Nearmint's Vintage Football Card Blog

Yesterday I put a nice group of PSA-graded 1960s and 1970s football cards up for sale at nearmintcards.com. Included is the PSA 8 1967 Jim Otto card pictured here. Otto wore number 00 for most of his career, which is no longer permitted in the NFL. One of my old blog articles pictures cards of a few other players who wore number 0 or 00.

Yesterday I put a nice group of PSA-graded 1950s Topps football cards up for sale at nearmintcards.com. Most are from the 1957 Topps and 1959 Topps sets. Included is the PSA 9 1957 Topps Mike McCormack card pictured below. McCormack was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1984.

Also see my 1959 Topps virtual uncut sheet and my blog articles on 1957 Topps and 1959 Topps football cards.

Today I listed a bunch of new 1973 Topps cards on my sales site. While I was scanning them, the back of one card, Tody Smith, caught my eye. I had no idea he was Bubba Smith’s younger brother, but there it is, in blue and white. Of course, I also didn’t know that they both played high school ball for their father.

The 1973 Topps card above is Tody’s rookie card. For his 1974 Topps card he had grown a beard, and I’d say there’s a clear resemblance to his brother. Bubba is shown here on his 1972 Topps card.

My new resolution: read more card backs!

Yesterday I added an assortment of PSA-graded regional, insert, and oddball football cards to my sales site, including 1960 Bell Brand Rams, 1960 Mayrose Cardinals, 1961 Lake to Lake Packers, 1961 Nu-Card, 1968 Topps Stand-Up, 1970 Topps Super Glossy, and 1970 Kellogg’s 3-D. Shown here are a couple of the Mayrose Cardinals cards, Woodley Lewis and King Hill, both wearing number 17. Hill appears to have been the real number 17, since Lewis’s other cards with the Cardinals show him in number 20. Hill’s 1959 Topps card also has him in number 17.

There are eleven cards in the complete Mayrose Cardinals set. They were distributed in the St. Louis region in packages of Mayrose franks and bacon. 1960, the year the cards were issued, was the year that the Cardinals moved to St. Louis from Chicago. Mayrose brand lunchmeats are still produced by Armour-Ekrich Meats, but to my knowledge they haven’t included cards since 1960.

Yesterday I put a nice group of PSA-graded 1940′s and 1950′s football cards up for sale, including a nice collection of 1959 Bell Brand Rams cards. One of them is this Sid Gillman pre-rookie card. PSA has graded only seven examples of this card so far: one PSA 9OC, three PSA 7′s, and three with lower grades.

Yesterday I added a nice group of PSA-graded 1955 Bowman cards to nearmintcards.com, including this Billy Wilson rookie card. Wilson died earler this year.

There is a good argument that Wilson should be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He led the league in receptions three times in the 50′s. He was a Pro Bowler six straight years. When he retired, he was second only to Don Hutson in career receptions. And his career statistics are comparable to those of Tom Fears and Elroy Hirsch, who are members of the Hall of Fame.

You can see all of Billy Wilson’s cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

Yesterday I put another nice batch of graded 1960′s football cards up for sale. The group includes 1964 Philadelphia cards of Don Meredith and Bart Starr, who would face off in the 1966 and 1967 NFL championship games. The 1967 championship, which was played in Green Bay in -13 degree weather, is better known as the Ice Bowl.

The Ice Bowl is actually the first football game I remember from when I was a kid. I grew up near Green Bay, and the game, because it was a home game, was blacked out on the Green Bay stations. My dad and his friends wanted to watch the game, so they drove to a bar that could pick up the Wausau TV station that carried the game. I tagged along, but I ended up going off and playing with the bar owner’s kid instead of watching.

Yesterday I put a nice group of PSA-graded 1970 Topps Super Glossy, 1971 Topps, and 1972 Topps cards up for sale. Included is this Terry Hanratty rookie card. Unfortunately for Hanratty, by the time his rookie card was printed, his career as a starter was already over. In 1971, Terry Bradshaw–whose rookie card is also in this set–took over the team. Hanratty backed up Bradshaw for a few years, then joined the expansion Tampa Bay Buccaneers and finished his career backing up Steve Spurrier in Tampa’s 0-14 season.

I did a little search for Hanratty, and I turned up a couple of pages that are worth a peek: Hanratty in his Notre Dame days, on a Sports Illustrated cover and after his playing days, paying tribute to Ara Parseghian.

Yesterday I added a stack of sharp 1950′s football cards to my football card sales site. Included is this gorgeous 1956 Topps Em Tunnell card. Though the card says he was a halfback, Tunnell was actually a hall-of-fame defensive back. Until 1959 the card companies did not distinguish between offensive halfbacks and defensive backs, nor between offensive and defensive tackles, nor between offensive and defensive ends. A player was simply a halfback, tackle, or end.

Until I looked at Tunnell’s page on the pro football hall-of-fame site, I had not realized that he played with the Packers for three years. I knew he was with the Packers in 1961, since he appears on a 1961 Lake to Lake card. But he also was on the team in 1959 and 1960. Oddly, though he had appeared on Bowman and Topps cards every year from 1951 to 1958, Topps did not print a card of Tunnell in his three years with the Packers.

Today I put a big stack of graded 1960′s cards up for sale. Included is this Chuck Howley rookie card. Like many defensive players’ rookie cards, Howley’s came well into his career: his first season in the NFL was with the Bears in 1958, but he didn’t appear on a card until 1966.

Howley could be the next player elected to the Hall of Fame whose rookie card is in the 1966 Philadelphia football card set. After two years with the Bears and a year of retirement, Howley un-retired and joined the Cowboys in their second year, 1961. He played thirteen seasons for the Cowboys, and he was an All-Pro in six of them. In Super Bowl V he had two interceptions and a fumble recovery, and he was named the game’s MVP. The Cowboys lost the game to the Colts, however, and Howley remains the only Super Bowl MVP who played for the losing team.

You can see all of Chuck Howley’s cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

Today I put a nice group of ungraded 1966 Philadelphia cards up for sale. This set is a challenge to collect: a lot of cards have centering problems, and some of the cards are a challenge to find in any condition.

A person who bought this set in 2003, put it in storage, and took it out this year would have gained three hall-of-famer rookie cards. Bob Brown’s rookie card is in this set, and he was elected to the hall of fame in 2004. Gene Hickerson’s rookie card is also here, and he was elected in 2007. And finally, the set includes the rookie card of Bob Hayes, who will be inducted into the hall of fame later this year.

Today I put a nice group of ungraded 1971 Topps cards up for sale. Included is the comical card on the right. The photographer’s previous experience was evidently with the DMV.

Even though Topps was printing these for kids, it amazes me that photos like this made it onto the cards. Was film too expensive to take more than one shot? When they saw this, wouldn’t they have said oops, better grab a picture from last year instead? Or maybe with their airbrushing skills, they could have given poor Gerry some eyes?

Today I listed a bunch of cards from scarce regional issues: 1959 Bell Brand Rams, 1960 Bell Brand Rams, 1961 Lake to Lake Packers, and 1968 KDKA Steelers. What I like most about these sets is that they include some players that don’t appear in any of the major sets. The card pictured is a good example: to my knowledge, this is the only set in which these three players appear.
There are 15 cards in the complete 1968 KDKA set, with each card picturing multiple players or coaches, most by position. The cards are a non-standard size, and PSA uses holders for them that were intended for “tallboys” such as 1965 Topps football cards. These are attractive cards, but on some of them the dark ink from the players’ jerseys has rubbed onto the back of the next card, making the jerseys look snowy.

One of my 2009 resolutions was to move out some of the mid-grade cards I have lying around. So I’ve been selling large lots of them on eBay. This week’s lot is a group of 67 1960 Topps cards, most of them ExMt. Included in the lot are a couple of error cards, Chuck Bednarik and Bob Pellegrini. Misspelled names are common on vintage cards, I assume because they were meant for kids and quality control was lax. Misspellings aren’t bad compared to some of the card companies’ other mistakes: some cards actually pictured the wrong player!

I also have a lot of 65 Ex to ExMt 1966 Philadelphia cards ending this week. All lots start at a penny!

Yesterday I added a large group of ungraded 1960 and 1963 Fleer cards to my sales site. Included is the card on the right, a 1963 Fleer card of Bob Coolbaugh, who looks like he’s about to get hit in the forehead with the football.

So why does Bob look like he’s trying to catch a beach ball?  Because the football was superimposed on the image.  Below is the same photo on Bob’s 1961 Topps and 1962 Fleer cards.  On the 1962 card, Fleer even took the trouble to change the colors on Bob’s uniform!