Nearmint's Vintage Football Card Blog

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

• Seller cavaliercards has a bunch of PSA-graded 1926 Shotwell Red Grange cards for sale. These cards were originally packaged with Red Grange candy bars. You can see an empty wrapper and an empty display box on the Legendary Auctions web site. Nice!
• Seller prewarcardcollector is breaking up a set of PSA-graded 1935 National Chicle cards. Nice, too! (For a brief description of the set, see one of my previous articles, N is for National Chicle.)
• Here’s an oddball set I haven’t seen before: 1970 Chase and Sandborn NFL Helmet Stickers.
• I wonder why this 1964 Philadelphia Amos Marsh card is so valuable. Maybe it’s game-used?
• One of these cards is not like the others! Ever notice the difference between Bill Glass’s 1968 Topps card and the rest of the Browns cards in the set?
• A couple of beautiful 1948 Leaf cards: a PSA 9 Pat Harder and a PSA 8.5 Paul Governali.
• More confusion over Tom Finnin’s 1954 Bowman card. The card for sale is actually incorrect on both the front and back. See an earlier article for an explanation.
• I don’t know if these are scarce, but I don’t think I’ve seen one before: a full sheet of 1975 Topps team checklists.
• Finally, the #4 1969 Topps set in the PSA registry is for sale. No game-used cards here!

Happy Tuesday! Here are this week’s interesting eBay auctions.

• I haven’t seen this card before: a 1969 NFL vending card of Bobby Joe Green. According to the listing, these were sold in little plastic capsules, I presume from machines that resembled gumball machines. I haven’t been able to find more information on the cards, though, and I don’t see a copyright on the Green card. I did find a similar card of Dave Kopay in a completed auction.
• I’ve seen quite a few yellow proof cards of 1960 Fleer cards, but never a full set in uncut strips.
• No book collection is complete without a copy of O.J. Simpson’s 1983 Football Card Price Guide!
• Here is a complete set of 1960 Fleer AFL decals, tied for #1 in the PSA set registry. These were inserts in packs of 1960 Fleer football cards. I believe that 1960 was the first year that the card companies put inserts in football card packs. Topps put homely metallic stickers in their football card packs that year.
• Here’s one for the Bart Starr collector: a 1968 American Oil Bart Starr card, the only one graded PSA 8. The card was originally attached to a card of racing driver Parnelli Jones. If you collected both the left side and right side for an athlete, you won!
• Finally, a couple of foreign cards honoring American football: a 1960s French trade card and a 1979 card from the UK that supposedly pictures the Super Bowl Trophy. I checked, though, and found that the Lombardi Trophy has had its present shape since Super Bowl I.

It’s Tuesday, time for this week’s interesting eBay auctions!

• Here’s a 1954 Blue Ribbon Tea CFL card of Bud Grant. I believe it is the only card that shows him as a player. The grade looks like a mistake, though, doesn’t it? I thought perhaps the brown stains were common in the issue, the other Blue Ribbon Tea cards on eBay don’t have them. (By the way, did you know that Grant is a member of both the CFL Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and that he also played two seasons for the NBA’s Minnesota Lakers?)
• For the football collector who must have everything: a full set of 1961 Fleer Magic Message inserts. According to the 1961 Fleer wrappers (see my vintage football card wrapper page), the inserts were included in both 1st and 2nd series packs.
• Two tough 1961 Lake to Lake Packers short prints are available at the moment: Ray Nitschke and Henry Jordan. The Nitschke is a pre-rookie card, as are a few other cards in the set. You can see the others on my pre-rookie card page.
• This U.S.A. football card is part of the 1930 British American Tobacco Company Sports and Games set. You can see the composition of the set on the PSA web site.
• Mike Garrett is wearing a heck of a facemask on his 1968 Champion Corn Flakes pre-rookie card. (His rookie card is a 1970 Topps.)
• The starting price is nice on this PSA 8 1969 Topps Larry Csonka rookie card. The seller also has lots of other high-grade 1969 Topps cards starting at 99 cents.

It’s Tuesday! Here are this week’s interesting eBay auctions:

• Here’s a near-set of 1961 Nu-Card pennant inserts. This is an odd, tough set: though there are only 80 football cards in the 1961 Nu-Card set (see them here), there are at least 315 different pennant inserts, and there was only one insert in each pack of cards.
• Looking to start a CFL football card set–or just want to see what they look like? Seller capsports2000 has 1958 Topps, 1959 Topps, and 1962 Topps CFL starter sets up for auction.
• Seller newenglandsportscards has a bunch of 1971 Kellogg’s cards, still in the wrappers.
• You don’t see many examples of this variation: a 1948 Leaf Bobby Layne “red pants” rookie card. PSA has graded just 17 of them, compared to 119 of the “yellow pants” version.
• Here’s a nice set of 1955 49ers team issue photos. I sell a lot of photos like these to players’ friends and family members, since some of the players never appeared on cards.
• Running out of cards to collect? Then how about milk caps? Here are 1963 Jones Dairy milk caps of Buffalo Bills Ken Rice, Ray Abruzzese, and Stew Barber. (It’s fun to browse non-football milk caps, too.)
• Funny Ring sold separately!

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

• Here’s a nice example of a John Lujack 1948 Topps Magic Photo. There are a total of 252 photos in this mishmash of a set. In addition to thirteen “All American Football” and five “Football Thrills” photos, there are photos of other athletes, wild west figures, famous landmarks, movie stars, inventors, explorers, aviators, and dogs. You can see a full checklist on the eBay site.
• This is the first time I’ve seen a full set in this form: a complete set of 1960 Fleer football cards, all in 11-card strips.
• How to deal with those pesky dinged corners? Cut them off! These “customized” 1951 Bowman cards look kind of cool, actually. They remind me of 1954 Quaker Sports Oddities cards.
• Anyone else think it’s utterly ridiculous for this 1957 Topps Lynn Chandnois card to be graded poor?
• You don’t see these too often: a near (or possibly full) set of BVG-graded 1960 7-Eleven Dallas Texans cards. The backs look like they were printed with a typewriter!
• Seller cavaliercards has a nice group of PSA-graded 1926 Shotwell Red Grange cards for sale. There are twenty-four cards in the Shotwell set; you can see examples of the rest on SGC’s web site.
• This 1967 Topps Joe Namath card actually came in a 1969 Milton Bradley Win-A-Card game. You can tell because there is a brown sliver of a 1968 Topps baseball card at the top. For a description of the game, see one of my previous blog articles.
• All I know about the cards is what it says in the auction description, but here is a 1977 set commemorating the 1925 Pottsville Maroons. (I had to look up Pottsville; it is in Pennsylvania.) There is an official Pottsville Maroons web site; it includes an account of how the team beat the Chicago Cardinals for the 1925 NFL Championship, but it was taken away because of a scheduling violation.

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

• Just for fun, I did a search for the most expensive football cards on eBay. I assumed that vintage cards would appear on top, but the first one was seventh!
• Some football-playing U.S. presidents: JFK, a different JFK, and Gerald Ford.
• Here’s a wax box of 1972 Topps 3rd series cards. It’s cool that the wrappers came in four different color combinations–or were there even more?
• Here are some non-vintage beauties, especially if your name happens to be Chad or Bill!
• CFL Hall of Famer Royal Copeland recently passed away. Here he is on a sharp 1956 Shredded Wheat CFL card.
• A beautiful full set of 1970 Kellogg’s cards: 56 PSA 9s and 4 PSA 8′s.
• Six 1977 Topps Mexican wrappers, which, according to the description, is the full set plus one duplicate.
• Like multi-sport issues? Here are full sets of 1974 and 1975 Sugar Daddy cards.
• Last, but certainly not least, an all-PSA 8 set of 1972 Topps cards!

Happy Tuesday! Here are this week’s interesting eBay auctions:

• Bargain of the week? A PSA 8 1955 Topps All-American Red Grange card starting at $9.99!
• Miscut lovers (or should I say lovers of miscuts?), here’s a great lot of miscut 1955 Bowman cards.
• My uncle had one of these Kessler’s NFL helmet displays in his tavern. Each column represented a division, and you would move the helmets up or down as the season progressed and the standings changed. Very cool.
• For having an MC qualifier, this is a pretty darn nice Bart Starr rookie card.
• On the subject of MC qualifiers, I didn’t know that PSA assigned them to cards they graded poor. But here’s a 1948 Leaf Levi Jackson card graded PSA 1 MC. It actually doesn’t look too bad!
• Here are a couple of 1967 Topps cards that were originally part of Milton Bradley’s 1969 Win-A-Card game: Joe Namath and Fred Biletnikoff. You can tell because each of them has a sliver of a 1968 Topps baseball card on the top or bottom. Judging by the labels, BVG recognized the variation, but PSA didn’t. (For a list of the other cards in the game, see my blog article about it.)
• I have not seen this Jim Brown 1962 Kahn’s reprint before. Can anyone tell me when it was printed, etc.? I did a web search but didn’t find any more.
• Not cards, but cool nonetheless: 11 Ohio Blue Top matchboxes picturing Frank Gifford in action!
• Finally, a 1948 Bowman Art Faircloth card with two different backs printed on it. If you look at my 1948 Bowman uncut sheet page, you can see that this is the result of printing the back of the third sheet over the back of the first sheet.

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

• Merlin Olsen didn’t have just football cards. He appeared on Little House on the Prairie cards, too!
• Here’s the “other” Four Horsemen of Notre Dame card: a 1954 Topps Scoop.
• I’ve always liked logo and helmet cards. Here’s a full set of 1975 Schweibel/Sunbeam Bread helmet stickers and a near set of 1960 Fleer AFL logo inserts.
• Two Diamond matchbook covers of Hall of Famers, issued before the players’ rookie cards: Joe Stydahar and Ken Strong.
• Feeling lucky? Here’s a full box of 1977 Topps Mexican wax packs.
• 1951 Berk Ross cards had a unique box. There were initially two players to a card, and the two halves were separated by a perforation. You can usually find both pairs and singles on eBay.
• For the football card collector who must have everything: a set of 1974 Bazooka “Play Football Safely!” cards. Keep the field clean!

Most weeks I do a lot of eBay surfing, and when I see interesting listings, I bookmark them for this blog. I spent most of the past week at the National Sports Collectors Convention, though, so I didn’t spend any time on eBay. I suspect that a lot of sellers took the week off because of the National, anyway.

Some of the past weeks’ interesting items are still up for sale, either because they were relisted or because they were fixed-price items. If you missed them, check out my other recent interesting auction articles.

I’ll be back with some new interesting auctions next Tuesday.

It’s slow on eBay this week, but here are the week’s interesting vintage football card auctions.

• Feeling lucky? I’d love to pick through the contents of this beat-up 1960 Topps box.
• Here’s a box in a lot better shape: an unopened wax box of 1964 Topps CFL cards.
• There are some great poses in this complete set of 1955 49ers team issue photos.
• Hmm, it’s been a long time since I used a screw-down holder, but shouldn’t all of the card’s corners be on the inside?
• You can tell from the stains that this is an authentic 1963 Kahn’s Wieners Y.A. Tittle card.
• This 1964 Topps Tom Addison card is certainly sharp, but I think I’ll hold onto my PSA 8.
• This is a nice display: two 1960 Fleer Lou Rymkus proofs, plus the final product. The seller has similar displays for a few other players.
• Finally, I think this is the coolest old wrapper I’ve seen: a foil 1952 Parkhurst CFL wrapper.

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

• You don’t see these too often: a PSA 8 1952 Bowman Large Jim Lansford!
• This is cool, but I’d sure ask a lot of questions first:
  a full wax box of 1962 Topps football cards.
• Boxes are a lot cheaper when they’re empty. Here are some nice 1965 Philadelphia and 1966 Philadelphia display boxes, with lots of pictures.
• Yet another interesting box: a generic Topps vending box–the seller says from 1959–with “FOOTBALL” stamped on it.
• I believe this is the earliest team issue I have seen with colored photos, and they’re very sharp: 1965 Houston Oilers team issue photos.
• I’ve seen quite a few of these, but never a full set: 1960 Fleer yellow proof cards.
• Where’s Ollie?!
• A rare 1968 Topps Craig Morton error card? Well, no, they’re all like that. Here’s the whole assembled Bart Starr puzzle.
• It took me a minute to figure out that these are pieces of 1962 Post Cereal cards. (For reference, here’s a whole one.)
• This one has ended, but it’s good for a smile: a lot of 1952 Bowman Extra-Smalls!

Like these? Check out past week’s interesting auctions!

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

• Nineteen 1970 Green Bay Packers team issue photos, including Bart Starr and Ray Nitschke, starting at 99 cents!
• It was fun browsing through this set of rookie cards of Heisman trophy winners.
• For the Nebraska Cornhusker fan, a set of nine 1936 Cornhusker Football Advertising Postcards, one for each game. (The ‘Huskers won 7 of the 9 games and were champs of the “Big 6.”)
• These “Bangles” cards were a huge disappointment. I was hoping for Susanna Hoffs!
• This lot of 1960 Fleer oddities is interesting, but I think they’re proofs and printing trials, not errors. (I like the effect of the player images superimposed on the backs of the cards.)
• I love 1964 Kahn’s cards! Here’s a PSA 8 1964 Kahn’s Jim Brown.
• Speaking of Kahn’s cards, here’s a PSA 7 1963 Kahn’s John Unitas at a low starting price. (The seller has a bunch more 1963 Kahn’s cards up for auction, too.)
• This Marion Motley Exhibit card is one of my all-time favorites. You can read more about this and other 1948-1952 Exhibit cards in one of my previous blog articles.
• For the football card collector who must have everything: there are three odd football cards on these 1946 Kellogg’s All-Wheat panels. (If you look closely at the backs, you can see that the football cards are part of a 30-card “sport tips” subset.)
• Finally, the #3 set of 1965 Topps cards in the PSA set registry is for sale. Wow!

For prior weeks’ interesting football card auctions, click here.

Happy Tuesday! This week’s interesting eBay auctions are all complete sets.

• A complete set of 1963 Post CFL cards, mounted in the album.
• One of my favorite regional sets: 1968 KDKA Pittsburgh Steelers.
• Another regional set, which celebrated the Cardinals’ move to St. Louis: 1960 Mayrose Cardinals. (I love the team logo on these!)
• A full set of 1967 Johnny Pro Baltimore Colts die-cut cards, still in the album.
• A full deck of 1963 Stancraft playing cards. According to Beckett, these were issued in conjunction with the opening of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
• 1961 Carling Black Label Cleveland Browns photos, including Jim Brown.
• Sorry if I posted this before, but I think it’s an awesome set: a complete set of 1961 National City Browns cards, uncut from the panels.
• Finally, a multi-sport set that includes 132 NFL players: 1955 All American Sports Club photos. The description says that one of the photos is Don Shula in his playing days. I think I picked him out–can you?

For prior weeks’ interesting football card auctions, click here.

Happy Tuesday! Here are the eBay auctions of the week.

• Here’s a rare 1950s Schilling Coffee card of Joe Arenas. As far as I can tell, this is a set of one: I couldn’t find more Schilling Coffee cards on the web, and Arenas’s Wikipedia page says he was a salesman and public relations man for the company. If anyone knows of more of these, I would really like to know about them.
• Some cool autographed postcards of SMU teammates Doak Walker and Kyle Rote–especially if your name happens to be Dale!
• A complete set of 1972 Sunoco Stamps, still in the album and at a low starting bid. Nice!
• A must-have for the Edmonton Eskimos fan: a group of 1958 McDermid Studios photos.
• Smile of the week: a hand-cut 1952 Bowman Small Russ Craft card.
• A complete set of 1976 Town Talk Bread cards. These look just like 1976 Wonder Bread cards, except that, if you look closely at the top line on the back of a card, you can see that it says “Town Talk” instead of “Wonder Bread.” I wrote about these last year in an article about food issues.
• A partial sheet of 1948 Leaf cards, including rookie cards of Sammy Baugh, Bobby Layne, John Lujack, and Bob Waterfield.
• And, finally, a cute kiddie on an early Sun Life Insurance trading card. Awwww.

For past weeks’ interesting auctions, click here.

Happy Interesting eBay Auctions of the Week Day!

• First up is a 1949 Silber’s Bakery card of Dick Barwegan, from the AAFC’s Baltimore Colts. (His name is misspelled on the card.) This is one of the few Silber’s cards I have seen for sale. The set also includes a Y.A. Tittle pre-rookie card, which I wrote about in an earlier article.
• wwwprpsportscom is selling a bunch of individual 1959 Bell Brand Rams cards, another tough regional set, .
• The pre-rookie card of the week is a 1948 Kellogg’s Pep Lou Groza card. (Groza’s rookie card is a beautiful 1950 Bowman.)
• Here are a couple of sharp 1951 Berk Ross “doubles,” cards that were not separated at the perforations. As you can see, this was a multi-sport set.
• Holey Bronco Nagurski rookie card!
• This week’s crinkled 1960 Kahn’s Jim Brown card looks a lot like last week’s crinkled 1960 Kahn’s Jim Brown card, but the price has gone up.
• Another very tough regional card: a 1969 Fairmont Dairy Len Dawson card, still on the milk carton. You can see many more Fairmont Dairy Chiefs cards and information about them on the net54 message board.
• Here’s a full set of 1956 Parkhurst CFL cards. The 1956 Parkhursts came undeveloped, and you rubbed a special piece of paper on them to develop them. There is also an undeveloped Bud Grant card on eBay, as well as a square of the special paper.
• Finally, the oddball item of the week: a full set of 1967 New Orleans Saints Doubloons!