Nearmint's Vintage Football Card Blog » Donny Anderson http://www.nearmintcards.com/blog News, trivia, and musings of interest to vintage football card collectors Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:41:18 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 1968 Topps Football Cards: Honoring the First Super Bowl Teams http://www.nearmintcards.com/blog/2011/01/25/1968-topps-football-card-super-bowl/ http://www.nearmintcards.com/blog/2011/01/25/1968-topps-football-card-super-bowl/#comments Tue, 25 Jan 2011 15:01:29 +0000 nearmint http://www.nearmintcards.com/blog/?p=4625 Donny Anderson 1968 Topps rookie football cardDaryle Lamonica 1968 Topps football cardIn 1968, after the NFL and AFL decided to merge, Topps became the sole major producer of American football cards for the first time since 1959. The 1968 Topps football card set was the first since 1961 to contain cards of both NFL and AFL players. To mark the occasion, Topps decided to honor the teams who had participated in the first two NFL-AFL World Championship Games–or, as they came to be known, the first two Super Bowls.

First, Topps honored the Super Bowl II contestants, the Green Bay Packers and Oakland Raiders, by using a horizontal format and alternate design for their cards. The two examples pictured here are Donny Anderson, on his rookie card, and Daryle Lamonica. You can see all of the horizontally-oriented 1968 Topps Packers cards and 1968 Topps Raiders cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

Len Dawson puzzle pieceSecond, Topps honored the quarterbacks of Super Bowl I, Bart Starr of the Packers and Len Dawson of the Kansas City Chiefs, by putting puzzles of them on the backs of some of the 1968 second series cards. The piece pictured here, Dawson’s right eye, is on the back of Ernie Wright’s card. A page in the gallery shows both assembled puzzles. Oddly, for Dawson’s puzzle, Topps chose a seven- or eight-year-old photo from when he was still with the Browns, though they had been picturing him in his Chiefs uniform since 1965.

]]> http://www.nearmintcards.com/blog/2011/01/25/1968-topps-football-card-super-bowl/feed/ 0 1973 Topps Boyhood Photo Cards http://www.nearmintcards.com/blog/2009/08/19/1973-topps-boyhood-photo-football-cards/ http://www.nearmintcards.com/blog/2009/08/19/1973-topps-boyhood-photo-football-cards/#comments Wed, 19 Aug 2009 23:46:06 +0000 nearmint http://www.nearmintcards.com/blog/?p=1113 I have always thought that these were odd: they’re boyhood photo cards that were part of the 1973 Topps football card set. It’s a 528-card set, so why are there only three boyhood cards? Why did Topps pick Anderson, Gabriel, and Garrett? Were they the only players whose moms responded to requests for old photos? Did the other moms respond, but their kids weren’t cute enough? Did Topps intend to have a Boyhood Photo insert set and fail to turn up enough photos? Every time I encounter one of these, I wonder how they came to be.

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