August 18th, 2011 |
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Player Deaths
George Wilson Jr., quarterback for the Miami Dolphins in their first season, 1966, passed away on August 6. The Miami Herald web site has a report of his death. Wilson led the Dolphins to their first regular season win, which came against Denver in the sixth week of the season.
The card pictured here is Wilson’s 1967 Topps card, issued the season after he played for the Dolphins. He also appeared on a 1967 Royal Castle Dolphins card. The Royal Castle card is one of the rare short prints in the set, and I have never seen one.
Wilson’s father, George Wilson Sr., was the Dolphins’ coach in their first season. Before joining the Dolphins, Wilson Sr. coached the Detroit Lions for eight seasons. He made a cameo appearance on a Detroit Lions Play of the Year card in the 1964 Philadelphia set.
August 17th, 2011 |
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New in the Gallery
Today I added a virtual uncut sheet of 1956 Topps cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. I modeled the sheet after a picture of a partial sheet I found on the ‘net. This is the first Topps sheet I have seen with a pattern to the numbering; this allowed me to extend the partial sheet to a half-sheet.
(Click the image to see the whole virtual sheet.)
August 16th, 2011 |
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Player Deaths | 1 Comment
Pete Pihos, Hall of Fame end for the Philadelphia Eagles, passed away this morning, according to the team’s web site. Pihos played nine seasons for the Eagles, from 1947 to 1955, and he made the Pro Bowl the last six of those seasons. He was also a member of the Eagles’ 1948 and 1949 NFL Championship teams. Pihos’s page on the Pro Football Hall of Fame web site has a summary of his career.
Pihos had two rookie cards, the 1948 Leaf and 1948 Bowman cards pictured below. The 1948 Leaf card shown here is the variation with yellow numerals; there is also a rare variation with blue numerals. You can see all of Pete Pihos’s cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.
August 14th, 2011 |
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New in the Gallery
Yesterday, while searching the internet, I found a tiny picture of a partial uncut sheet of 1957 Topps football cards. Using the picture as a model–and doing a lot of squinting!–I created a virtual partial sheet of 1957 Topps cards and added it to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. Judging by the partial sheet, 1957 Topps football cards were not released in two series, as the price guides say. They were released in just one series, with most of the high-numbered cards being short prints.
(Click on the image to see the rest of the partial sheet.)
August 14th, 2011 |
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Player Deaths
Ken Payne, wide receiver from 1974 to 1978 for the Green Bay Packers and Philadelphia Eagles, passed away on August 1. Payne led the Packers in receptions and receiving yards in 1975 and 1976.
The card pictured here is Payne’s rookie card, a 1976 Topps. He also appeared on a 1977 Topps card.
August 12th, 2011 |
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Uniforms | 2 Comments
A friend of mine bought a copy of this card recently; it’s a 1952 Bowman Large card of Bob Waterfield. When I saw his card, I noticed something that I hadn’t before: Waterfield’s helmet has “bone style,” or serrated, ram horns on it. My first thought was that the artist had taken liberties with the image and changed the Rams’ smooth horns to serrated ones. I did a little searching, though, and I found that the Rams actually did wear serrated horns for one season, 1949. I also found a replica of the 1949 Rams helmet.
The L.A. Rams weren’t the only Rams to wear bone style horns: the Colorado State Rams wore them for a few years, too. You can see CSU’s version in a previous blog article. It’s interesting that, though people seem to prefer the bone style horns, both the St. Louis (formerly Los Angeles) and CSU Rams persist with the smooth ones.
August 12th, 2011 |
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Player Deaths
Don Chandler, punter and kicker from 1956 to 1967 for the New York Giants and Green Bay Packers, passed away on August 11. Chandler played on four NFL Championship teams: 1956 with the Giants, and 1965, 1966, and 1967 with the Packers. He made the Pro Bowl in 1967, his last season, and he was inducted into the Packers Hall of Fame in 1975. The Packerville, U.S.A., blog has a summary of Chandler’s career, along with several pictures.
The card pictured here is Chandler’s rookie card, a 1957 Topps. He appeared on several others, as well. You can see all of Don Chandler’s cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.
August 10th, 2011 |
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Player Deaths
Jimmy Harris, a defensive back in the NFL and AFL from 1957 to 1961, passed away on August 8. Harris played one season each for the Philadelphia Eagles, Los Angeles Rams, Dallas Texans, and Dallas Cowboys. He did not play the 1959 season.
Before his pro career, Harris was a star quarterback at Oklahoma. He went 25-0 over three seasons, contributing over half of the wins in the Sooners’ 47-game winning streak. NewsOK.com has an account of Harris’s college career, along with lots of photos.
The card pictured here is Harris’s rookie card, a 1957 Topps. Topps apparently colored a college photo of Harris to put him in Eagles green, because the image closely resembles the photo in the NewsOK.com article, and Harris wore number 20 for the Eagles, not number 15. The image on Harris’s 1960 Fleer card appears to have come from the same photo session, as well.
Harris appeared in a Dallas Texans uniform on a 1961 Fleer card and a 1961 Fleer Wallet Photo, but he played for the Cowboys that season.
August 8th, 2011 |
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New in the Gallery
Over the weekend I picked up a couple of miscut 1959 Topps first series cards. That allowed me to add a 1959 Topps section to my page of partial virtual uncut sheets. The cards are Bill Barnes, with a sliver of Leo Nomellini’s card showing on the right side, and the Colts pennant, with a sliver of Bob St. Clair’s card on the left side.
A previous blog article, U is for Uncut Sheets, contains a full list of the virtual uncut football card sheets I have completed. As always, if you have miscut cards from sheets I haven’t done yet, I’d love to see them.
August 6th, 2011 |
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error cards, New in the Gallery
Last week I added 1961 Kahn’s Wieners cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. There are 36 cards in this Kahn’s set, with 32 being Browns and Steelers. Kahn’s was (and still is) based in Cincinnati, and Cleveland and Pittsburgh were the closest pro teams at the time.
The other four players in the set–Frank Varrichione, Will Renfro, Jimmy Orr, and Joe Lewis–were with either Cleveland or Pittsburgh the previous season. It appears that Kahn’s intended to make the set all Browns and Steelers, but these players moved, so Kahn’s simply changed the teams on the backs of their cards.
Two of the cards in the set, Tom Tracy and Larry Krutko, have their images swapped. This is especially unfortunate for Krutko, because I believe that this is his only football card. (For more old football cards that picture the wrong player, see my Mistaken Identities page.)
The set includes a pre-rookie card of Gene Hickerson. Hickerson had more pre-rookie cards than any other Hall of Famer I can think of: he appeared in the 1959 through 1962 Kahn’s sets, and on a 1962 Post Cereal card.
Thanks again to Mike Ford, who provided images for several of the Kahn’s sets.
