Nearmint's Vintage Football Card Blog

I didn’t bookmark many football card auctions this week, but I did stumble across some old matchbooks from NFL players’ bars and restaurants. Many players opened such businesses, it seems, and, in that day, I would guess that most of them provided matchbooks. Here are the ones I turned up:

• Johnny Unitas’s Golden Arm Restaurant
• Bob Lilly’s “The Other Place”
• John Lattner’s Marina City Restaurants
• Red Grange’s Night Club
• Woodley Lewis’s Sportsman Bowl
• Dick Bassi’s Bar and Restaurant

There weren’t many football cards printed in the early days of the NFL, unfortunately. A lot of players appeared on matchbook covers, though, so some card collectors collect matchbook covers, too. The player matchbooks were what I was seeking when I found the ones above. My searches for “football matchbook” and “football match cover” turned up some of the early player matchbooks, plus matchbooks shaped like helmets, matchbooks from college football teams, matchbooks with schedules, etc. It was fun browsing.