Nearmint’s Vintage Football Card Blog

A few months ago I created a page called Mistaken Identities: Vintage Football Cards Picturing the Wrong Player. The page shows numerous cards in which the main photo is incorrect. I learned from my Beckett catalog, though, that there are also a bunch of 1962 Topps cards that picture the wrong player in the black-and-white inset photo. What’s more, it appears that Topps faked a couple of these photos intentionally, altering the imposter’s jersey number to match the player on the card.

Here is one of the altered jersey numbers: the inset photo on Zeke Bratkowski’s 1962 Topps card actually shows John Unitas, with his number changed from 19 to 12. Topps evidently couldn’t find a good game photo of Bratkowski, though he had been in the league for eight years. It’s too bad, because Bratkowski took great action shots. On his his 1962 Post Cereal card, he’s throwing while going down, and on his 1958 Topps card, he’s leaping over palm trees!

The second altered jersey is on Fran Tarkenton’s rookie card. Beckett says that it’s Sonny Jurgensen in the inset photo, with his number changed from 9 to 10. It’s hard to tell from the photo, but does Jurgensen still have Eagle wings on his helmet?

The third imposter is on Roman Gabriel’s rookie card. On this card, the player in the inset photo is clearly Y.A. Tittle. It is understandable that Topps didn’t have an NFL game shot of Gabriel, since 1962 was his first year in the league. This time they didn’t try to fool us: they just picked out a nice quarterback photo and called it good.

Last, we have a couple of Redskins. That’s Don Bosseler pictured in the inset photo of Dick James’s card. Bosseler didn’t appear in the 1962 Topps set on a card of his own, so it’s nice that they gave him a cameo. (He did, however, appear on a 1962 Post Cereal card.)

Bob Lemke, editor of the vintage card sections of the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards, makes a hobby of creating custom vintage sports cards. Pictured is one of his latest creations, a 1968 Topps Brian Piccolo card. Though Piccolo started with the Bears in 1965, the card companies did not print a card of him until 1969, when Topps issued his rookie card and included him on a 4-in-1 stamp card. (Unfortunately, on both cards Topps misspelled Piccolo’s name “Bryon.”)

I like the image Bob chose for this card; it’s the helmet-in-hands pose I described earlier this week. Bob has also created a 1966 Philadelphia Piccolo card using a different image.

For more of Bob’s creations, all in the style of 1955 Topps All-Americans, check out his PhotoBucket gallery. There’s even one of Bluto Blutarsky!