Nearmint's Vintage Football Card Blog

Yesterday I added an “interactive” 1963 Topps Dallas Cowboys team card to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. By placing the cursor over a player, you can see who the player is, and by clicking on him, you can see all of his cards. (It doesn’t work on the card pictured here–you have to go to the gallery page.) As the gallery page says, this 1963 card actually pictures the 1960 Cowboys team, and only eight of the players were still with the team when the card was issued.

The Cowboys were an expansion team in 1960, and they obtained most of their players from the other teams via an expansion draft. Each of the other teams made nine players available, and the Cowboys chose three of them. Like the other teams, the Cowboys also obtained players via trades, free agency, and other teams’ waiver lists. Unfortunately, the league approved the franchise too late for the Cowboys to participate in the college draft, and the team also had to compete with the upstart AFL for free agents. The result: a 0-11-1 season.

To see how the Cowboys assembled their original team, check out The Original 1960 Dallas Cowboys Roster at thecowboysguide.com. The page includes pictures of the team-issued photos for most of the players, and it also shows many of the players’ first cards. Very interesting!

I have always loved this photo of Carroll Hardy, and yesterday I did an eBay search to see if I could find him on any more 49er team issues. To my surprise, a bunch of baseball cards popped up! Not being a baseball card collector, I didn’t know that after a short NFL career, Hardy had played eight seasons in the major leagues. Perhaps, conversely, most baseball card collectors don’t know about his short NFL career?

According to his Wikipedia page, Hardy spent just one year with the 49ers, 1955, when this 49ers team issue photo was released. He gained 37 yards rushing and 338 yards receiving for the season, and four of his receptions were for touchdowns.

He went on, after two years in the minor leagues, to become a backup outfielder for the Cleveland Indians, Boston Red Sox, Houston Colt .45s, and Minnesota Twins. He was the only player to pinch-hit for Ted Williams, and he also pinch-hit for Roger Maris and Carl Yastrzemski.

You can see the rest of the 1955 49ers Team Issue photos in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

The New York Jets announced yesterday that their new stadium, New Meadowlands Stadium, will include a Jets Ring of Honor. The Jets chose five former players and a former coach as the first inductees. Here are the inductees, along with information on their cards:

• Weeb Ewbank – Ewbank coached the Jets from 1963 to 1973; before that he coached the Baltimore Colts from 1954 to 1962. I don’t believe Ewbank appeared by himself on a card in his coaching days, but he did appear on some of the Colts team cards (he’s named on the 1956 Topps card), and probably on the 1964 Topps Jets team card–if Topps didn’t use an old photo. It’s usually hard to pick out coaches on team cards, unfortunately, since the coaches don’t wear numbers. Ewbank did appear on some cards in tribute sets in the 1980s and later, though. You can find a lot of the tribute cards on eBay.
• Winston Hill – Hill’s rookie card is the 1965 Topps card pictured here, and he also appeared on a bunch of cards after that. You can see most of Hill’s cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.
• Joe Klecko – Klecko’s rookie card is a 1978 Topps, and he appeared on a lot of cards in the 80s. As I wrote in an earlier post, I once bought a bunch of his rookie cards from Teletrade, and I sold them recently for next to nothing. Will they jump in price now that he’s in the Ring of Honor? Probably not. You can find most of Klecko’s cards on eBay.
• Curtis Martin – Martin appeared on a billion cards between 1995 and 2006. I don’t handle modern cards, so I’m afraid I can’t say much about them. You can find a nice selection on eBay.



• Don Maynard – Maynard has two rookie cards, a 1961 Topps (pictured here) and a 1961 Fleer, and he appeared on cards every year through his last season, 1973. (His 1973 Topps card has him still with the Jets, but he played for the Cardinals that season.) You can see most of Maynard’s cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.
• Joe Namath – Namath’s rookie card, a 1965 Topps, is one of the most familiar cards in the hobby. (See J is for Joe Namath–and the 1965 Topps Tall Boys.) From 1965 to 1973, he appeared on numerous regular issue cards, oddballs, and inserts. Oddly, though he was still playing, he did not appear on any cards from 1974 to 1977. After he retired, he appeared on cards in a lot of tribute sets. You can see most of Namath’s cards from his playing days in the Vintage Football Card Gallery, and a lot of the rest on eBay.

Yesterday I added an “interactive” 1961 Topps Packers Team Card to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. By placing the cursor over a player, you can see who the player is, and by clicking on him, you can see all of his cards. (It doesn’t work on the card pictured here–you have to go to the gallery page.)

In the process of looking up the players, I learned a few things:

• Ray Nitschke wore number 33 in his rookie season.
• Hall of Famer Len Ford spent the last year of his career with the Packers.
• Billy Kinard was a Packer before joining the AFL’s Buffalo Bills in 1960.
• Steve Meilinger appeared on a 1958 Topps card with the Redskins, but he actually played for the Packers that year.
• Joe Johnson, who appears on this team card, also appeared on a (very bright) 1951 Topps Magic card. I don’t believe he appeared by himself on any other cards.

For more gallery features, see A Tour of the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

Ever wonder why all of the Baltimore Colts in the 1950 Bowman set are wearing green? Did Bowman take liberties with the team’s colors, as Topps did with the Houston Oilers in 1961? (See Houston Oilers: Pretty in Pink.) Did the team change colors from green to blue sometime after 1950?

No, the 1950 Colts were actually a different franchise than today’s Colts. The original Colts were members of the AAFC, and they were one of three teams to join the NFL when the AAFC folded after the 1949 season. This Colts team lasted just one year in the NFL before disbanding, and in 1951 the Colts players were made available to the remaining teams via the draft.

In 1953, the NFL awarded a Baltimore group a new franchise and gave it the remnants of the original Dallas Texans, a franchise that had lasted just one year in Dallas. The new Colts wore blue, and they’ve worn blue ever since. A nice article by Bob Carroll on the profootballresearchers.com web site traces the lineage of the two Colts franchises and the other AAFC teams.

Pictured here are cards of two of the Colts cards in the 1950 Bowman set, Y.A. Tittle and Chet Mutryn. You can see the entire 1950 Bowman Baltimore Colts team set in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

Here’s a bit of trivia: Besides Y.A. Tittle, what Hall of Fame quarterback played for the Colts in 1950?

Answer: George Blanda. The Bears traded Blanda and four other players to the Colts on September 5. Blanda played in one game for the Colts, and the Bears bought him back on September 20.

Earlier this week, I listed the six members of the College Football Hall of Fame 2010 Divisional Class, who will be enshrined this weekend. They will be enshrined along with the eighteen members of the 2009 Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division 1-A) Class. You can see the full list of twenty-four enshrinees on the College Hall of Fame web site.

The split between the Divisional Class and the Bowl Subdivision Class is a little confusing, since classes from different years are being enshrined together. Compounding the confusion, the 2010 Bowl Subdivision Class has already been chosen–before the 2009 class has been enshrined! The 2010 Bowl Subdivision Class, which was announced on May 27, 2010, will be inducted on December 7, 2010, and enshrined in 2011–together with the 2011 Divisional Class. In the meantime, the Hall of Fame itself is moving from South Bend to Atlanta, for more exposure. I suppose all of the annual events–two class announcements, two induction ceremonies, and the two-day enshrinement festival–are meant to maximize exposure, too.

At any rate, only one member of the 2009 Bowl Subdivision class appears on vintage cards. That’s Pervis Atkins, whose rookie card, a 1964 Philadelphia, is pictured here. Atkins played for six seasons with the Rams, Redskins, and Raiders. He also appeared on a 1965 Philadelphia card with the Redskins.

Here are the eighteen members of the 2009 Bowl Subdivision Class, along with some information on their cards. I don’t have many modern cards, so most of the links lead to examples on eBay.

In my previous post, I mentioned that Milt Morin will be enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame on July 17. Five other players and coaches from the 2010 Divisional Class will be enshrined, as well. (They will join eighteen players and coaches from the 2009 Bowl Subdivision–formerly Division 1-A–Class.) Here are all six 2010 Divisional Class inductees, along with what I know about their cards.

• Emerson Boozer – Boozer appeared on Topps cards from 1970-1975, and on a 1972 Sunoco Stamp. You can see all of them in the Vintage Football Card Gallery. His 1970 Topps card is shown here.
• Troy Brown – Brown is the youngest of the class of 2010, and he appeared on a boatload of modern New England Patriots cards. You can see lots of them on eBay.
• Willie Jeffries – Jeffries coached at three schools, and as far as I know, he did not appear on a card. There aren’t many cards of college coaches, unfortunately.
• Brian Kelley – Kelley’s first card is a 1976 Topps, which I don’t yet have in the Vintage Football Card Gallery. He appeared on numerous Topps cards between 1976 and 1984, and you can find most or all of them on eBay.
• Ted Kessinger – Kessinger was also a coach, and I don’t believe he appeared on any cards.
• Milt Morin – Morin appeared on several early 1970s cards. You can see all of them in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

See the College Football Hall of Fame web site for bios of all of the 2010 Divisional Class inductees.

Milt Morin, who played tight end for ten seasons with the Cleveland Browns, passed away on July 9. Morin was selected for the Pro Bowl twice, in 1968 and 1971. He played college football at the University of Massachusetts, and he is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame’s class of 2010.

Pictured here is Morin’s rookie card, a 1971 Topps, issued in his sixth year in the league–and three years after his first Pro Bowl. Topps compensated for their omission by including a card of Morin in each of their sets from 1971 to 1975. He also appeared on a 1972 Sunoco Stamp.

If you’re a Knute Rockne or Notre Dame fan, check out The Unofficial Homepage of Knute Rockne. It’s a tribute site assembled by Rockne’s cousin’s grandson, Birger Rokne, from Rockne’s hometown, Voss, Norway. I found Rockne’s association with Studebaker interesting–did you know that Studebaker produced a model called the Rockne? Cousin Birger has a restored one, and his site includes a photo or two.

The card shown here is Rockne’s 1935 National Chicle football card. It is the only card in the set that does not picture an NFL player. You can see Rockne’s other cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

I picked up this card a couple of weeks ago; it’s an Exhibit card of Marion Motley, printed between 1948 and 1952. Motley was one of the first four African Americans to play professional football, and he was the second African American to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. (Em Tunnell was the first.)

This is one of my first Exhibit cards, and I’m finding that there is a lot to learn about them. A good place to start is Adam Warshaw’s page called “Interesting Exhibit Cards.” Adam’s article provides a nice introduction to the cards, along with many, many pictures. According to his article, “Exhibit cards were the first nationally distributed sports card product sold without any ancillary uses or purposes,” meaning that they were not used to help sell some other product. Football players were just a few of the people featured on Exhibit cards: there were other athletes, movie stars, musicians, and, well, just see Adam’s page. Exhibit cards were dispensed from vending machines, and you can see pictures of a few of the machines on photobucket.

When I bought the Motley card, I assumed that it was a pre-rookie card, and I intended to add it to my pre-rookie cards page. I am not sure now, though, that it was printed before his 1950 Bowman rookie card. Exhibit cards don’t have dates printed on them, but by looking for slight variations, you apparently can narrow down the possible printing dates. According to a page at centuryoldcards.com, the size and case of the “MADE IN THE U.S.A.” line on the bottom of Exhibit baseball cards indicates when they were printed. The “MADE IN THE U.S.A.” line on my Motley card is all in upper case, and it measures 5/8 of an inch horizontally, suggesting that the card was printed in 1948–if football cards had the same variations as baseball cards. My old Beckett catalog, though, says that 1948 Exhibit football cards had a line at the bottom describing the player. (See eBay for examples.) In fact, my Beckett catalog distinguishes the 1948 cards from the 1949-1952 cards, saying that the 1948 cards are from the “Exhibit Sports Champion” set. Since the guidelines at centuryoldcards.com don’t appear to jibe with Beckett when applied to football cards, I’m not certain when my card was printed.

I get the sense that Beckett created a separate set for the 1948 Exhibit cards because they were easy to distinguish from the later years. The variations in the text on the 1949-1952 cards are less obvious, and I’m guessing that that’s why Beckett lumped those years together. The other card guides group all of the Exhibit football cards together and call them 1948-1952 Exhibits. To me that makes sense, since there were a lot of variations among the cards, and no one seems to have a firm grasp on which cards were printed with which variations. Besides the variations mentioned above, some cards were printed with different tints, and some were printed with postcard backs. The small images here show some variations from a recent Heritage Auctions listing. (The listing also includes larger images, but you have to register to see them.)


Back to my Motley card: I wondered about his number-less jersey, so I did some searching for it. I thought that maybe it was an old college jersey, or that maybe the Browns didn’t wear numbers in their early days in the AAFC. I didn’t find the image anywhere else, though, and I concluded that it was a Browns practice jersey. Blackpast.com has a photo of Motley in action as a Brown, and the jersey number is the only difference between the uniform he is wearing in that photo and the one he is wearing on my card. It’s curious that the Exhibit card pictures him in a practice jersey, but the all-white uniform does make for a striking image.

You might have noticed that, in the image at blackpast.com, Motley is wearing Chuck Taylors. The Browns evidently wore Chucks when the field was frozen, because I found an image of other team members changing into them during the 1950 Championship game. I believe number 59 is Horace Gillom–check out his monster facemask!

• Search eBay for Marion Motley, 1948-1952 Exhibit football cards

Happy Independence Day! It took me awhile, but I found just the right three cards for the occasion. First we have Red Grange on his 1955 Topps All-American card. Then there’s Daryl White on a 1973 Nebraska Playing Card. (Note that its card #4.) And, finally, Forrest Blue on his 1975 Wonder Bread card. Between the three, we even have a star and a few stripes!

In case you aren’t familiar with the three sets, you can read about them in earlier blog articles:

• A is for All Americans
• New in the Gallery: 1973 Nebraska Playing Cards
• New in the Galley: 1975 Wonder Bread Cards

Enjoy your picnics and fireworks!

Two Canadian Football League Hall of Famers, Ron Atchison and Frank Rigney, passed away this week. Both players appeared on numerous CFL football cards. I am not an expert on CFL cards (or on the CFL, for that matter), so I took the opportunity to do some web searching and learn a little.

A tribute to Ron Atchison on the Vancouver Sun web site says that he walked-on to the Saskatchewan training camp in 1952, and he ended up playing on the Roughriders defensive line for seventeen years. In that span, the team won one Grey Cup (CFL Championship), in 1966. In one playoff game on an icy field, the resourceful Atchison wore his Hush Puppies for better traction–and they worked!

Atchison apparently did not play college football, but prior to trying out with Saskatchewan, he played for the Saskatoon Hilltops in the Canadian Junior Football League. The league is still in operation, and, according to its Wikipedia page, it serves as a sort of minor league for the CFL. There are some fun team names among the league’s current nineteen teams, including the Big Kahuna Rams, the Chilliwack Huskers, the London Beefeaters, and the Windsor AKO Fratmen.

The card pictured here is Atchison’s 1965 Topps CFL card. 1965 Topps is probably my favorite CFL set, since the cards are colorful and distinct from their NFL counterparts. (Some CFL cards, such as 1958 Topps, 1962 Post, and 1968 O-Pee-Chee, look just like the NFL cards from those years, so to me they’re not very interesting.) Atchison appeared on many more cards, and although I don’t yet have them, you can see a nice assortment on eBay.

Like Atchison, Frank Rigney spent his entire CFL career with the same team, playing ten years on the Winnipeg Blue Bombers offensive line. In those ten years, Winnipeg played in five Grey Cups and won four of them. Rigney was a CFL West All Star in seven of his ten seasons. He played college football for Iowa, and he was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles, but I did not find anything that said he reported to the Eagles training camp.

Pictured here is Rigney’s 1962 Topps CFL card, half of a panel he shared with teammate Gordie Rowland. The two-card panels in this set are the size of standard single cards. Rigney appeared on many more cards, as well as on some Nalley’s Coins, and you can see examples of them on eBay.

Rigney’s obituary on the CBC News web site provides a nice summary of his career.

Jack Cloud, who played fullback and linebacker for the Packers and Redskins from 1950 to 1953, passed away on June 19. Before his pro career, Cloud starred at William and Mary, where he scored five touchdowns in one game and a school record 102 points in one season. After leaving pro football, he coached and taught physical education for 37 years, including 32 years at the Naval Academy. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1990.

Pictured here is Cloud’s 1951 Bowman card. He also appeared on a 1948 Leaf card while still at William and Mary. I don’t yet have that card in the Vintage Football Card Gallery, but you can see examples of it on eBay. Cloud’s obituary at hometownannapolis.com includes a relatively recent photo.

I probably looked at this 1960 Fleer Roger Ellis card a hundred times before I realized that he wasn’t wearing a Michigan helmet. I always assumed that the “winged” helmet design was Michigan’s only, and that it somehow symbolized a wolverine. As I wrote yesterday, though, the design has nothing to do with wolverines; it merely reflects the structural design of leather helmets back in the 1930s. Other teams used the winged design on their helmets in the 1930s, also, but most moved to different designs when they went to synthetic helmets.

Maine is another school that used the winged design, though I don’t know whether they used it on leather helmets or adopted it afterward. And that’s whose helmet Ellis is wearing: he was a Maine Black Bear before joining the AFL’s New York Titans. According to the Colonial Athletic Association page at the Helmet Project, Maine used the winged design until the mid-1970s. And guess what? Delaware, which is also in the CAA, uses the winged design to this day. I had no idea! Henshots.com has lots of recent photos of the Blue Hens in their winged helmets.

• Search Nearmint’s Cards for 1960 Fleer football cards
• Search eBay for Roger Ellis

In a comment on my article about Jim David’s helmet last week, a reader pointed out that Ron Kramer’s 1958 Topps card also pictures him in his college helmet. My follow-up comment was that a lot of players appear in their college uniforms on football cards (most of the players in the 1960 Fleer set, for example), but not many are wearing their helmets. So “players wearing their college helmets” is a nice subject for a few articles.

Pictured here is the card the reader mentioned, which shows Kramer in his Michigan jersey and distinctive “winged” helmet. (Topps, thank goodness, did not recolor the jersey and helmet Packers green-and-gold.) I was curious about Michigan’s helmet–was it supposed to somehow symbolize a wolverine?–so I did a web search and turned up an article on its history. No, it turns out, the design has nothing to do with wolverines; it was actually standard on a model of Spalding helmets in the 1930s. The design was functional: the wings and straps helped bind the other pieces of the helmet together, and the additional leather provided more head protection. Michigan’s Coach, Fritz Crisler, merely painted the helmet different colors to dress it up, as he had done at Princeton a couple of years earlier. Several other schools colored their helmets in the same fashion, but they changed their designs when they moved from leather helmets to synthetic ones. Michigan not only kept the winged design, but eventually used it in other sports, too. For a while, even the swim team’s racing caps bore decorations based on the construction of 1930s football helmets!

Getting back to Ron Kramer: it’s appropriate that he appeared on a card in his Michigan uniform, because he was one of Michigan’s great athletes. According to Wikipedia, he earned three letters each in football, basketball, and track, and he led both the football and basketball teams in scoring for two years. As a sophomore, he also led the Big Ten in punting.

Kramer’s 1958 Topps card is his rookie card, though, ironically, he was in the Air Force in 1958 and did not play. He returned to the Packers in 1959 and became a three-time Pro Bowler during their championship years. There is a nice article about Kramer’s football career at Profootballresearchers.org.

• See all of Ron Kramer’s cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery
• Search Nearmint’s Cards for Ron Kramer, Michigan alumni, Green Bay Packers
• Search eBay for Ron Kramer, 1958 Topps