Topps debuted their package design cards on the back of Bazooka Bubble Gum boxes in 1959 and a year later introduced the familiar and classic 3 card panel look that carried on each season through 1967. Only a tiny fraction of Bazooka cards were printed each year compared to their flagship regular issue baseball cards - in all likelihood no more than 1 or 2 percent. The Bazookas were mostly sold in groceries and supermarkets and were subject to a different, rougher kind of handling than their wax and cello products, even before the boxes were casually dropped into a shopping cart.

Natural enemies of these cards are pressure creases and sometimes, on end-of-panel cards, tape. If you've somehow avoided all of those potential pitfalls, now you've gotten to the part where they had to be hand cut from the boxes.

This SGC VG-EX 4 example of Hall of Famer Hank Aaron shows how difficult hand cutting can sometimes be. Even though the edges were cut straight and not jagged, the dotted lines guiding the way were not perfectly followed, creating non-90 degree corners. The surface is quite nice, with good clarity, bold color, and only a tiny hint of light handling wear.

SGC has only ever graded 11 total examples of this 1963 hand cut Bazooka, with only ONE receiving a higher grade than the VG-EX 4 offered here of Hall of Famer Hank Aaron.