1966 Topps Batman The Scarecrow #24B Raw Batman Blue Bat B Series

Description

1966 Topps Batman The Scarecrow #24B Raw Batman Blue Bat B Series A fanged skeleton in a green cloak, a cage of bars, and Batman in a headlong dive. That is the 1966 Topps Batman The Scarecrow #24B Raw Batman Blue Bat B Series, card number 24 of the 44 card B Series, and one of the most atmospheric illustrations in the set. The card is titled Fangs of the Phantom on the front banner, and it captures the moment from the back story when Batman was confronted in the cavern of the fiendish Phantom. The yellow eyes of the skull are the visual hook of the card, and the composition, with the crooked bars slicing across the frame, gives it a haunted, almost stained glass quality that most other 1966 Batman cards do not have. If you want a Scarecrow card from the original 60s era in a trading card format, this is one of the better ways to own one, and it is a strong addition to any DC villain collection. This 44 card B Series was issued by Topps in 1966 under license from National Periodical Publications, Inc., the copyright holder of the Batman properties, during the height of the boom around the Adam West and Burt Ward television show. The set came in the Black Bat, Red Bat, and Blue Bat border variations, and this is the Blue Bat version with its light blue frame. The right edge of the reverse is marked T. C. G. PTD. IN CANADA, which identifies the Canadian printer, the Toronto Card and Game Company, and confirms the Canadian printing. To be explicit for buyers, this is not an O-Pee-Chee bilingual back, and the text is English only. The back uses the standard story back layout of the series, with the title, a short narrative, the collect all 44 line, and a large color art panel, the design commonly referred to as the puzzle back on modern checklists. The Scarecrow is one of the most psychologically menacing villains in the entire DC catalog, and seeing him rendered as a fanged skeleton on a 1966 Topps card is a small piece of pop culture history. The character has only grown in importance in the decades since, with comic runs, film appearances, and video game fame, so vintage Scarecrow material has a built in audience of fans who know exactly why the card matters. The 1966 Topps Batman set as a whole has been on an upward trend, with the Black Bat version of the #1 The Batman reaching record prices at Heritage and the Blue Bat cards following at a fraction of the cost, which keeps the vintage market deep with buyers at every price point. The cavern and Phantom imagery on this #24B also makes it a favorite for collectors who lean toward the darker, more gothic corner of the set rather than the classic Joker cards. the front is dominated by a prominent diagonal crease that runs from the top edge through the center of the card to the lower middle, crossing Batman and the Scarecrow, along with short scratch lines at the middle left and upper right. All four corners are rounded with edge wear, the lower left corner carries a small chip, and the outer margins are whitened and lightly frayed on every side. The red brick and green cloak colors remain strong despite the age. The reverse shows a large white diagonal scratch crossing the right side of the art panel over the blue field, a small red ink squiggle near the right of the title, a faint vertical crease through the center of the art, rounded corners, and whitened edges. The story text is fully legible. This is the classic story back, a Canadian printing marked T. C. G. PTD. IN CANADA, and not an O-Pee-Chee bilingual back. The centering is even and the colors are rich, but the diagonal crease and the back scratch hold the card at a conservative raw VG-EX 4. Grade Estimate: VG-EX 4