Nearmint’s Vintage Football Card Blog

In 1935, the National Chicle Gum Company became the first company to print a football-only set and distribute it nationally. The backs of the cards indicate that the company had planned to print 240 cards (see the second-to-bottom line on the card back below), but they stopped far short of that, at 36. That’s a pity, because the cards are little works of art.

There are six rookie cards of Hall of Fame members in the National Chicle set: Dutch Clark, Ken Strong, Cliff Battles, Turk Edwards, Clarke Hinkle, and Bronko Nagurski. Because so few football cards were printed before 1935, most of the rest of the cards in the set are rookies, too. The single non-rookie card is Knute Rockne, who appeared in the multi-sport 1933 Sport Kings set. Rockne, the Notre Dame coach, is the also the only person in the National Chicle set who was not an NFL player. This suggests to me that some of the cards beyond the initial 36 would have been of college players and coaches. There were only eight NFL teams in 1935, and 240 cards distributed among eight teams would have been 30 cards per team. Rosters were smaller back then (pro-football-reference.com shows 31 players on the Packers’ 1935 roster), and 30 cards per team would have covered practically all of the players in the league.

Three of the teams represented in the National Chicle set either moved or changed names before the next major football card offerings in 1948. The Boston Redskins moved to Washington in 1937. The Pittsburgh Pirates became the Steelers in 1939. The Brooklyn Dodgers became the Brooklyn Tigers in 1944, and they merged with the Boston Yanks in 1945. The Yanks eventually became the Indianapolis Colts, by way of New York, Dallas, and Baltimore.

When I added the National Chicle set to the Vintage Football Card Gallery, I was surprised to find that two of the players’ names were misspelled. (I use pro-football-reference.com as a reference.) Homer Griffith’s name is misspelled “Griffiths” on his card, and Phil Sarboe’s name is misspelled “Sorboe.” Misspelled names are far from unusual on vintage cards, but considering the care taken to design the cards’ images, I would not have expected the cards to have spelling mistakes. That was someone else’s job, I guess.

While the fronts of the cards are beautifully designed, the backs are interesting in their own way. Rather than focusing on the players’ stats, as more recent cards do, the card backs give tips on how to play the game, using the players as examples. There are four slight variations of the card backs, having to do with the size and placement of Eddie Casey’s signature, whether his credentials are shown, and whether the copyright line is included on the card. You can see examples of the four variations–as well as a long discussion on which variations appear on which cards–in a thread on the Collectors Universe message board.

You can see the full set of 1935 National Chicle football cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

• Previous: M is for Mayo Cut Plug
• Next: O is for Oddball
• All of the ABCs

Yesterday I added 1935 National Chicle cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. What a beautiful set! My favorite cards are the Pittsburgh Pirates, in their bumblebee uniforms. (The Pirates became the Steelers in 1939.)

I’ll write more about the set when I get to N is for National Chicle in my ABC’s of Vintage Football Cards series.

The 1955 Topps All-American set, 100 cards picturing college All-Americans through 1955, is probably the most popular vintage football card set. The key to its popularity is its player selection: it includes sixteen hall-of-famers, including five rookie cards; eleven Heisman trophy winners, including five rookie cards; Notre Dame legends Knute Rockne and the Four Horsemen; and even a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Byron “Whizzer” White. It is also an attractive set, with a color picture of the player in the foreground and a black-and-white action picture in the background. The PSA Set Registry provides evidence of its popularity: at the time of this writing, collectors had registered 85 sets of All-Americans, far more than any other vintage set.

Prior to 1955, Topps had printed two other sets of cards of college players, 1950 Felt Backs and 1951 Magic cards, but those sets were limited to current players of the time, and they are not as attractive as the 1955 set. The 1950 Felt Backs are downright ugly, but the set does include the rookie cards of Joe Paterno, Darrell Royal, and a couple of pro football hall-of-famers. The 1951 Topps Magic cards are more attractive, but the set holds only one significant rookie card: Heisman winner Vic Janowicz. In 1955, Topps played catch-up, including stars from decades earlier who had never appeared on cards before. The result: lots of rookie cards of famous players.

The 1955 All-American set began a run of annual Topps football sets that continues to this day. Topps dominated the football card market until 1989, when Score and ProSet introduced superior products. From 1968 to 1988, Topps had practically no competition in the market, and it showed: most of the cards they printed in the 1970’s and 1980’s were dull and nondescript compared to their early offerings.

A 1955 Topps All-American page on the Boston College web site–evidently a student project–provides other interesting facts about the set: detailed descriptions of the cards, errors, and players who went on to fame outside of football.

• Next: B is for Bowman
• All of the ABCs

• Search Nearmint’s Cards for 1955 Topps All-Americans
• Search eBay for 1955 Topps All-Americans