Interesting eBay Auctions

Interesting eBay Auctions: 1956 Topps Uncut Panels

October 23rd, 2013  |  Published in Interesting eBay Auctions, Miscut Cards and Uncut Sheets, New in the Gallery

Uncut panel of 1956 Topps football cardsEarlier this week, eBay seller irishhosta put seven uncut panels of 1956 Topps football cards up for sale. You can see the individual listings here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Following the card arrangement shown on these panels and on a partial sheet I had seen earlier, I was able to complete my virtual uncut sheet of 1956 Topps cards. You can see the full virtual sheet in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

There are a handful of inconsistencies in how the cards are arranged on the panels, so I am not 100% certain of the configuration of the full sheet. I am reasonably sure that the ordering of the rows is correct, but there is a slight chance that some of the cards within the rows are out of place.

Another project of mine is making the team cards in this set “interactive.” You can see my progress in some earlier blog posts.

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1949 Silber’s Colts John Mellus Card on eBay

August 12th, 2013  |  Published in Interesting eBay Auctions

1949 Silber's Bakery Colts John Mellus football cardI just saw this card pop up on eBay; it’s a scarce 1949 Silber’s Bakery Baltimore Colts card of John Mellus. I don’t see Silber’s cards very often, so I thought I’d point this one out before it sells.

There is also a Y.A. Tittle pre-rookie card in the Silber’s set, as well as a card of Rex Grossman Sr. You can see the Tittle card and a description of the set in one of my previous articles.

Update: the seller has also listed a Silber’s card of Charlie O’Rourke. O’Rourke later appeared on a card in the 1955 Topps All-American set.

An Interactive 1958 Topps Baltimore Colts Team Card

March 19th, 2013  |  Published in Interactive Team Cards, Interesting eBay Auctions, New in the Gallery

National Bohemian Beer 1957 Baltimore Colts Team photoIn a recent Interesting eBay Auctions article, I pointed out a 1957 Baltimore Colts team photo, and I said that the image was reused a year later on the 1958 Topps Colts team card. This week, using the photo as a reference, I made an interactive version of that team card. On the interactive card, you can move your cursor over the players to see their names, and you can click on a player to see all of his cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery. Give it a try!

As I was mapping the names on the photo to the image on the card, I found that a lot of the players didn’t appear on the team’s 1957 roster. I concluded that the photo must have been taken well before the 1957 regular season started. The Colts picked up several of the players in the photo in the 1957 draft, but apparently some of them did not make the team. One of the 1957 draftees who appears in the photo but not on the roster is Joe Unitas, Johnny Unitas’s cousin.

I was unable to find the first names of three of the players in the photo: Welch, Stephenson, and Pollard. The Colts didn’t draft them in 1957, and I couldn’t find matches in the online NFL player databases. My guess is that the players were walk-ons whom the Colts gave tryouts. If you happen to know any of their first names, let me know, and I’ll add them to the interactive card.

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Nine Hall of Famers and a Heisman Trophy Winner for $11.50!

December 20th, 2012  |  Published in Interesting eBay Auctions

Hand-cut 1961 Fleer football cardsIn last week’s “Interesting eBay Auctions” article, one of the auctions I featured was a group of sheet-cut and otherwise trimmed 1960s Baltimore Colts cards. Well, I ended up winning the auction myself. Really, for resale, you’re wondering? No, I wanted them because they might help me figure out what a first series 1961 Fleer uncut sheet looked like. I have seen pictures of second series 1961 Fleer sheets (see my 1961 Fleer virtual uncut sheet page), but I haven’t yet seen a first series sheet. I’m hoping that the edges of the hand-cut cards from the eBay lot will fit together such that I can deduce the numbering pattern of the first series sheet.

As a bonus, the lot includes a 1961 Topps Raymond Berry card that is showing part of the card next to it. That should provide another piece to the first series 1961 Topps virtual uncut sheet that I am assembling. Stay tuned; I’ll post what I learn here.

As always, if you encounter uncut panels or miscut cards that you think could help me piece together an old sheet, please send me an email. See the bottom of a previous blog article, “U is for Uncut Sheets,” for a full list of the sheets I have worked on, both complete and incomplete.

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Wanted: Images of Uncut Sheets and Miscut Cards

June 9th, 2011  |  Published in Football Card Oddities, Interesting eBay Auctions

Most of you are familiar with my virtual uncut sheets of vintage football cards. There are a lot of sets I haven’t been able to do yet, though, because I have not seen pictures of real sheets. So I would like your help: if you see an uncut sheet for a pre-1970 set that I have not done yet, please send me an email and let me know where you saw it. The sheets I have completed are listed on the Vintage Football Card Gallery home page.

I would also like to see any pre-1970 cards that are miscut so badly–on either the front or the back–that they show part of the next card. The card pictured here is an example that I found in an eBay auction: it’s a miscut 1957 Topps Sid Watson card that shows Kyle Rote’s toe. If I see enough cards like this, I might be able to piece together what the uncut sheet looked like–especially if there is a pattern to the card numbers.

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1948 Bowman Wrong Back Football Cards

June 3rd, 2011  |  Published in Football Card Trivia, Interesting eBay Auctions

I noticed this week that eBay seller bmw_cards2 has a bunch of 1948 Bowman wrong-back cards for sale. Pictured here is one of them, a Joe Muha card with a Harry Gilmer back.
Joe Muha 1948 Bowman wrong back football cardBack of Joe Muha 1948 Bowman wrong back football card
I was curious about how the cards got the wrong backs, so I looked at where they were positioned on the uncut sheets. (See my 1948 Bowman virtual uncut sheet page.) It turns out that the fronts of all of BMW’s cards are from the first sheet, and the backs are all from the corresponding positions on the third sheet. (The Muha card is fourth from the right in the bottom row.) I don’t know much about printing, but it looks to me like the printer printed the front of the sheet, then used the wrong plate when printing the back.

Searching eBay further, I found a 1948 Bowman Art Faircloth card with a similar problem, only the Faircloth card has both the correct back and an incorrect back printed on it. Again, the front of the card is from the first sheet, and the incorrect back is from the corresponding position on the third sheet.

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Are You Ready for Some Sootball?

November 11th, 2010  |  Published in Interesting eBay Auctions, Silly Stuff, Sites I Like

1975 Wacky Packages "Sootball" stickerI didn’t buy just football cards as a kid; I bought lots of Wacky Packages and other stickers, too. I can’t say I collected them, though, because I mostly stuck them on stuff: notebooks, bicycle, little brother, dog. At any rate, I thought I remembered an old Wacky Packages sticker that parodied Topps football cards, so yesterday I went looking for it. I didn’t have to look hard: the sticker is called “Sootball,” and there are lots of them on eBay. Oddly, there is no mention of cards on the sticker.

1974 Topps football card wrapperThough the Sootball sticker is from the 1975 series of Wacky Packages, it was modeled after the 1974 Topps football card wrapper pictured here. I don’t remember, but I’d guess that Topps released the 1975 Wackys before football season, so they had to use the prior year’s football card wrapper.

Speaking of wrappers, I recently tidied up my wrapper page, added an image or two, and linked the images to the cards that came in the wrappers. If you haven’t seen the page recently, take a look!

Also, if you’re an old Wacky Packages fan, you must visit wackypackages.org. It appears that the site creator, Greg Grant, has images of just about all of them.

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Maybe the Buyer’s Name is Leo?

October 21st, 2010  |  Published in Autographs, Interesting eBay Auctions

1967 Royal Castle Dolphins Bob Griese pre-rookie football cardA few weeks ago, when I added 1967 Royal Castle Dolphins cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery, I wrote that I had seen only one example of the Bob Griese card, an autographed copy in the SGC set registry. Well, now I’ve seen two. My friend Steve at thecowboysguide.com emailed to tell me about this one, another autographed copy, which just sold on eBay for $1007.75. Because the card has writing on it, and because it has paper stuck to the back, my guess is that it would get about the same grade as the one on the SGC site, fair to good.

What, you say, “because it has writing on it”? It’s his autograph! Well, when grading cards, the grading companies treat signatures like any other pen marks: harshly. You might not expect it, but an autograph on an otherwise high-grade card can actually hurt the card’s value. I don’t know the value of a Bob Griese autograph, but I suspect that this is one card that would be worth more unsigned.

Back of 1967 Royal Castle Dolphins Bob Griese pre-rookie football cardSo, why $1007.75 for a “fair to good” card? The buyer could be a big Dolphins fan, he could be a vintage collector who wants everything, or–my guess–he could be a pre-rookie card collector. It is generally accepted that Griese’s rookie card is his 1968 Topps card, so this Royal Castle card pre-dates his rookie card by a year. See my pre-rookie card page for more examples.

It is interesting that both of the Griese cards I have seen from this set have been autographed. I wonder if he did a promotion at one of the restaurants and signed both of the cards the same day. I haven’t seen examples of the other short prints, but if some autographed ones turned up, I might conclude that the only way to get the short prints was in person.

For more interesting football card auctions, see my Interesting eBay Auctions tab, above. For more on regional vintage football card sets, see K is for KDKA Steelers–and Other Regional Sets.

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1955 Topps All-American Whizzer White and Gaynell Tinsley Error Cards

September 30th, 2010  |  Published in error cards, Interesting eBay Auctions

There are two cards on eBay this week that I seldom see for sale: a 1955 Topps All-American Whizzer White card with Gaynell Tinsley’s bio, and a Gaynell Tinsley card with Whizzer White’s bio. Both were graded 8, or NM/MT, by PSA. It apparently didn’t take Topps long to correct their error in 1955, because these two cards are much scarcer than the corrected versions. The back of each error card is shown here.
Back of 1955 Topps All-American Whizzer White rookie football cardBack of 1955 Topps All-American Gaynell Tinsley error card
Years ago, when I first read about these errors, I assumed that the backs of the cards were swapped in their entirety. Wrong-back cards are fairly common; you can see a few of them on my 1960 Fleer virtual uncut sheet page. It was only recently that I learned that only the bio sections of the White and Tinsley cards are swapped. This is why the descriptions in the price guides say Gaynell Tinsley (Whizzer White bio) and Whizzer White (Gaynell Tinsley bio). Duh.

I have always thought that the corrected Whizzer White card was undervalued, considering that it is his rookie card, and that he served as a U.S. Supreme Court justice for 31 years after his football career. White’s card sells for only about double the price of a common in the 1955 All-American set, and the price guides put it at two or three times the price of a common. His error card sells for much more, but that is because of its scarcity, not his fame.

For more on the 1955 Topps All-American set, see A is for All-Americans.

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New in the Gallery: 1972 NFLPA Iron Ons

August 26th, 2010  |  Published in Interesting eBay Auctions, New in the Gallery, Oddball

Bob Griese 1972 NFLPA Iron OnYesterday I added 1972 NFLPA Iron Ons to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. These are patches that you could (and still can!) iron onto your clothes to impress your friends. Beckett calls them “Fabric Cards,” but they aren’t cards at all: they’re cloth, not cardboard, and they’re floppy.

There are 35 patches in the set, with 22 of the 26 NFL teams represented. Oddly, there are no Bengals, Oilers, Eagles, or Rams in the set, but there are four Chargers, and the Chargers were a losing team at the time. Perhaps Deacon Jones was supposed to represent the Rams in the set, but he was traded to the Chargers before the 1972 season.

Gale Sayers 1972 NFLPA Iron OnMost of the NFLPA patches have a blue background, but there are six with a pink background, one with white, one with yellow, and one with green. I don’t think the colors are significant, but the distribution is odd, so perhaps I am missing something. There are no logos or trademarks on the patches, but John Brockington and Jim Plunkett appear in their College All-Star jerseys, complete with stars on the shoulders. Brockington and Plunkett also appear in their All-Star jerseys on their 1972 Topps cards, but Topps airbrushed the stars off of them.

According to Beckett, the NFLPA patches were sold from vending machines. When researching them, I found a couple of related items on eBay: a promo package and a vending machine display, pictured below. Interestingly, the list of players on the vending machine display does not match the list of players in the set: some players in the set are not on the display, and some players on the display are not in the set. Pity the poor young Bob Lilly fan, who kept chucking quarters into the machine, trying to get a patch of his hero!
1972 NFLPA Iron Ons Promo Package1972 NFLPA Iron Ons Vending Machine Display

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