Cards That Never Were #28

1952 Topps - Stan Musial

In 1952, Topps had an ambitious plan. They were to release a set of all 400 Major League players. Due to unforeseen circumstances, they were not able to produce cards of every player. A few were not included because of retirement. A few were not included because they did not sign a contract with Topps.

Stan falls under the latter category. Musial did not sign a contract with Topps until 1958. This caused one of the best hitters of the era to have cards with Bowman and a few smaller companies.

Since that time, there have been numerous attempts to fill in the gaps created by these missing players. Most come from baseball card fans with various degrees of fine arts backgrounds ranging from extensive to none. The results are usually as wide ranging. A few attempts have actually come straight from Topps, as they use the 1952 design to overkill some years.

When most people think about the 1952 Topps set, they think of the Mantle card or some other iconic player. Those players tend to have one or two color backgrounds. If you really study the photos with their painted facades, you'll notice that a great number of cards have backgrounds that include people and buildings.

With this in mind, I decided to take a 1949 picture of Stan and "paint" over it in the style of this celebrated set. The end result of many hours of work turned out much better than I ever expected. Much of the time was taken by trial and error, but I am pleased with the final product.