1956 Topps reverse side

Although card backs are rarely mentioned, the back can be highly fascinating. By offering facts that people might not be aware of, they complete a picture. A treasure trove of interesting, amusing, and practical information on baseball trivia. Children and adults both enjoyed the cartoons on the back. Some of them featured tests on baseball's history or regulations.

1956 Topps is similar in design to 1955 and 1954 cards and sometimes use the same pictures. This set features 340 player cards using 2 player photos on the front, one color portrait and one black and white action photo.

Two unnumbered checklists were included which was a Topps first. Because these were often tossed away, they can carry a premium today. Also team cards were introduced for the first time in a Topps set. Of the sixteen team cards that are in the 1956 set, six come with three different variations and two of those have gray and white back variations. The three team card variations have either the team name centered on the front of the card, are dated with the year 1955, or have the team name to the far left. it is the dated examples which are valued the highest

Cards 1 thru 180 have either white or gray backs with the first 100 cards containing more white backs while the last 80 cards contain more gray back examples. The remaining 160 cards in the set are all of the gray back variety. The back of a player's card contains the number, the players name, height, weight, and home along with his position, team, the way he throws and bats and his birthdate. The middle section of the card takes up nearly half of the card back and has three colorful cartoons depicting different career highlights or personal information. The lower section of the card back supplies that player's statistical information from the previous season and his career totals from the major or minor leagues.

Series

Series I: 1-100
Series II: 101-180
Series III: 181-260
Series IV: 261-340
There is no “high” series

Checklist

Number	Player
11A	Chicago Cubs TC (No Date Name Centered)
11B	Chicago Cubs TC (Dated 1955)
11C	Chicago Cubs TC (No Date Name Left)
11D	Chicago Cubs TC GB
15	Ernie Banks DP
15A	Ernie Banks GB
41	Hank Sauer
41A	Hank Sauer GB
66	Bob Speake
66A	Bob Speake GB
74	Jim King
74A	Jim King GB
96	Bill Tremel
96A	Bill Tremel GB
102	Jim Davis
102	Jim Davis WB
112	Dee Fondy
112	Dee Fondy WB
124	Don Kaiser
124	Don Kaiser WB
142	Gene Baker
142	Gene Baker WB
179	Harry Chiti
179	Harry Chiti WB
182	Paul Minner
194	Monte Irvin
214	Bob Rush
227	Russ Meyer
250	Larry Doby
259	Sam Jones
282	Warren Hacker
285	Eddie Miksis
291	Frank Kellert RC
314	Hobie Landrith
335	Don Hoak