Nearmint's Vintage Football Card Blog

As I wrote last week, I recently won a group of crudely hand-cut 1961 Fleer Baltimore Colts cards on eBay. I thought that by piecing them together, I might be able to figure out the configuration of uncut sheets of first series 1961 Fleer cards. Well, I got the cards, and most of them indeed fit together. Though I haven’t quite figured out what a full sheet looked like, the cards gave me a pretty good clue. You can see the details toward the bottom of my 1961 Fleer virtual uncut sheet page.

Yesterday I finished adding 1961 Topps CFL cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. Two of them are pictured here: Jim G. Taylor, whose picture Topps had mistakenly on Jim C. Taylor’s 1959 Topps and 1960 Topps cards; and Cookie Gilchrist, who later starred for the Buffalo Bills, Denver Broncos, and Miami Dolphins. Gilchrist is one of several players in the 1961 Topps CFL set who went on to play in the AFL or NFL.

You can see all of the CFL sets I have so far on my page of Canadian football cards.

This week I added 1964 Topps CFL cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. There are 88 cards in the set: nine or ten cards for each of the CFL teams, plus two nearly identical checklists. The card pictured here is Sherman Lewis, who placed third in Heisman voting in 1963 (see my page of Heisman candidates), played in the CFL in 1964 and 1965, played for the New York Jets in 1966 and 1967, and went on to a long coaching career in college and the NFL. Sherman was an assistant coach with four Super Bowl championship teams: three with San Francisco and one with Green Bay.

I filed the 1964 set under–what else?–Canadian football cards. Watch for four more CFL sets in the next few weeks.

Today I added 1965 Topps CFL cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. The set includes a few players who also saw playing time in the NFL or AFL, but who didn’t appear on any NFL or AFL cards. Two of those players are pictured here: Jim Battle played for the Minnesota Vikings and Charles Brown played for the Oakland Raiders, but neither of the players appeared on an American football card. To see more such players, scroll through the set in the Gallery.

This is the fourth set of CFL cards I have added to the Gallery; you can see the others on my Canadian football card page. I will be adding another five CFL sets in the next few weeks.

Yesterday I added 1976 Coke Bears Discs to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. There are 22 players in the set; I believe they were intended to represent the Bears’ 1976 starting lineup. Like most regional sets, the set contains a few players who never appeared on a regular issue football card. See my description of the set for more details. I filed the discs under Oddball.

I have seen one half of a sheet of 1962 Topps football cards, but not the second half. By looking at badly miscut cards, however, I have been able to start piecing the second half-sheet together. You can tell from this Bill George card, for instance, that Dave Baker’s card was next to it on the uncut sheet. Neither of the cards appear on the one half-sheet I have seen, so they must have been on the second half-sheet.

To see the layout of the first half-sheet and my progress on the second half-sheet, see my 1962 Topps virtual uncut sheet page. For a full list of the virtual uncut sheets I have assembled, see a previous blog article, U is for Uncut Sheets.

Last week I added 1972 University of Alabama playing cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. The key card in the deck is a pre-rookie card of John Hannah, who went on to a 13-year, Hall of Fame career with the New England Patriots. See the Gallery for more details on the set.

This is the eighth set of college playing cards I have added to the Gallery. You can see the rest on the Gallery’s Playing Card page.

Last week I added 1973 Alabama playing cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. Eleven of the players in the deck went on to play in the NFL or CFL. Woodrow Lowe, pictured here, had the longest pro career, eleven seasons with the San Diego Chargers. Lowe was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2009. See the Gallery for more details on the set.

Yesterday I added 1973 Colorado State University cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. One of the cards, Jimmie Kennedy, is pictured here. Kennedy is one of three players in the set who later played in the NFL. Visit the Gallery to see the rest of the cards and a description of the set.

Yesterday I found two more clues as to how uncut sheets of 1965, 1966, and 1967 Philadelphia football cards were configured. From looking at miscut cards, I have determined that uncut sheets from those three sets all had the same numbering scheme, so finding a piece of one helps me with all three. See the last section of my sheets in progress page for details.

Here are the new clues: a Saints team card with a sliver of Sonny Jurgensen’s card showing on the left, and a Bears insignia card with a sliver of a St. Louis Cardinals insignia card showing on the left.