Recycled Images on 1969 Topps Mini-Card Albums

December 1st, 2011  |  Published in error cards, Football Card Trivia

As I wrote last week, one of my readers pointed out that the player on the cover of the San Francisco 49ers 1969 Topps Mini-Card Album is Joe Walton, and that the same image appeared in the inset photo of Walton’s 1962 Topps football card. This made me curious, so I checked to see if other inset photos from 1962 Topps cards had been reused on 1969 Mini-Card Albums. Sure enough, I found a few:

First, the image of Bart Starr on the Green Bay Packers Mini-Card Album appeared in the inset of Starr’s 1962 Topps card.
Green Bay Packers 1969 Topps Mini-Card AlbumBart Starr 1962 Topps football card
Next, the image of John Unitas on the Baltimore Colts Mini-Card Album was also used in the inset photo of Zeke Bratkowski’s 1962 Topps card. Topps changed Unitas’s number 19 to Bratkowski’s number 12 on the 1962 Topps card, as I noted in an earlier article.
Baltimore Colts 1969 Topps Mini-Card AlbumZeke Bratkowski 1962 Topps football card
The image on the Minnesota Vikings Mini-Card Album also appeared in the inset photo of Don Perkins’s 1962 Topps card, but the player’s number is different. I’m guessing that the image was altered for the 1962 card, so the player probably isn’t Perkins.
Minnesota Vikings 1969 Topps Mini-Card AlbumDon Perkins 1962 Topps rookie football card
The image on the Denver Broncos Mini-Card Album is the same one used in the inset photo on Ollie Matson’s 1962 Topps card, but again, the player’s number is different. Matson was number 33 with the Rams, so it appears that the image on his 1962 card was altered. Does anyone recognize the player?
Denver Broncos 1969 Topps Mini-Card AlbumOllie Matson 1962 Topps football card
Finally, the image on the Washington Redskins Mini-Card Album is the same as the inset on John Aveni’s 1962 Topps card. Again, the player’s number appears to have been changed on the 1962 Topps card. I believe that the player is Dick James, who wore number 47 for the Redskins in 1961.
Washington Redskins 1969 Topps Mini-Card AlbumJohn Aveni 1962 Topps football card
Given that there are so many altered jersey numbers on the 1962 Topps cards, I wonder how many of the inset photos actually picture the right player. Not many, I’ll bet.

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The Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor

September 11th, 2010  |  Published in Halls of Fame, New in the Gallery, Uniforms

1962 Topps Don Perkins rookie football cardThis morning I added the ability to search the Vintage Football Card Gallery for members of the Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor. Just go to the Advanced Search page, choose Cowboys Ring of Honor in one of the “Honor” menus, and hit the Search button.

Pictured here is one member of the Ring, Don Perkins, on his 1962 Topps rookie card. He’s wearing the Cowboys’ first home jersey, my all-time favorite over all the NFL teams. He doesn’t appear to be wearing it in the black-and-white inset photo, though, so I wonder if that is a college photo. Or maybe it’s not even him: on some 1962 cards, Topps pictured a different player in the inset photo, sometimes altering the image to look like the player on the card. For examples of that, see my earlier blog article on the subject.

Looking through the cards I have of members of the Cowboys Ring of Honor, it’s striking that there are no cards of players who had moved on to different teams. It is possible that I don’t have all of the players’ cards, but the impression I get is that the Cowboys’ best players stayed with the Cowboys.

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