Nearmint's Vintage Football Card Blog

Last week I added 1974 Fleer Immortal Roll cards–also called 1974 Fleer Hall of Fame cards– to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. The page for the set includes a short description, so I won’t describe again them here. I added a fun fact or two for each card in the set, as well. Take a look!

I hope you like this feature, because it took me awhile: I identified all of the players in the Vintage Football Card Gallery who are members of the College Football Hall of Fame. You can do a search for all of the College Hall of Famers, all of the College Hall of Famers from a certain college (say Ohio State), or all of the College Hall of Famers from a certain pro team (say the Los Angeles Rams). Use the Gallery’s Advanced Search page to specify whatever combinations you like.

What I like most about this feature is that it highlights some cards that you typically find in the commons bin. Some players with stellar college careers had short or not-as-stellar pro careers, and you wouldn’t know from their cards how good they were in college. The player pictured here is one example: Jim Swink was runner-up to Howard Cassady for the Heisman Trophy in 1955, and he was elected to the College Hall of Fame in 1980. Swink played pro football for just one season–1960 for the AFL’s Dallas Texans–and this 1960 Fleer card is his only football card.

This weekend I added 1971 Kellogg’s football cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. This missing set was the biggest gap in the Gallery, I’d say, since Kellogg’s cards are popular and not too difficult to find. Thanks to Mike Ford for providing many of the images.

I found a few small surprises as I entered the information for the set. First, there is little overlap with the 1970 Kellogg’s set: only five players appear in both the 1970 and 1971 sets. Second, though most of the players in the 1971 Kellogg’s set were among the stars of their teams, two of the players never appeared on a card in a major issue. Finally, the cards apparently were issued–or at least designed–well before the 1971 season, because a number of players either played for a different team in 1971 or didn’t play at all. You can read the details on the Gallery page for the set.

Happy New Year, everyone! Time to start those diets, budgets, and exercise programs! But it’s okay to wait until tomorrow–it’s a holiday, right?

I was thinking about what I want to accomplish in 2012 in the Vintage Football Card Gallery, and I decided that my goals follow two themes. The first theme is to finish some of the things I have already started. For example, last year I started identifying players who are in the College Football Hall of Fame, but I haven’t finished because there are way more of them than I thought. On the other hand, in the process of identifying the College Hall of Famers, I have learned some interesting things about them. Did you know, for instance, that Cosmo Iacavazzi, who played in only two games professionally, led the nation in scoring at Princeton in 1963? I love uncovering nuggets like that.

Which brings me to my second theme: doing more with the cards I already have. The Gallery now contains pictures of most of the vintage football cards out there, so now I can work more on depth than breadth. One thing I have started doing in this area is adding trivia for each card. Going back to Mr. Iacavazzi: did you ever notice that his 1965 Topps card pictures him in his college uniform, recolored Jets green? Until yesterday, I didn’t, either, but as I learn such things, I will make note of them. (For more examples, see the 1953 Rams Team Issue cards I recently added to the Gallery.)

Of course, as well as looking ahead to the new year, we should look back and remind ourselves of what we accomplished in 2011. This morning I took a quick look through my “New in the Gallery” blog articles, and it was gratifying to see all of the new cards and virtual uncut sheets I was able to add over the year. Most gratifying, I think, is that I had so much fun doing it.

Enjoy your collections, keep in touch, and have a terrific 2012!

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.

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.

Yesterday I added 1969 Topps Mini-Card Albums to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. There is one album for each of the 16 NFL and 10 AFL teams of 1969. (The leagues merged in 1970.) The albums, along with panels of mini-cards (now known as 1969 Topps 4-in-1′s), were inserts in packs of 1969 Topps football cards. Each album held ten mini-cards, plus a few stats for each player. The mini-cards had adhesive on the back, like stamps, so kids could separate the cards from the panels, lick the backs, and stick them in the albums. The adhesive was poor, so it wasn’t long before it let go and the cards fell out.

Pictured here are the front, back, and middle of the Green Bay Packers mini-card album.


The Packers mini-card album, with Bart Starr on the cover, is an exception. Most of the albums, strangely, have pictures of players from other teams on their covers. The San Francisco 49ers album, for instance, has a New York Giant on the cover. Commenting on an earlier blog article, a sharp-eyed reader pointed out that the player is Joe Walton, and that the image also appeared on Walton’s 1962 Topps card. Walton joined the Giants in 1961, so the photo must have been taken during the 1961 season.

Every wonder how many players in the 1961 Nu-Card college football card set went on to play in the NFL or AFL? I wondered, so I looked them up. I also marked them in the Vintage Football Card Gallery. Before you look, what is your guess? There are a total of 80 cards in the set.

Here’s a hint: it’s at least two. John Hadl played sixteen seasons for the San Diego Chargers, Los Angeles Rams, Green Bay Packers, and Houston Oilers. He is a member of the San Diego Chargers Hall of Fame. Curtis McClinton played eight seasons for the Dallas Texans and Kansas City Chiefs. (The Texans moved to Kansas City and became the Chiefs in 1963.) McClinton is a member of the Chiefs Hall of Fame.

Have your guess? See my 1961 Nu-Card page for the answer.

This week I added 1959 Bazooka football cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. These cards were hand-cut from the bottoms of boxes of Bazooka bubble gum. Y.A. Tittle, of course, is pictured in his helmet. (As I wrote in an earlier article, Tittle is wearing his helmet on nearly all of his cards.)

See the Gallery for more information on the 1959 Bazooka set.

This week I added 1972 Auburn Tigers Playing Cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. The set is a standard 52-card deck, plus 2 jokers. Fifty-one of the standard cards picture Auburn players, and one, the ace of spades, pictures head coach Ralph “Shug” Jordan. The jokers are Cliff Hare Stadium and Auburn Memorial Coliseum.

The 1972 Auburn team finished 10-1 and was ranked #5 in the country in the final AP poll. 1972 was also the season of the famous “Punt, ‘Bama, Punt” game, in which Auburn beat Alabama 17-16 by blocking two punts in the fourth quarter and returning them for touchdowns. Bill Newton, who blocked both punts, and David Langner, who returned both of them for touchdowns, are included in the deck of playing cards.

Though Auburn had a great season in 1972, I counted only five players in the deck who went on to play in the NFL. (By contrast, fifteen players in the deck of 1974 Colorado Buffaloes playing cards got playing time in the NFL, and the 1974 Buffs finished just 5-6.) Here are the Auburn players who saw NFL action:

• Defensive back Mike Fuller played eight seasons for the San Diego Chargers and Cincinnati Bengals.
• Punter David Beverly played seven seasons for the Houston Oilers and Green Bay Packers.
• Center Lee Gross played four seasons for the New Orleans Saints and Baltimore Colts.
• Guard Dan Nugent played four seasons for the Washington Redskins.
• Linebacker Ken Bernich played one season for the New York Jets.

The 1972 Auburn Tigers set is one of several decks of 1970s playing cards that picture players from college teams. For more, see my earlier blog article, “P is also for Playing Cards.”

Yesterday I added a virtual uncut sheet of 1964 Philadelphia football cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. I modeled the virtual sheet after a real one that is for sale in an upcoming auction. Thanks to Steve of the thecowboysguide.com for pointing out the auction.

Whereas 1965, 1966, and 1967 Philadelphia sheets appear to have had the same card numbering scheme, the 1964 Philadelphia sheet is numbered differently. On the 1964 sheet, groups of five to ten teammates appear on consecutive cards in the same row. I suspect that this caused a lot of teammates to appear together in packs, and that’s why Philadelphia changed their numbering scheme in 1965 to one that appeared more random.

(Click on the image to see the full virtual sheet.)

As I have said in previous posts, I have concluded that uncut 1965, 1966, and 1967 Philadelphia football card sheets all had the same card numbering scheme. Thus, from a picture of a 1966 Philadelphia half-sheet, I was able to assemble virtual half-sheets of 1965, 1966, and 1967 Philadelphia cards. Of course, I would also like to assemble the second half-sheet for each set, but I haven’t yet seen an example of a real one. So I started collecting badly miscut cards from the three sets, in hopes of piecing together the second half-sheet. For example, by looking at the miscut Ernie Green card shown here, I can tell that the card to its left was Ben McGee, and I can conclude that cards 154 and 41 were adjacent on the sheets for all three Philadelphia sets.

The cards I have so far are toward the bottom of my Uncut Sheets in Progress page. If you have any badly miscut cards that could help the cause, please send me some scans!

Yesterday I added a virtual uncut sheet of 1965 Philadelphia football cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. I have not seen an actual 1965 Philadelphia uncut sheet, but by looking at badly miscut cards, I have concluded that 1965, 1966, and 1967 Philadelphia sheets all had the same numbering scheme. I have seen a picture of a 1966 sheet, and I used it to construct the 1965 virtual sheet.

Each of the 1964-1967 Philadelphia sets contains 66 double prints, though I have not seen the double prints documented in any of the price guides. The 1965 Philadelphia virtual sheet shows which cards are double prints.

(Click on the image to see the full virtual sheet.)

In honor of Al Davis, who passed away today, I added an interactive 1964 Topps Oakland Raiders team card to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. The card pictures the 1963 Raiders team, which Davis coached to a 10-4 record. That was the Raiders’ first winning season, and Davis was named the AFL Coach of the Year.

As always, I learned a few things while assembling the interactive card. One thing I learned is that one of the players pictured, Tom Morrow, holds the NFL record for most consecutive games with an interception. As far as I know, Morrow never appeared on a card by himself.

(Click on the card image shown here to go to the interactive version.)

Yesterday I added a virtual uncut sheet of 1967 Philadelphia football cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. I have not seen an actual uncut sheet, but by looking at badly miscut cards, I concluded that 1967 Philadelphia sheets were numbered like 1966 Philadelphia sheets. I have seen a picture of a 1966 sheet, so I used it to construct the 1967 virtual sheet.

Like the 1966 Philadelphia set, the 1967 Philadelphia set contains 66 double prints, but they are not documented in the price guides. The virtual sheet shows which cards are double prints.

(Click on the image to see the full sheet.)