The 1952 Tip Top Bread labels were the company’s fourth hobby release after using baseball cards as a promotional strategy as early as 1910. The vast checklist in Tip Top’s final issue is made up of 48 unnumbered bread labels, measuring approximately 2-1/2” x 2-3/4”, and includes two different images of Phil Rizzuto. A large star in the middle of the label contains a player photo, name, and team name. TIP TOP BREAD is written at the top of the label and their slogan at the time, IT’S TIP-TOP WITH ME at the bottom, with four smaller stars around the border, rounding out the label. An accompanying fold out sheet was also available from Tip Top in order to display your labels. The sheet was die cut so the labels would easily slide in and pre labeled with a space for each player, which also includes vital statistics.
Bread labels featuring baseball players wasn’t exactly a novel idea in 1952, Fisher’s having done so the year prior. However, Tip Top’s release was far more expansive and featured future Hall of Famers in Yogi Berra, Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges, Mickey Mantle, Phil Rizutto, Robin Roberts, Red Schoendienst, Enos Slaughter, Duke Snider, and Warren Spahn. As of this writing, PSA and SGC have only authenticated a combined 395 examples of 1952 Tip Top labels, 23 of them have been Mantle’s card which is one of his earliest. The highest-grade PSA has given out is a 5, or excellent, and SGC a 9, although that is an anomaly, with the next highest graded a 6. Most of these labels probably ended up in a landfill due to the way they were packaged, requiring consumers to put in a little effort and physically remove the label from the rest of the plastic wrapping. A few of these cards can usually be found on eBay for a couple of hundred dollars, but they are hard to come by. Mantle’s card sold for $6,500 in poor condition in 2014 and a near complete set sold by Goldin Auctions went for $32,000 (Mueller).
By 1952, Tip Top was well versed in issuing baseball cards. After the Pittsburgh Pirates won the World Series in 1909, the brand honored the team with a 25-card set in 1910 that even included a card for Forbes Field and the Tip Top Boy Mascot. Unlike tobacco cards, which were common for the era, the Tip Top set was nearly square, measuring 1-13/16” x 2-3/8”. The cards have a pastel painting of the team member on the front, and in the white border below, their name and WORLD’S CHAMPIONS written. The backs contain a litany of information such as the set checklist, an ad for the Ward-Mackey Company, and a mail-in offer of the complete set, in return for 50 bread labels. The Forbes Field and Boy Mascot cards are highly sought after, second only to hall of famers Honus Wagner, Fred Clarke, Vic Willis, and team President Barney Dreyfuss. A complete set, in near mint condition has been valued at approximately $120,000.
Until recently, most of the card collecting community wasn’t aware of the Tip Top set in conjunction with White’s Bakery and issued in loaves of Tip Top bread in 1921 for the minor league Baltimore Orioles. In fact, new information is still coming to light. As of now, the checklist stands at 22 cards, with Lefty Grove’s card thought to be the most valuable. Grove went 25-10 for the 1921 Orioles of the International League, who won seven consecutive pennants from 1919-1925. The 3-1/4” x 5-1/2” cards have a sepia toned picture of the player on the front, with their name, position, and BALTIMORE ORIOLES 1921, slightly inside the white border. Historians have found a newspaper advertisement, making the announcement that a different card was issued every day, but the advertisement fails to mention how long the promotion lasted and how many cards were issued. The backs of the cards are blank, and without the newspaper advertisement, their association with Tip Top bread would be unknown.
Tip Top’s next endeavor into using sports and baseball in particular was a 1939, 1-1/4” pin with a black-and-white photo of Joe DiMaggio. The top of the pin says, WINNERS EAT WARD’S and at the bottom under the picture it reads, JOE DI MAGGIO EATS TIP-TOP BREAD. Boxer Billy Conn and hockey player Eddie Shore are two other known athletes to make up a complete set of three pins. While these pins are ridiculously scarce, they don’t necessarily hold a lot of value. The Standard Catalog of Vintage Baseball Cards has DiMaggio’s pin listed at $500 in near mint condition, however, a complete set of all three sold at a 2023 auction for $260 dollars with DiMaggio’s pin in poor condition and the other two near mint.
The biggest set of cards Tip Top and Ward’s ever released was their 1947, 163-card set, notable due to its issuance during WWII. Many of the players featured in the set played in the Major Leagues during wartime. That said, the set carries a value of $20,000 in near mint condition and has a black-and-white player photo on the front, with a white strip at the bottom giving their name, position, and team. The cards measure 2-1/4” x 3” and contain a nice Tip Top advertisement on the back, stating at the top, TIP TOP IS A PENNANT WINNER EVERY DAY AT EVERY MEAL (there are several variations) and at the bottom, ENRICHED TIP TOP IS A BETTER BREAD. The Warren Spahn and Yogi Berra cards are seen as their rookie cards, while Bobby Doerr, Ralph Kiner, Ernie Lombardi, Johnny Mize, Phil Rizzuto, Enos Slaughter, and Pirates coach Honus Wagner round out the rest of the Hall of Famers pictured.
Robert B. Ward was born in New York City on November 11th, 1851, and baking was in the family blood. Ward’s father, Hugh had immigrated from Ireland the year previous and opened a small bakery on Broome Street in lower Manhattan. Concurrently, Hugh’s father and Robert’s grandfather, James, was also running a bakery in Manhattan on Eighth Street. When Robert was 8 years old, he started helping his father in the bakery, but a few years later Hugh moved his family to Pittsburgh and continued his baking prowess there (Robert B. Ward Is Dead at 64 Years).
After completing business school in New York, Robert moved back to Pittsburgh to help his father. Not long after, Hugh pushed Robert to go into business for himself, and taking the $300 he had to his name, Robert bought into a small grocery store. Realizing that baking was his calling, Robert sold his interest in the grocery store and borrowed an additional $100 to buy a small Pittsburgh bakery for $400. With the success of his own bakery, Robert, along with his younger brother George, formed R.B. Ward & Co., later becoming the Ward-Mackey Company. To develop the business, Robert and George devised the idea of bread made by machinery that could be delivered clean and entirely devoid of the human touch. The idea took off and soon Tip Top Bread was known throughout the country with the brothers expanding in Cleveland, Providence, Boston, and Chicago. By 1910, Tip Top Bread was also being made in New York City and the company was producing roughly 85,000,000 loaves of bread a year (Robert B. Ward Is Dead at 64 Years).
The Federal League began to take shape in 1913, led by James Gilmore, a Chicago manufacturer and in 1914, Ward was introduced to Gilmore through a friend of his son’s. Ward liked Gilmore’s straightforward business approach and decided to invest in the new professional league and run the Brooklyn franchise. Ward’s team moved into Washington Park, the onetime home of the Dodgers before they left for Ebbets Field after the 1912 season. In the process the team became known as the Tip Tops after being called that by newspaper reporters, and the name stuck. Ward pumped $300,000 into the field, including a 13-foot-high cement wall encircling the entire park and lighting for night games.[1] Washington Park was demolished in 1926, but a portion of the clubhouse wall still stands on Third Avenue and is widely believed to be the oldest standing structure relating to baseball in the United States (Kos and Evanosky). In 1914, the Tip Tops finished in fifth place and 11.5 games back of the Indianapolis Hoosiers after going 77-77. The team didn’t fare any better in 1915, finishing with a record of 70-82 and in seventh place. Ward and the Tip Tops did employ future Hall of Famer, Mordecai Brown in 1914, and he went 2-5 in nine appearances after he was released by the St. Louis Terriers.
When Ward passed away on October 18th, 1915, at the age of 63 due to heart failure, following neuritis and rheumatism, he was said to be worth more than $5,000,000. Ward’s bakeries at the time had expanded to 14, including two in New York and four in Chicago (Robert B. Ward Is Dead at 64 Years). Robert’s grandson, William Ward took over the company in 1921, and in 1924, he merged Ward Baking Company with Continental Bakery, effectively dissolving Ward Baking Co. The newly formed corporation was now operating 103 bakeries and had roughly 3,500 delivery routes (The Buffalo News). Through a series of acquisitions and mergers, Continental Baking Company would eventually be folded into Hostess Brands in 2009.
This post is part of a collection from the upcoming book, “Tasty Baseball Collectibles: Cards, Stamps, Stickers and More from Food and Beverage Companies, 1950–1999”
[1] Unfortunately, the lights were never actually used.