I began taking another look at these images, oddly numbered in various combinations with the player's name, I realized that some 2,000 of them had as part of their number, a number that co-incided with Vault numbers – very early Vault numbers. And these photos were razor-sharp, clear and absent any of the yellowing that quickly overtook the negatives before they were put in the Topps Vault proper. They also were, without exception, larger sized, some quite a bit so.
Here are two examples. I have in no way re-touched any of these images.
CC351 Bill Stafford: Vault release and my Flickr find
This is AD840 Lou Johnson, Vault and Flickr
Carefully making sure the numbers matched, I deleted the remaining letters, dashes and numbers and restored the original Vault number to these Flickr images. Then I moved them into the Vault Folders and replaced them. It wound up being a random assortment, with no folder being 100 percent replaced. But then it became clear that many more Topps images remained in Flickr with no trace of their original Vault number. So in a very tedious process, I used the checklist saved on the Chop Country site to match images and found several hundred more early Vault photos in pristine color that I moved into the folders – Folders ABC, AC, BC, CA got a second large batch of upgrades.
And it turned out there were around 100 more apparent Topps images that have no apparent home. My gut is that these are the remains of some long-lost, deleted Vault folders that no one here has admitted to saving. Orphan images, some of them even have watermarks, but most are cut to the narrow size common to the earliest Vault releases. And it turns out that there Flickr folder numbers are sequential with only a couple of exceptions.
Anyone have a folder that this Lenny Green belongs in?
Just over 100 of the images are black-and-white, some going back early in the century. I have a hunch most of them were or are in various Lexibell files. At least they all have been named – accurately as far as I can tell. Around 200 of them are color images of a much more recent vintage, many used by Fleer and found in the Lexibell folders.
So here is where I am. (thanks for reading this far)
1) What do I do, what can I do, with these orphan images? I am putting together a checklist of them that I will post here soon. I will try to sort them out from recent or MLB official photos.
2) If you don't have the photoshop skills to restore the yellowed old Vault photos to their previous glory for your personal use, I will be happy to send you individual images that you want or need. I don't really have the capability of sending entire folders, but I will help collectors as best I can. Send me private messages or email me at
tfproto13@gmail.com.
3) Is it kosher to post some of these images, since they cannot truly be documented as Topps Vault issues?
Sorry to be so wordy. This was complicated.