Nearmint's Vintage Football Card Blog

Did you know that the card companies sometimes hired photographers from the DMV to take pictures for sports cards? As you can see from these examples, it’s true. Those DMV folks are experts at catching people with their eyes closed. At least driver’s licenses expire after a few years. People keep sports cards forever!

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!

Today I put a nice group of ungraded 1971 Topps cards up for sale. Included is the comical card on the right. The photographer’s previous experience was evidently with the DMV.

Even though Topps was printing these for kids, it amazes me that photos like this made it onto the cards. Was film too expensive to take more than one shot? When they saw this, wouldn’t they have said oops, better grab a picture from last year instead? Or maybe with their airbrushing skills, they could have given poor Gerry some eyes?