Nearmint's Vintage Football Card Blog » 1948 Bowman

Bill “Red” Moore, Steelers Guard

nearmint — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 21:25:51 +0000

Bill “Red” Moore, a guard for the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1947 to 1949, passed away on December 14. The Beaver County (Pennsylvania) Times web site has a report.

Moore appeared on one football card, the 1948 Bowman card pictured here.

Nolan Luhn, Green Bay Packers End

nearmint — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 01:57:10 +0000

Nolan Luhn, an end for the Green Bay Packers from 1945 to 1949, passed away on November 27. The whiotv.com web site has a short report.

To my knowledge, Luhn appeared on just one football card, the 1948 Bowman card pictured here. 1948 Bowman cards with numbers divisible by 3 were short-printed, and Luhn’s card, number 9, is one of the scarcest cards in the set. See my 1948 Bowman virtual uncut sheet page for details.

Bill Gray, Washington Redskins Offensive Lineman

nearmint — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 12:21:52 +0000

Bill Gray, an offensive lineman for the Washington Redskins in 1947 and 1948, passed away on August 18. OregonLive.com has an account of his life.

Gray appeared on one football card, the 1948 Bowman card pictured here.

You can see Gray’s career NFL statistics at pro-football-reference.com.

Pete Pihos, Philadelphia Eagles Hall of Fame End

nearmint — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 15:17:31 +0000

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.

This Week’s Interesting eBay Auctions

nearmint — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 13:45:21 +0000

Here are this week’s interesting eBay auctions for vintage football cards and related collectibles:

Three complete sets of 1948 Bowman football cards: a high-grade set graded by PSA, a high-grade complete raw set, and a complete raw set in its original album.
Some fun beverage cans: an Iron City Beer Can picturing the 1976 Pittsburgh Steelers and a near-set of 1976 Canada Dry cans with NFL helmets on them.
A full set of 1961 Fleer wallet pictures, still in the album–sort of. (You can see the full list of these wallet pictures in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.)
A leopard-print 1965 Topps Jim Otto card.
Three 1960 Fleer wrong-back cards. (For more examples of these, see my 1960 Fleer virtual uncut sheet page.)
Alan Page on grocery store displays for 1974 Wonder Bread and 1974 Town Talk Bread football cards. (For more on Wonder Bread and Town Talk cards, see my blog article about food issues.)
A rare 1960 O-Pee-Chee Test Tattoo of Jim Brown–listed at $19,500! (The seller has lots more of these tattoos, as well.)
And, finally, a PSA 10 1955 Topps All-American Knute Rockne card. Wow!

1948 Bowman Wrong Back Football Cards

nearmint — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 14:33:12 +0000

I noticed this week that eBay seller bmw_cards2 has a bunch of 1948 Bowman wrong-back cards for sale. Pictured here is one of them, a Joe Muha card with a Harry Gilmer back.

I was curious about how the cards got the wrong backs, so I looked at where they were positioned on the uncut sheets. (See my 1948 Bowman virtual uncut sheet page.) It turns out that the fronts of all of BMW’s cards are from the first sheet, and the backs are all from the corresponding positions on the third sheet. (The Muha card is fourth from the right in the bottom row.) I don’t know much about printing, but it looks to me like the printer printed the front of the sheet, then used the wrong plate when printing the back.

Searching eBay further, I found a 1948 Bowman Art Faircloth card with a similar problem, only the Faircloth card has both the correct back and an incorrect back printed on it. Again, the front of the card is from the first sheet, and the incorrect back is from the corresponding position on the third sheet.

Duke Iversen, Giants and Yanks Blocking Back and Linebacker

nearmint — Thu, 26 May 2011 18:23:28 +0000

Duke Iversen, a back and linebacker from 1947 to 1951 for the New York Giants and New York Yanks, has passed away. He was 91. There is a recent article about Iversen’s career at petaluma360.com.

Iversen appeared on one football card, the 1948 Bowman card pictured here.

You can see Duke Iversen’s NFL career statistics at pro-football-reference.com.

Paul Briggs, Detroit Lions Tackle and Linebacker

nearmint — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:06:21 +0000

Paul Briggs, who played tackle and linebacker for the Detroit Lions in 1948, passed away on February 14. According to Briggs’s obituary at bakersfield.com, a knee injury cut short his football career. The obituary includes an account of his World War II heroism, a list of his college football awards, and a recent photo. Cubuffs.com has a photo of Briggs with the 1947 University of Colorado football team.

Despite having a short NFL career, Briggs appeared on a football card, the 1948 Bowman card pictured here. His card is one of the short prints in the set, and one of the more difficult cards in the set to find in high grade. (For details, see the 1948 Bowman uncut sheet page.)

See the stats for Paul Briggs at pro-football-reference.com.

An Achievement Unmatched in Fifty Years

nearmint — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 23:25:04 +0000

Here’s a bit of trivia from my fellow collector Pete. Pictured here are three vintage rookie cards: a 1948 Bowman Charley Trippi, a 1950 Bowman Bob Hoernschemeyer, and a 1948 Leaf George Taliaferro. What did these three players achieve that no one has since?

Answer: They are the only three NFL players to have gotten over 1000 yards passing, 1000 yards rushing, and 1000 yards receiving in their pro careers. Here are their numbers from pro-football-reference.com:

Charley Trippi: 2547 yards passing, 3506 yards rushing, 1321 yards receiving.
Bob Hoernschemeyer: 4302 yards passing, 4548 yards rushing, 1139 yards receiving.
George Taliaferro: 1633 yards passing, 2266 yards rushing, 1300 yards receiving.

But wait–there’s an asterisk.

Some of Taliaferro and Hoernschemeyer’s stats are from the AAFC, it turns out, and without their AAFC stats, they would not have achieved their triple-1000s. I wondered if the NFL recognized AAFC stats, and I learned that they don’t: Hoernschemeyer’s page at nfl.com shows his seasons in the AAFC, but not his statistics. By contrast, George Blanda’s page shows both his NFL and AFL statistics. Why would the NFL recognize AFL stats but not AAFC stats? Wikipedia’s page on the AAFC offers two possible explanations: either the AAFC didn’t provide the NFL with its official scoresheets, or the NFL considered the AAFC less than equal, since the NFL absorbed only three of the AAFC teams when the AAFC folded in 1950. Both reasons seem silly, especially the latter. One of those three AAFC teams, the Cleveland Browns, reached the championship game in each of their first six years in the NFL, and they won three of those six games.

So, if you go by the NFL record book, Charley Trippi is the only player to have achieved the 1000-yard passing/rushing/receiving career triple. I’m siding with my friend Pete, though, and also including the other two here. Especially since I like the name Hoernschemeyer.

New in the Gallery: 1948 Bowman Virtual Uncut Sheets

nearmint — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 23:48:50 +0000

Today I added virtual uncut sheets of 1948 Bowman football cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. The numbering of the cards on the sheets shows why some of them are short prints, and the positions of the cards on the sheets shows why some are scarce in high grade.

(Click the image to see the uncut sheet page.)

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