Nearmint's Vintage Football Card Blog

Awhile back, a collector called to ask if I had any 1962 Post Cereal cards, because he was interested in the Bob Lilly card from that set. He said he collected pre-rookie cards of hall-of-famers, and that the 1962 Post Lilly was one he still needed. An interesting idea, I thought.

Today I added a page to the gallery that highlights a few pre-rookie cards. I included a few well-known players that aren’t in the hall of fame, in part because I wanted to include a few 1961 Nu-Cards. The Nu-Card set is one of the few vintage college sets, and it contains cards of a lot players who went on to play in the NFL and AFL.

Today I put a nice group of ungraded 1971 Topps cards up for sale. Included is the comical card on the right. The photographer’s previous experience was evidently with the DMV.

Even though Topps was printing these for kids, it amazes me that photos like this made it onto the cards. Was film too expensive to take more than one shot? When they saw this, wouldn’t they have said oops, better grab a picture from last year instead? Or maybe with their airbrushing skills, they could have given poor Gerry some eyes?

Today I listed a bunch of cards from scarce regional issues: 1959 Bell Brand Rams, 1960 Bell Brand Rams, 1961 Lake to Lake Packers, and 1968 KDKA Steelers. What I like most about these sets is that they include some players that don’t appear in any of the major sets. The card pictured is a good example: to my knowledge, this is the only set in which these three players appear.
There are 15 cards in the complete 1968 KDKA set, with each card picturing multiple players or coaches, most by position. The cards are a non-standard size, and PSA uses holders for them that were intended for “tallboys” such as 1965 Topps football cards. These are attractive cards, but on some of them the dark ink from the players’ jerseys has rubbed onto the back of the next card, making the jerseys look snowy.

Yesterday I added the 1959 Bell Brand Rams set to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. Like the 1960 Bell Brand Rams, these cards were distributed in packages of Bell Brand potato chips and corn chips, and they are difficult to find. The cards are sturdy and attractive, with a high-gloss finish unlike other issues of the time, but many of them were cut off-center. Each card features a facsimile of the player’s autograph, a nice touch except that some autographs are tiny relative to the size of the cards.

The 1959 set includes a pre-rookie card of hall-of-fame coach Sid Gillman. In 1960 Gillman moved to the Los Angeles Chargers of the new American Football League, and his “official” rookie card, a 1960 Fleer, is with the Chargers. Why is it his official rookie card? That’s debatable, but it is generally accepted that a rookie card must have been printed by a major card company, and cards from regional issues such as Bell Brand are not considered for rookie cardism.

Of course, a player’s rookie card would be more accurately called his first card. I often get emails saying “you say that so-and-so’s rookie card was 19xx, but he was a rookie in 19yy.” And so I have to explain. Oh well, it’s too late to change it now.

One of my 2009 resolutions was to move out some of the mid-grade cards I have lying around. So I’ve been selling large lots of them on eBay. This week’s lot is a group of 67 1960 Topps cards, most of them ExMt. Included in the lot are a couple of error cards, Chuck Bednarik and Bob Pellegrini. Misspelled names are common on vintage cards, I assume because they were meant for kids and quality control was lax. Misspellings aren’t bad compared to some of the card companies’ other mistakes: some cards actually pictured the wrong player!

I also have a lot of 65 Ex to ExMt 1966 Philadelphia cards ending this week. All lots start at a penny!

Yesterday I added a large group of ungraded 1960 and 1963 Fleer cards to my sales site. Included is the card on the right, a 1963 Fleer card of Bob Coolbaugh, who looks like he’s about to get hit in the forehead with the football.

So why does Bob look like he’s trying to catch a beach ball?  Because the football was superimposed on the image.  Below is the same photo on Bob’s 1961 Topps and 1962 Fleer cards.  On the 1962 card, Fleer even took the trouble to change the colors on Bob’s uniform!

Remember those old electric football games, where you lined up all your players, turned on the machine, and watched them all vibrate to the side of the field? Well, people collect those, too. C_A_Panther Electric Football has a history of electric football, descriptions of the different types of players (Bigmen, Hoglegs, Chicken Legs–oh my!), and lots of colorful pictures. One of my favorite pages is the Game of the Week, a feature that apparently lasted just one week. The author evidently had better luck getting his players to move downfield than I did.

The picture is the Bears vs. the Packers–but are they Bigmen or Hoglegs? Sayers scores!

I recently added 1960 Bell Brand Rams cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery–or at least the first half of the set. These cards were distributed in packages of Bell Brand potato chips and corn chips, and they are very tough to find in nice condition.

Looking at PSA’s population report, the cards appear to have been issued in two series–or maybe half were included in potato chips and the other half in corn chips? With two exceptions, PSA has graded more cards numbered 1-18 than cards numbered 19-39. The first exception is card #2, Gene Selawski, which I understand was pulled from production when he left the team early in the year. The second is card #30, Charley Bradshaw, which appears many more times in the population report than any other card from 19-39. Perhaps Bradshaw replaced Selawski in the potato chips?

There are three quarterbacks in the set–Frank Ryan, Bill Wade, and Buddy Humphrey–and they all got playing time in 1960. None of them lasted much longer with the Rams, though: Wade and Humphrey played for other teams in 1961, and Ryan went to the Browns in 1962, making room for Roman Gabriel.

Today I added a big stack of PSA-graded 1960′s cards to Nearmint’s Vintage Football Cards. Included is this one, a 1962 Fleer Gene Mingo card. Mingo was a running back, kicker, and kick returner for the Broncos. He was the first African-American kicker in professional football, and he had a kick return for a touchdown in the first AFL game. He led the league in scoring in 1960 and 1962, and he still holds the Broncos’ team record for longest run from scrimmage, 82 yards against the Raiders in 1962. Oddly, he is not a member of the Broncos’ Ring-of-Fame.

You can see all of Gene Mingo’s cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.