Posting Numbers

If you've tried to put a set of 1962 Post cereal football cards together, you already know that some cards are more difficult to find and sometimes more expensive than others. One example would be number 110, Angelo Coia, Chicago Bears end. Did you ever wonder why his card is one of the more expensive Post cereal football cards? Or maybe #55 Jim Martin was hard to find? Darris McCord (#54) perhaps? Or #68 John Morrow or #164 Art Hunter? McCord will cost more than Martin, Morrow or Hunter in similar condition and Coia can double McCord's value. What's going on with these cards that the difficulty factor is higher with them?

There are other cards in the 1962 Post cereal football set that are considered short print cards. While Coia and Martin are the only true "single print" cards in the set, there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 cards that have varying degrees of short print status. What is a short print card? The easy answer is that some cards were printed only on cereal brands or sizes that did not sell as well as others, resulting in fewer of those cards being available. The real answer as to which cards are short prints is explored in the Scarcity section under the Cereals tab. The Numbers section is dedicated to showing how Post cereal determined what cards were printed on which boxes.

Post started printing standard size baseball cards on the backs of their cereal boxes in 1961. There were 17 different products featuring baseball cards on various brands and sizes. Two of those products were Raisin Bran and Rice Krinkles. One of the Raisin Bran boxes was a 14 ounce version that contained six cards on the back. Rice Krinkles came only in 10 ounce boxes with five cards. Post continued to print baseball cards on cereal boxes in 1962 and expanded the number of cereal products offering cards to 25. At an overlapping time that Post was planning and developing baseball cards for 1962, it was also preparing for the 1962 Post cereal football card promotion. Post borrowed ideas for the football promotion from the previous two baseball promotions, refining as they moved forward.

The 1962 baseball promotion saw the number of cards on the backs of 14 oz. Raisin Bran cereals lowered from six in 1961 to five. Rice Krinkles boxes remained at five cards per box. Both brands were printed with two vertical cards on the left side of the back panel and three horizontal cards on the right. 1961 Raisin Bran 14 oz. baseball cards came with three different back panel configurations of six cards; 1962 versions of the same size Raisin Bran box featured four distinct five card panels. The notable thing about the 1962 14 oz. Raisin Bran back panels was that Jim Gentile and Chuck Schilling appeared on two of the four boxes. When Post printed 1962 14 oz. Raisin Bran football panels they placed Andy Robustelli and Raymond Berry on two of the four five card back panels, just like they had done with Gentile and Schilling on the baseball promotion. It seemed an odd thing to do the first time with the baseball promotion and even odder when they repeated it with football.

Oat Flakes were not part of the 1961 baseball card promotion. Post first printed cards on Oat Flakes boxes in 1962 on both 10 and 15 oz. boxes. Ten ounce boxes were formatted as six card backs with three rows of two common border side by side cards. The football promotion had only five cards on the back of 10 oz. Oat Flakes boxes. Did Post decide the cards were too crowded on the backs of the baseball boxes or did the size of the box change slightly? Perhaps either reason is valid.

Post used a system to assign numbers for the 1962 baseball card promotion. Their plan was to try to spread out the players as much as possible and try to avoid putting two players from one team on the same box panel. For the most part they accomplished their goal. The 200 player cards were grouped by teams, the first 100 being American Leaguers and the second 100 National. Post started with their staple Post Toasties in the 8 oz. box. The first player on each team was designated to appear on the back of an 8 oz. Post Toasties box, starting with the Yankees' Bill Skowron (#1) and ending with Bill White (#159) of the Cardinals. This filled three back panels of 8 oz. Post Toasties.

Sticking with Post Toasties, the next largest size of 12 oz. was used second. The first player on the next team was #169 Dick Stuart of the Pirates. They continued to assign the first player from each team until they reached the Phillies who were last in order. Upon reaching the end of the player list, Post simply started over at the lowest number of the first team (Yankees). Since #1 had been used on the PT8 box, they went to #2 Bobby Richardson. From there they assigned the second player in order on each team to a PT12 back panel until all 28 (4 back panels of 7 cards each) Post Toasties 12 oz. cards had been filled ending with #67 Bill Klaus of the Senators.

Next up were Post Toasties 18 oz. boxes, again seven card panels, but only two boxes this time. Post was by this time down to the third player on each team's list and proceeded from #76 Eddie Yost until all 14 were accounted for. This assignment process worked its way through 11 and 16 oz. Bran Flakes, 12 and 16 oz. Grape Nuts Flakes, 9½ and 14 oz. Raisin Bran, Post Tens, 8½ and 12½ oz. Alpha-Bits, 9 and 14 oz. Sugar Crisp, 10 oz. Sugar Coated Corn Flakes, 10 oz. Rice Krinkles, 10 oz. Oat Flakes, finishing with 10½ and 16 oz. Grape Nuts. Post didn't stay exactly on course for every card they assigned and did stray by one or two slots at times. The later four boxes of Oat Flakes and Grape Nuts were used heavily to place many of the games stars. One might just guess that Post was trying to boost sales of those cereals, wouldn't they? The individual size Alpha-Bits ¾ oz. boxes that came with Post Tens and Treat Paks were laced with the likes of Luis Aparicio, Sandy Koufax and Roberto Clemente and weren't really part of Post's numbering scheme.

Post also introduced duplicate back panels with Crispy Critters 8½ oz. boxes mirroring like sized Alpha-Bits boxes, Post Toasties 12 oz. top flap matching Flip-Out Spout test boxes and Top 3 10 oz. were the same as 12 oz. Grape Nuts Flakes boxes. The Post football promotion would also include the same duplicate panels as did the baseball promotion while adding the Crispy Critters 13 oz./Alpha-Bits 13 oz. pairing. As stated earlier, numbers of cards on Raisin Bran 14 oz., Rice Krinkles 10 oz. and Oat Flakes 10 oz. back panels were all reduced by one for the football promotion.

The next page will explain what Post did to assign players to back panels for their 1962 football card promotion. You're about to find out why Angelo, Darris, Art, John and Jim got short shrift...and a whole lot of other things!