July 28th, 2009 |
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error cards
A couple of weeks ago I added a search for error cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery, and since then I have been documenting the error cards in my database. Here are a couple more I never noticed: the 1959 Topps Jim Ray Smith and Dave Middleton cards have the wrong team logos on the front. In fact, the logos appear to be switched! I thought that if I looked at the cards’ placement on an uncut sheet, I might see how their logos could have been swapped, but the two cards are not close together on the sheet. Perhaps it is just coincidence that Smith got Middleton’s Lion and Middleton got Smith’s Brown.
The 1959 Topps set has a large number of errors besides these swapped logos: misspelled names, incorrect player positions, a card picturing the wrong player, typos in the stats, and so on. I’m not sure how far to go with documenting the errors. Does anyone care if Bill Glass is a center on the front of the card and a tackle on the back?
July 24th, 2009 |
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error cards, New in the Gallery
Last week I added an error card search to the Vintage Football Card Gallery, and since then I have been marking the error cards in my database. Here’s a good one: it’s a 1967 Philadelphia Raymond Berry card, but the image on the card is not Raymond Berry. Who is it? Check out the latest entry on my Mistaken Identities page.
My old Beckett catalog also lists a couple of other cards where the wrong player is pictured, but I can’t find other photos of the players to see for myself. One is 1955 Topps All-American #91, Bob Odell, which Beckett says pictures Howard Odell. Another is 1972 Topps #174, Adrian Young, which Beckett says pictures Rick Duncan. If I find other photos of these players, I will add the cards to the Mistaken Identites page.
July 19th, 2009 |
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error cards, Football Card Trivia
In a post last month I showed that the image on Bill Wade’s 1960 Topps card is reversed. Looking at my Beckett’s catalog this week, I found that the image on Doug Atkins’s 1960 Topps card is reversed as well. It’s not obvious when you look at that card by itself, but it is when you put it alongside his 1961 Fleer card. It’s funny how you can look at a card a hundred times and not notice an error like this.
I did a little ‘net search to look for bits of trivia about Atkins, and I found that he has an official site. The quotes by John Unitas and Jim Parker are worth a look.
July 17th, 2009 |
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error cards, New in the Gallery
Today I added the ability to search for error cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery. You can combine that search with other searches and find, for example, all error cards of hall-of-famers or all error cards of Philadelphia Eagles. To do the fancy searches, see the Advanced Search page.
Though I have the search working, I don’t yet have all of the error cards identified in my database. If your favorite error card is missing, leave a comment and I’ll get it in.
Can you spot the error on the 1969 Topps Sonny Jurgensen card shown here?
July 4th, 2009 |
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error cards
There are two versions of 1954 Bowman football card number 97. My Beckett price guide calls them “97A Tom Finnin ERR” and “97B Tom Finnan COR.” PSA lists the two versions as “Tom Finnin (incorrectly spelled)” and “Tom Finnan” in their price guide, and in their population report they say the two versions are “Tom Finnin – Wrong Last Name On Back” and “Tom Finnan – Correct Last Name On Back.” SGC‘s population report says “TOM FINNAN – Error ‘Finnin’ Reverse” and “TOM FINNAN.”
So which is right? As it turns out, none of the above.
Indeed, one version of the card says Tom Finnan on both sides, and the other says Tom Finnan on the front and Tom Finnin on the back. But according to nfl.com, databasefootball.com, and pro-football-reference.com, the correct spelling of Tom’s last name is Finnin. So both cards are error cards: one is wrong on both sides, and one is wrong on just the front.
So which version of the card is harder to find? My old Beckett says “Tom Finnin ERR” is worth $60 and “Tom Finnan COR” is worth $8 in near mint condition. PSA’s price guide says a PSA 7 “Tom Finnin (incorrectly spelled)” is worth $75 and “Tom Finnan” is worth $14. PSA’s population report says that they have graded three times as many “Tom Finnan – Correct Last Name On Back” cards as “Tom Finnin – Wrong Last Name On Back” card. But then I have an example with Finnin on the back that PSA has labeled “ERROR-TOM FINNAN.” That label doesn’t match either of the versions listed in PSA’s population report.
It appears that the card with “Finnan” on the back is more common than the one with “Finnin” on the back. But with all the confusion over the two versions of the card, it’s hard to say how scarce the latter card really is.
Search for 1954 Bowman cards on: eBay, Nearmint’s Cards
June 6th, 2009 |
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error cards
A while back, a visitor to the Vintage Football Card Gallery emailed to say that Bill Wade’s photo on his 1960 Topps card is reversed. I hadn’t noticed, but it appears he was right. In his words:
1. He is gripping the football strings with the fingers of his left hand – but Wade threw right-handed. …….. and 2. the top of Wade’s Ram jersey number, 9, is ‘flipped’.
If you compare this card to the rest of Wade’s cards, it’s easy to see that the image is backward.
Wade played thirteen years with the Rams and Bears, from 1954 to 1966. His rookie card is actually from his college days: a 1951 Topps Magic card printed while he was still at Vanderbilt.
December 27th, 2008 |
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error cards, Football Card Trivia
Well, it appears that the poor Lions will go winless in 2008. Because the team has been so bad recently, whenever I look through 1950s football cards, I marvel at all of the great Lions players from that era. The great players made for great teams: in a span of six seasons, the Lions played in four league championship games, and they won three of them–all against the Browns. The last time the Lions won a championship–51 years ago, in 1957!–there were six future hall-of-famers on the team, and they beat the Browns 59-14 in the championship game.
Five of the future Hall-of-Famers–Bobby Layne, John Henry Johnson, Lou Creekmur, Jack Christiansen, and Yale Lary–appeared on cards in the 1957 Topps set. This page in the Vintage Football Card Gallery shows those cards. The sixth hall-of-famer, Joe Schmidt, whose rookie card is in the 1956 Topps set, did not appear on a card in 1957.
Pictured at the top is John Henry Johnson’s 1957 Topps card, which incorrectly says he played for the Browns. Topps even took the trouble of recoloring the picture to put Johnson in Browns colors. Below the 1957 card is Johnson’s rookie card, a 1955 Bowman, which shows the same picture of Johnson, except in 49ers colors.
