Nearmint's Vintage Football Card Blog

Houston Antwine, a defensive lineman from 1961 to 1972 for the Boston/New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles, passed away last night, according to the Boston Globe web site. His wife passed away today. Antwine was an American Football League All-Star six straight seasons, from 1963 to 1968.

Antwine appeared on numerous football cards and stamps during his career. The cards pictured here are his rookie card, a 1964 Topps, and his last card, a 1970 Topps. You can see all of Antwine’s cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

It’s not unusual to encounter football cards of players who have the same name. Among others, I have cards of two J.D. Smiths, two Gene Washingtons, two Bob Boyds, and three Bob Browns. I also have cards of two Bobby Dodds, but it was only yesterday that I learned that they were father and son. Bobby Dodd Sr. appeared on a 1955 Topps All-American card, and Bobby Dodd Jr. appeared in the 1961 Nu-Card set. I believe these were their only cards.

Dodd Sr. was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame as both a player at Tennesse and a coach at Georgia Tech. Dodd Jr. was a quarterback and defensive back at Florida. From what I can tell, they met on the field three times, when Georgia Tech played Florida in 1960, 1961, and 1962. Florida won the 1960 game on a last-minute two-point conversion, and Georgia Tech shut out the Gators in 1961 and 1962.

Today is the 40th anniversary of the longest NFL game, a Christmas Day AFC semi-final playoff game between the Miami Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs. The game went 7 minutes and 40 seconds into the second overtime before Garo Yepremian ended it with a field goal. The final score: Miami 27, Kansas City 24.

Kansas City’s Ed Podolak was the star of the game; he rushed, received, and returned the ball for a total of 350 yards. The Pro Football Hall of Fame’s summary of the game includes a great photo of Podolak in action. Dig the facemask!

Topps commemorated the game in 1972, sort of. The 1972 Topps football card set was the first to contain a card for each of the previous years’ playoff games, and the Miami-Kansas City marathon happened to be one of them. Unfortuately, Topps missed an opportunity and didn’t mention that the game was the league’s longest ever. I believe that’s Ed Podolak running the ball on the front of the card. Podolak wore number 14, and that facemask looks familiar.

Merry Christmas!

Clyde Conner, an end for the San Francisco 49ers from 1956 to 1963, passed away on December 12. There is an article about Conner on the San Francisco Chronicle web site. Connor’s best season was 1958, when he caught 49 passes for 512 yards and 5 touchdowns.

The card shown here is Conner’s rookie card, a 1957 Topps, issued in his second season. He would appear on several more cards in his career, and on at least one team issue photo. You can see all of Clyde Conner’s cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

Bill “Red” Moore, a guard for the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1947 to 1949, passed away on December 14. The Beaver County (Pennsylvania) Times web site has a report.

Moore appeared on one football card, the 1948 Bowman card pictured here.

If you collect 1959 Topps football cards, you probably have seen cards with a dark mark on the bottom. You probably also have figured out that the dark mark is from the card below on the uncut sheet. Topps got a little artsy in 1959 and let the images of the players extend into the top border. Consequently, the cards don’t have to be too far off-center to have gotten a bit of the card below.

Shown here is an example, a Bart Starr card that is shifted far enough upward that it shows a bit of another player’s scalp. The other player in this case happens to be Ernie Stautner. In turn, the football in Starr’s hand extended into the top border, and most of the ball ended up on the bottom of someone else’s card.

So what, you ask? Well, I am piecing together a virtual uncut sheet of first series 1959 Topps cards, and clues from off-center cards are helping me piece the sheet together. You can see the modest beginnings of a first series sheet on my Virtual Uncut Sheets in Progress page. You can help: if you find another 1959 Topps first series card that shows a bit of a neighboring card, send me a picture of it.

What about the second series 1959 Topps sheet? Well, that one was easy, because I found a picture of a real one. You can see the virtual version in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

Glen Holloway, a guard from 1970 to 1974 for the Chicago Bears and Cleveland Browns, passed away on December 20. The Corpus Christi Caller Times web site has a report. Holloway also played one season for the World Football League’s Shreveport Steamer, according to the article.

Holloway appeared on one football card, the 1973 Topps card pictured here. He also appeared on a 1972 Sunoco stamp.

Bill Stits, who played in the NFL from 1954 to 1961 for the Detroit Lions, San Francisco 49ers, Washington Redskins, and New York Giants, passed away on December 5. At various times in his career, Stits was a defensive back, running back, punt returner, and kick returner. He intercepted six passes and recovered a fumble in his rookie season in Detroit, and he made the Pro Bowl that year.

The cards pictured here are Stit’s rookie card, a 1954 Bowman, and his 1956 Topps card. He also appeared on two 49ers team issue photos, in 1957 and 1958. I don’t yet have his 1957 photo, but can see his 1958 photo in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

Happy Tuesday–and happy holidays! Here are this week’s interesting eBay auctions for vintage football cards and related collectibles:

• Apparently, some 1961 Lake to Lake Packers cards, such as this short print Bill Quinlan card, came stapled to the Lake to Lake dairy product.
• Speaking of short print Lake to Lake cards, here’s another one you don’t see often: a Lake to Lake Bart Starr card graded SGC 86.
• And on the subject of tough regional sets, seller csacards3 has a bunch of 1967 Royal Castle Dolphins cards for sale. The short prints in this set are even tougher than those in the Lake to Lake Packers set.
• Uncut sheet of the week: a 1975 Topps half-sheet.
• Miscuts of the week: 1948 Bowman Thomas Farmer and Joe Muha cards, each showing bits of 3 other cards. It looks like the Farmer card was next to an Ernie Steele card which is also for sale. The Steele card was in the far right column of the uncut sheet, or it would gotten a sliver of the next card, too.
• Seller jonsstats has three 1926 Shotwell Red Grange cards up for auction, starting at 99 cents.
• Jonnstats also has a full set of 1961 Fleer Magic Message insert cards for sale; they also started at 99 cents. (The Magic Message inserts were mentioned on 1961 Fleer football card wrappers. You can see examples on my vintage football card wrappers page.)
• This 1961 Golden Tulip Chargers Don Rogers card is one of only two Golden Tulip cards graded PSA 8 or better. (What’s a Golden Tulip card, you ask? You can see the whole set in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.)
• Finally, here are a couple of full panels of 1966 American Oil All-Pro stamps: one featuring Deacon Jones, and another featuring Bob Lilly. The stamps were to be stuck on a game sheet. If you finished a row on the game sheet, you won a prize.

Harley Sewell, who played guard from 1953 to 1963 for the Detroit Lions and Los Angeles Rams, passed away on December 17. The Austin Statesman web site has a report. Sewell was selected for the Pro Bowl four times while with Detroit, and he played on the Lions’ NFL Championship teams of 1953 and 1957.

The cards pictured here are Sewell’s rookie card, a 1953 Bowman, and his last card, a 1963 Topps. The 1953 card is evidence that Sewell was highly regarded coming out of college, because it was unusual in the 1950s for a player, especially a lineman, to appear on a card in his rookie season. The 1963 card pictures him still with the Lions, but he played for the Rams in 1963. He also appeared on a 1959 Topps card and a 1962 Post Cereal card.

Last week I added 1953 Los Angeles Rams Team Issue football cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. This was the first of five team sets that the Rams issued in the 1950s. The 1954, 1955, and 1957 cards also have black borders, and the Rams reused some of the images from year to year, so you sometimes have to look at a card’s back to determine its year. If you look through the 1955 Rams Team Issue cards in the Gallery, you can see some of the reused images.

Fans ordered the cards directly from the Rams, evidently. The 1953 set I obtained was still in the original envelope, pictured below.

I tried something new while entering the 1953 cards in my database: I added a note for each card. As I wrote in a previous article, I like it when collectors add notes when registering their graded cards, so I thought I would start entering notes for cards in the Gallery. I’ll never cover all of the cards, but when I learn something interesting about a card or a player, I’ll make a note of it. while researching this set, for example, I learned that most of the 1953 Rams players appeared in the film Crazy Legs, and that two of the players became the first head coaches of expansion teams. Check out my bits of trivia, and let me know what you think.

Happy Tuesday! Here are this week’s interesting eBay auctions for vintage football cards and related collectibles:

• This 1967 Topps Joe Namath card was actually a piece of a board game produced in 1969. See a previous article for a description of the Milton Bradley Win-A-Card cards and game.
• This is my new all-time favorite image on a football collectible: Don Joyce on his 1960 Jay’s Publishing Baltimore Colts team issue photo.
• These are kind of cool: playing cards that show Fran Tarkenton’s touchdown pass to Bill Herron to win the 1959 SEC title.
• Something else I haven’t seen before: a 1926 Spalding Champions card that’s still in its sleeve. Too bad it’s stuck to it.
• There are a bunch of 1969 Drenks Potato Chip Green Bay Packers Pins up for auction this week, including a complete set.
• I have seen plenty of empty football card wrappers and boxes for sale, but never an empty case. Why not–we collect everything else!
• Here are two pre-rookie cards of Hall of Famers from the 1950 Admiral TV Los Angeles Rams set: Joe Stydahar and Mel Hein. Stydahar’s “official” rookie cards are his 1952 Bowman Large and 1952 Bowman Small cards, Hein’s is a 1955 Topps All-American.
• It was fun scrolling through these: 12 of the 13 All-American Football 1948 Topps Magic Photos.
• Here’s a complete set I don’t see too often: 1963 IDL Pittsburgh Steelers.
• And, finally, two miscut 1955 Topps All-Americans: Erny Pinckert, with a bit of Bob Wilson’s card on the left, and Gene McEver, with a bit of Chub Peabody’s card on the bottom. I’ll add these two pieces to my virtual uncut sheet of 1955 Topps All-Americans.

Yesterday I added 1968 Topps Test Team Photo cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. There are 25 cards in the set, one for each of the NFL and AFL teams except Cincinnati. The Bengals were an expansion team in 1968, and Topps evidently did not yet have a photo of the team.

The back of each team photo card lists all of the players, coaches, and other personnel who are pictured on the front. The Cleveland Browns card actually pictures the 1967 team, and I assume the photos on the other cards are at least a year old, as well.

The team photos were inserts in packs of 1968 Topps Football Patches. (See a wrapper here.) I don’t yet have the patches in the Gallery, but you can see examples on eBay.

Happy Tuesday! Here are this week’s interesting eBay auctions for vintage football cards and related collectibles:

• The PSA Set Registry’s #1 set of 1971 Topps football cards is up for sale. Too bad I haven’t gotten my Christmas money yet.
• Have I featured this item before? Even if I did, it’s worth another look: a brilliant 1950 Otto Graham Bread for Health label.
• Here’s a unique item: a 1971 Kellogg’s football card advertising ruler.
• Want all your cards graded NM/MT? Send them to BGC!
• Ever wonder how 1961 Fleer, 1961 Topps, and 1952 Bowman Large cards would look without their borders? Kind of cool, actually.
• Three weeks ago I featured matchbooks from players’ bars and restaurants. Here are a couple more: Elroy Hirsch’s Crazy Legs restaurant and Johnny Schiechl’s All-American Lounge. (Try the Touchdown Special!)
• Not all players who appeared on matchbooks were promoting bars and nightclubs. Jack Kemp promoted milk.
• Still more matchbook covers: a sharp set of 1960 Houston Oilers. Very cool.
• This is the first time I’ve seen a set of these offered: 1965 Super Duper Buffalo Bills photos.
• This might be the wackiest miscut I’ve ever seen: a 1969 Topps Larry Wilson card, with Jim Nance’s head encroaching from the top and Art Graham’s info on the back. (How do I know it’s Jim Nance’s head? I looked at the configuration of an uncut sheet.)

As I wrote last week, one of my readers pointed out that the player on the cover of the San Francisco 49ers 1969 Topps Mini-Card Album is Joe Walton, and that the same image appeared in the inset photo of Walton’s 1962 Topps football card. This made me curious, so I checked to see if other inset photos from 1962 Topps cards had been reused on 1969 Mini-Card Albums. Sure enough, I found a few:

First, the image of Bart Starr on the Green Bay Packers Mini-Card Album appeared in the inset of Starr’s 1962 Topps card.

Next, the image of John Unitas on the Baltimore Colts Mini-Card Album was also used in the inset photo of Zeke Bratkowski’s 1962 Topps card. Topps changed Unitas’s number 19 to Bratkowski’s number 12 on the 1962 Topps card, as I noted in an earlier article.

The image on the Minnesota Vikings Mini-Card Album also appeared in the inset photo of Don Perkins’s 1962 Topps card, but the player’s number is different. I’m guessing that the image was altered for the 1962 card, so the player probably isn’t Perkins.

The image on the Denver Broncos Mini-Card Album is the same one used in the inset photo on Ollie Matson’s 1962 Topps card, but again, the player’s number is different. Matson was number 33 with the Rams, so it appears that the image on his 1962 card was altered. Does anyone recognize the player?

Finally, the image on the Washington Redskins Mini-Card Album is the same as the inset on John Aveni’s 1962 Topps card. Again, the player’s number appears to have been changed on the 1962 Topps card. I believe that the player is Dick James, who wore number 47 for the Redskins in 1961.

Given that there are so many altered jersey numbers on the 1962 Topps cards, I wonder how many of the inset photos actually picture the right player. Not many, I’ll bet.