• Joe Paterno rookie cards are coming out of the woodwork. Just after he died, there was only one listed on eBay. Now there are seven.
• Here’s an unusual item: a two-card panel of 1952 Bowman Large cards, including Hall of Famer Les Richter’s rookie card. You can see what the whole sheet looked like on my 1952 Bowman Large virtual uncut sheet page.
• Not cards, but a nice item for a Browns fan: a full set of 1959 Carling Black Label Browns photos, with Jim Brown. The photos are about the size of a full sheet of paper.
• This tough 1960 Bell Brand Rams Frank Ryan card has both a facsimile signature and a real one on it. I’m not sure what to make of it, but the signature looks different from those on this array of signed Ryan cards.
• All I know about this card is what it says in the item description, but here’s a 1948 Safe-T-Card Sammy Baugh card. The Safe-T-Cards all picture Washington Redskins, and the description says they were the first police set. The seller has a bunch more of them, too.
• Finally, this one is over, but I thought it was worth pointing out: a PSA 8.5 1961 Lake to Lake Packers Tom Bettis card that sold for $1469!

Enjoy the Super Bowl!

• Here’s one for fans of the NFC Champs: a set of 1959 or 1960 Jays Publishing New York Giants photos, with envelope. (The listing says 1959, but Beckett says 1960. I don’t know which is correct, since the 12 players were on the team both seasons.)
• This is amusing: a 1957 Topps Fred Cone card with a history of its locations. Do you know where your cards have been?
• I don’t see many complete 1949 Leaf sets for sale. Here’s a pretty nice mid-grade set.
• Another nice complete mid-grade set: 1952 Bowman Smalls, with lots of pictures.
• And a near-set of 1952 Bowman Large cards, mostly PSA 6 and 7. I’d do the math, but I don’t have $15K lying around!
• Matchbooks of the week: intact 1949 AAFC Baltimore Colts matchbooks of Spiro Dellerba and Sam Vacanti. 1949 was the last season of the AAFC; in 1950 the AAFC Colts, 49ers, and Browns joined the NFL. Very cool.
• Miscuts of the week: two 1955 Bowman Dave Leggett cards, one with part of a Harry Thompson card on top (see my 1955 Bowman virtual uncut sheets), and one with a chunk of the top cut off.
• And, finally, your well-loved cards of the week: 1954 Bowman Pete Pihos and Jerome Williams. Check out the back of the Williams card!

• Some tough 1948 Leaf variations are up for bids this week:
  • A PSA 6 “no number” Jack Jacobs card.
  • A PSA 1 Johnny Lujack card, with his name misspelled “Jonny.”
  • A PSA 4.5 “Gorgeous” George McAfee card. (The more common version of this card doesn’t have the “Gorgeous.”)
  • A PSA 2 “green jersey” Al Wistert card.

  (These are just a few of the many variations in the 1948 Leaf set. You can see most of the variations in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.)

• Here’s a rare 1948 Topps Magic Photo of Pete Elliott vs. The Blob. Looks like The Blob is winning…
• Matchbook of the week: a 1940 matchbook of Hall of Famer Wayne Millner, with matches. It predates his 1952 Bowman rookie cards by 12 years.
• Here’s a PSA 9 1963 Kahn’s Wieners Ray Nitschke card. Wow!
• A pretty cool item for the USC fan: a set of 30 discs, from McDonalds, picturing the members of the 1974 team. With holder!
• Another cool item: an SGC 40 1910 Murad Cigarattes card picturing Harvard football.
• Finally, a couple of cards from a regional issue I haven’t seen before: 1973 KFC University of Washington cards of Jim Anderson and Hans Woldseth. Beckett says there are 30 cards in the set.

Enjoy the NFL playoffs!

• First, here are some items I haven’t seen before: 1950 American Nut & Chocolate University Felts.
  • West Virginia
  • Middlebury
  • Yale
  • A different Yale

  The listings say the felts are 75 by 45 mm; that translates to about 2.6 x 1.6 inches. I did a quick web search and found a picture of one more, Alabama. I’m guessing that the Felts were included in candy boxes similar to these.

• Next are some cards I’ve seen only a couple of times: 1932 College Football Captains cards.
  • John Oehler of Purdue
  • Pug Rentner of Northwestern (who later appeared on a 1935 National Chicle card)
  • Stan Sokolis of Pennsylvania
  • Walter Hass of Minnesota
  • Gregory Kabat of Wisconsin

  Again I did a little digging, and I found an old auction for the full set of ten.

• I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the originals, so these reproductions of 1949 Sohio Cleveland Browns photos were interesting to browse. 1949 was the Browns’ last season in the AAFC. In 1950, the AAFC folded, and the Browns, San Francisco 49ers, and Baltmore Colts merged into the NFL.
• Here’s the pack of the week: a PSA 9 1961 Topps 1-cent pack. The holder says Bart Starr is on top. Does that mean there are more cards in the pack, or is Starr on the bottom, too?
• And Bart Starr again, on a PSA 10 1964 Wheaties stamp. The Wheaties stamps have nice images of the players; you can read about them in one of my earlier articles.
• Finally, I did a double-take when I saw this Dick Butkus card. It looks like a 1971 Kellogg’s 3-D Dick Butkus card, but it turns out it was cut from the cereal box. Here’s one of Craig Morton, still on the box.

• Here’s a pretty nice 1926 Shotwell Red Grange card that started at $4.99.
• Feeling lucky? There’s a 1962 Topps wax pack up for sale. Also a 1968 Topps Rack Pack.
• This 1960 Fleer Tom Saidock proof is priced about $790 too high, I’d say. Proofs and wrong back cards in this set are not hard to find.
• Not a card, but kind of amusing: this Canadian Monday Night Football game has Roger Staubach on the box cover.
• Quick, who knows where Joe Paterno went to college and what position he played? The answer is on this SGC 88 1950 Topps Felt Back Joe Paterno rookie card.
• Anyone else like team issue photos? A few sets are available:
  
  • 1954 Carling Black Label Cleveland Browns, with Otto Graham and Chuck Noll.
  • 1955 San Francisco 49ers, with Y.A. Tittle and Joe Perry.
  • 1956 New York Giants, with Frank Gifford.
  • 1957 Los Angeles Rams, with Elroy “Crazylegs” Hirsch.
  • 1957 San Francisco 49ers, with John Brodie and Tom Harmon.
  • 1958 San Francisco 49ers, with Pappy Waldorf and Red Hickey. (See one of my previous blog articles for a description of this set.)
• Here’s a nice item: a framed uncut sheet of 1970 Topps Super cards.
• Finally, a set of 1979 Open Pantry Lake to Lake Packers, Bucks, and Brewers cards. It appears that there are plenty of these around; they’re just new to me, and I like oddball regional sets. The two Packers in the set are Rich McGeorge and Steve Wagner.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.)

• Seller thetoppsvault has a bunch of beautiful 1969 Topps color transparencies available. (The listings call them “negatives,” but aren’t negatives the opposite colors of the real thing?) Most of the players on the transparencies never appeared on cards, and for me it was fun to see some new faces.
• Seller jimmacie has several 1968 American Oil “Mr. and Mrs.” cards up for auction. These are the oddest of the oddballs–see Bobby Mitchell barbecuing!
• Here’s a nice PSA 5 1954 Blue Ribbon Tea CFL card of Bud Grant. Call me crazy, but isn’t it a tad nicer than this PSA 7? The seller has many more Blue Ribbon Tea cards for sale, as well.
• I don’t collect modern cards, so I had no idea that Topps gave away real 1894 Mayo cards in their 2008 Topps Mayo packs. Here is one of them. Wow!
• Some AAFC matchbooks: Jake Leicht and Dick Barwegan of the 1949 Baltimore Colts, and a 1949 New York Yankees schedule–with an ad for Topps gum!

Enjoy your turkey!

• 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.