One bit of trivia: the cards in the bottom row of the partial sheet also appeared in Milton Bradley’s Win-A-Card game in 1969.

Click the image to see the rest of the partial sheet. (When the “In Progress” page comes up, scroll to the bottom.)

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.

Thanks, Steve!

This time we have a 1969 Topps Joe Scarpati and a 1967 Topps Johnny Robinson:

A 1968 Topps Andy Russell rookie and a 1966 Philadelphia Roger LeClerc:

A 1965 Philadelphia Dick Schafrath and a 1967 Philadelphia Willie Davis:

Unfortunately, the photographers from many teams–notably the AFL teams–never used this pose, so in this series I could feature cards from only about half the teams. That’s a pity: I love Pat Patriot and Denver’s drunk Bronco, and it would have been nice to include them.

Andy Nelson, after graduating from Memphis, played eight seasons with the Baltimore Colts. His 1962 Topps card is pictured here, and he also appeared on a 1959 Topps card. After retiring from football, Nelson founded Andy Nelson’s Barbeque, in Cockeysville, Maryland. The business still appears to be going strong. (I thought about joining Andy’s Swine Social Club, but I live kind of far away.) There’s a recent picture of Nelson in a Baltimore Examiner article about the restaurant.

Another Memphis grad, John “Bull” Bramlett, played seven seasons for the Broncos, Dolphins, Patriots, and Falcons. The card pictured here is Bramlett’s rookie card, a 1967 Topps; he also appeared on a 1969 Topps 4-in-1 insert and a 1971 Topps card. After football, Bramlett started John Bramlett Ministries, in Cordova, Tennessee. The web site includes a few recent photos of Bramlett.

• Search Nearmint’s Cards for: John Bramlett, Andy Nelson, Memphis Alumni.
• Search eBay for Andy Nelson, John Bramlett.

So, who are our sleepy players, and what cards do they appear on? From the top, we have:

• 1950 Bowman Bob Kelly, of the original Baltimore Colts (also see Baltimore Colts in Green?)
• 1951 Bowman Al Derogatis
• 1967 Topps Babe Parilli
• 1969 Topps Don Maynard (Maynard is also sleepy on his 1967 Topps and 1968 Topps cards)
• 1970 Topps Mike Tilleman
• 1971 Topps Gerry Philbin

I am undoubtedly missing some. If you know ‘em, post ‘em!

In 1968, after the NFL and AFL agreed to merge, Topps obtained the rights to both leagues, and Philadelphia stopped printing football cards. Topps closed out the decade with two colorful sets containing both NFL and AFL players.

1964 Topps

The 1964 Topps set contains 176 cards, a large number for only eight AFL teams. 166 are cards of individual players (the others are team cards and checklists), so there are 20 or 21 player cards for each team. At the time, that was about twice the usual number of players per team, so Topps was able to include more cards of non-stars than usual. Give or take a card or two, there are 73 rookie cards in the set! Among the rookie cards are these bookend Hall of Famers, Bobby Bell and Buck Buchanan of the Kansas City Chiefs.

The 1964 Topps cards have colored backgrounds and colored stars around the borders. I don’t see a pattern to the colors Topps chose for the backgrounds, except that each card has a background color different from the player’s jersey color. Most of the cards have the player’s name, position, and team in white letters on a black background, but a handful–such as the Bobby Bell card–have either white-on-blue or white-and-black-on-red labels. If there is any significance to the alternate label colors, I don’t see it.

The 176 cards in the 1964 set would have been printed on two 132-card sheets, with 88 cards repeated. That means that there are either 88 double prints or 88 short prints in the set, depending on whether your glass is half-full or half-empty.

There is one mistaken identity in the 1964 Topps set: Ray Abruzzese’s card actually pictures Ed Rutkowski. Topps evidently was focused on spelling his name correctly.

1965 Topps

I described the classic 1965 Topps set in J is for Joe Namath–and the 1965 Topps Tall Boys, so I won’t cover it again here. On to 1966…

1966 Topps

In 1966, Topps used the “little television” design previously seen on 1955 Bowman baseball cards and on the highlight cards in the 1961 Topps football set. I imagine that by the third time around, it had lost its cuteness. (I noticed today that even the checklists in the 1966 Topps set are in the shape of TVs.)

Though the Dolphins joined the AFL in 1966 and were included in this set, Topps reduced the set size to 132 cards. They also wasted one on the Funny Ring Checklist. Because of the reduced set size, there are only 13 rookie cards in the set, and there are no Hall of Famers among the rookie cards. I’d call the set a letdown after 1965.

So, what’s interesting about the 1966 Topps cards? Well, the brown borders show wear easily, so finding high-grade cards is a challenge, and challenges are always fun. Also, some cards, such as the John Farris card shown here, can be found with a stripe along one edge. (I’ve seen yellow, red, and black stripes.) The stripes don’t seem to affect the grades that PSA assigns the cards, but to me they’re distracting, and I prefer cards without them. I presume that cards with a stripe were on the edge of the sheet, but I have not seen an uncut sheet to verify that.

Since the set fit perfectly on a 132-card sheet, none of the cards are short prints. The backs of some cards are white, and the backs of others have a yellowish-brownish tone, suggesting that some sheets were printed on different paper stock than others. Here again, I prefer cards with white backs to those with toning, but PSA does not appear to discriminate.

1967 Topps

In 1967, Topps returned to bright colors, and 1967 Topps football cards resemble some of the psychedelic art of the time. (The Peace poster shown here is from cafepress.com.) This is another 132-card set with no short prints, no Hall of Fame rookie cards, and no real oddities. I think, though, that it captures the spirit of the AFL and the country better than any of the other 60s sets.

As I wrote in an earlier article, 33 of the 1967 Topps football cards were reprinted in 1969 for a Milton Bradley game called Win-A-Card. The backs of the Milton Bradley cards have a slightly lighter color than the regular cards (yellow v. orange), and some of them, along their borders, show parts of other cards that were included in the game–such as 1968 Topps baseball cards.

1968 Topps and 1969 Topps

As I said at the top, the 1968 Topps and 1969 Topps sets contain both NFL and AFL players. Topps made these sets bigger to accommodate the larger number of teams, and it released each set in two series. Like most of the Topps cards of the 60s, the 1968 and 1969 sets are colorful and bright.

For more detailed information on these sets, see my virtual uncut sheet pages. Here are the links:

• 1968 Topps virtual uncut sheets
• 1969 Topps virtual uncut sheets

More of the ABCs:

• Previous: T is for Topps, Part 2: 1960-1963
• Next: T is for Topps, Part 4: The 1970s
• All of the ABCs

According to an auction on the Heritage Auctions web site, the board game was called “Win-A-Card,” from Milton Bradley. The auction says that there were 132 cards in the game: 76 1968 Topps baseball cards, 33 1967 Topps football cards, 22 1965 Topps Hot Rod cards, and an instruction card. The 132 cards were printed on a single sheet created specially for the game. The bit of brown on the top of my Tom Day football card is part of a 1968 Topps baseball card. The baseball cards included a Nolan Ryan rookie card, Brooks Robinson, Tom Seaver, Ed Mathews, Rod Carew, Gaylord Perry, Bob Gibson, and Hank Aaron. You can usually find a few of them on eBay.

BoardGameGeek.com has a picture of the game box and a photo of some of the baseball and Hot Rod cards. BoardGameGeek says that the game included a total of 50-70 cards, but that has to be incorrect. If each game contained a partial sheet of cards, and if there was only one instruction card per sheet, not all games would have gotten an instruction card. I believe Heritage’s statement that the game included all 132 cards.

Joe Namath is one of the football cards in the game. You can see the full list of football cards in the Win-A-Card game in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.