How Did I Miss This Error Card?

October 19th, 2013  |  Published in error cards

Last night, while talking on the phone, I was looking at a 1960 Topps Forrest Gregg football card that happened to be on my desk. Hmm, I thought, I don’t think I ever noticed that “Forrest” is missing an “r” on this card. So I checked my Gallery to see if I had previously marked it as an error. Nope. Then I checked my Beckett catalog to see if it was marked in there. Nope again. Then I checked a few more online checklists that I know of. Nope, nope, nope. Surely someone has noticed the error before–it’s a rookie card of a Hall of Famer, after all–but for some reason it hasn’t made it into the hobby publications.

So, at long last, I documented the error in my Gallery. Below are some pictures; you can see the misspelling once on the front and three times on the back.

To see all of the error cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery, click here. For my previous blog articles about error cards–including others that don’t appear in the publications–click here.
1960 Topps Forrest Gregg rookie football cardBack of 1960 Topps Forrest Gregg rookie card

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Happy Birthday, Raymond Berry!

February 27th, 2013  |  Published in Milestone Birthdays

Raymond Berry 1960 Topps football cardRaymond Berry, the Hall of Fame receiver of the Baltimore Colts, is celebrating his 80th birthday today. Berry played for the Colts from 1955 to 1967, and he was a key player on the Colts’ NFL Championship teams of 1958 and 1959. In 1960 he averaged 108 yards receiving per game, an NFL record at the time, and still the 11th-highest all-time average for a season. When he retired from playing, he held the NFL records for both career receptions and career receiving yards. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1973.

Berry went on to a long coaching career, including six seasons as the head coach of the New England Patriots. He coached the Patriots to their first Super Bowl appearance, Super Bowl XX, against the Chicago Bears. (The Bears won, 46-10.)

Raymond Berry 1964 Wheaties stampBerry is pictured here on his 1960 Topps football card and his 1964 Wheaties stamp. He appeared on many more cards, as well. (One of them, his 1967 Philadelphia card, actually pictures Bob Boyd.)

According to oldestlivingprofootball.com, Berry is the 494th oldest living pro football player.

Happy birthday, Mr. Berry!

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American Flags on Vintage Football Cards

June 14th, 2012  |  Published in Football Card Trivia

Happy Flag Day! In honor of the day, I found a few football cards that have American flags waving in the background. First, three cards in the 1950 Bowman set: Tank Younger, Bill Wightkin, and Fred Naumetz. My guess is that someone drew the flags by hand on all of these while adding color to the original black and white images. The image on Tank Younger’s 1950 Bowman card, for example, is the same as the one on his 1950-1952 Exhibit card, but there is no flag on the Exhibit card.
Tank Younger 1950 Bowman football cardBill Wightkin 1950 Bowman football cardFred Naumetz 1950 Bowman football card
Next are Y.A. Tittle’s 1958 Topps and 1960 Topps cards. The images on these two cards appear to have come from the same photo shoot.
Y.A. Tittle 1958 Topps football cardY.A. Tittle 1960 Topps football card
Here’s the last one I found, Paul Hornung’s 1965 Philadelphia card. I was surprised that I didn’t find any newer than this. Can you think of others?
Paul Hornung 1965 Philadelphia football card

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Trivia Tuesday

June 5th, 2012  |  Published in error cards, Trivia Questions

Doug Atkins 1960 Topps football cardIt’s Trivia Tuesday! Just pick the “Answer” links to see the answers.

  1. Who scored the first field goal in Super Bowl history? Answer
  2. What member of the Philadelphia Eagles Honor Roll appeared in both M*A*S*H the movie and M*A*S*H the television show? Answer
  3. What Pro Football Hall of Famer, who played for the Chicago Cardinals and Los Angeles Rams, won two medals in track in the 1952 Olympics? Answer
  4. What Boston Patriot was the American Football League’s top scorer in five of its ten seasons? Answer
  5. What is the error on Doug Atkins’s 1960 Topps card, shown here? Answer
  6. What former Harvard player, who appeared on a 1955 Topps All-American football card, was governor of Massachusetts from 1963 to 1965? Answer
  7. What Dallas Cowboy was the first defensive player to be named Super Bowl MVP? Answer

Like these? See my trivia questions from past weeks.

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Reversed Image #4 in the 1960 Topps Set

January 22nd, 2012  |  Published in error cards

I’ll bet I’ve looked at Del Shofner’s 1960 Topps football card a hundred times, and yesterday I finally noticed that his image on the card is reversed. Here it is alongside his 1961 Topps card. The images on the two cards appear to be from the same photo session, and if you compare the numbers and lines on Shofner’s jersey, you can see that the image on the 1960 card is backward. Shofner wore number 29 for his four seasons with the Rams.
Del Shofner 1960 Topps football cardDel Shofner 1961 Topps football card
At least three more 1960 Topps football cards also have reversed images: Bill Wade, Doug Atkins, and Frank Varrichione. I have seen a few more examples in other sets, but the 1960 Topps set has the most, by far. I thought that maybe there was a pattern to the errors on the uncut sheet, but the cards were not together on the sheet. I guess someone working at Topps in 1960 simply wasn’t paying attention.

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Born on the Fourth of July

July 4th, 2011  |  Published in Silly Stuff

The holiday made me think of the movie, and thinking of the movie made me wonder what NFL players were born on the Fourth of July. I found the full list at pro-football-reference.com; the eight who appear in the Vintage Football Card Gallery are shown below. Wish them a happy birthday!

Six-time Pro Bowler Erich Barnes was born on July 4, 1935. Barnes’s rookie card, shown here, is a 1960 Topps. Two-time Pro-Bowler Emerson Boozer was born on July 4, 1943; he is shown here on his 1971 Topps card. (Boozer also appeared on my all-party team.)
Erich Barnes 1960 Topps rookie football cardEmerson Boozer 1971 Topps football card
Two-time Pro Bowler Rosey Taylor was born on July 4, 1937; he is pictured here on his 1965 Philadelphia card. 1963 Pro-Bowler Lee Folkins was born on July 4, 1939; his rookie card, a 1964 Philadelphia, is shown here. (I heard from Mr. Folkins once. He told me that the signature on his 1964 Wheaties Stamp is not in his handwriting.)
Rosey Taylor 1965 Philadelphia football cardLee Folkins 1964 Philadelphia rookie football card
Five-time Pro-Bowler Rick Casares was born on July 4, 1931. His rookie card, shown here, is a 1955 Bowman. Hall of Famer Floyd Little was born on July 4, 1942; he is shown here on his 1968 Topps Stand Up insert card.
Rick Casares 1955 Bowman rookie football cardFloyd Little 1968 Topps Stand Up insert football card
1981 Pro Bowler Frank Lewis was born on July 4, 1947; his rookie card, a 1973 Topps, is shown here. And, finally, Fred Forsberg was born on July 4, 1944. I don’t believe Forsberg appeared on a card, but I do have his 1972 Sunoco Stamp.
Frank Lewis 1973 Topps rookie football cardFred Forsberg 1972 Sunoco Stamp
Enjoy your picnics!

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John Nisby, Steelers and Redskins Guard

February 10th, 2011  |  Published in Player Deaths

John Nisby 1960 Topps rookie football cardJohn Nisby, who played guard from 1957 to 1964 for the Pittsburgh Steelers and Washington Redskins, passed away on February 6. Nisby made the Pro Bowl three times: twice with the Steelers, and once with the Redskins. Nisby’s obituary at dignitymemorial.com includes a recent photo of him, plus a nice photo gallery of him and his family.

For a lineman, Nisby appeared on a surprising number of football cards. His rookie card, a 1960 Topps, is pictured here.

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Ralph Felton, Redskins and Bills Linebacker

January 26th, 2011  |  Published in Player Deaths

Ralph Felton 1960 Topps football cardRalph Felton, a linebacker for the Washington Redskins and Buffalo Bills, passed away on January 22, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Felton played for the Redskins from 1954 to 1960, and for the Bills in 1961 and 1962.

Felton appeared on two football cards during his career. His first card, a 1960 Topps, is pictured here; it was issued in his seventh season. He also appeared on a 1961 Fleer card as a Redskin, but by then he had moved on to the Bills.

You can see Ralph Felton’s NFL and AFL statistics at pro-football-reference.com.

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Topps Had Trouble with Woodley

November 24th, 2010  |  Published in error cards

1958 Topps Woodley Lewis error football cardWoodley Lewis appeared on three Topps football cards, and Topps spelled his name differently on all three. In 1958, he was Woodly. In 1959, he was Woody. In 1960, Topps finally got it right and spelled his name Woodley. The card companies misspelled plenty of players’ names (see a previous blog article, E is for Error Cards), but I can’t think of another player who had his name spelled three different ways.

As I usually do when I write about a player, I did a little web search for Lewis, and I turned up a couple of nice non-card images. One, on the University of Oregon web site, pictures him in the middle of a broad jump. Another, on flickr, shows him in front of the Sportsman Bowl, a bowling alley that he owned after retiring from football. I also found an old matchbook for Woodley Lewis’s Sportsman Bowl on eBay.
1959 Topps Woodley Lewis error football cardWoodley Lewis 1960 Topps football card

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T is for Topps, Part 2: 1960-1963

February 5th, 2010  |  Published in ABCs of Vintage Football Cards


Topps produced a great variety of football cards in the 1960s: AFL cards and NFL cards, cards with natural backgrounds and cards with colored ones, cards oriented horizontally and cards oriented vertically, cards bordered by stars and cards that looked like little TVs, standard-sized cards and “tall boys.” A collector who focused on just 1960s Topps football cards could build a large, attractive, and interesting collection.

Topps had competition in the 1960s, and I attribute some of their creativity to that. The competition coincided with the emergence of the AFL: while the AFL and NFL competed for fans, the card companies aligned with the leagues and competed as well.

Fleer was the card company of the early AFL. From 1960 to 1963, Fleer produced three AFL-only sets and one AFL/NFL set. In the same time period, Topps produced three NFL sets and one AFL/NFL set. Both companies produced their combined AFL/NFL sets in 1961.

In 1964, Philadelphia Gum Company obtained the rights to print cards of NFL players, and they did so until 1967. Topps countered with AFL-only sets from 1964 to 1967.

In 1968, after the NFL and AFL agreed to merge, Topps obtained the rights to both leagues. By the early 1970s, without competition, Topps’s creativity began to wane. That rant is for a later post, though. This week we’ll look at Topps’s offerings from 1960 to 1963, the years they competed with Fleer.

1960 Topps

1960 Topps is my least favorite 60s Topps set, probably because it is less colorful than their later sets. I am not fond of the big footballs with the players’ names in them, either: they remind me of the big white footballs on 1953 Bowman cards. Though Topps evidently had the rights to use the teams’ logos, they put them only on the team cards, which is unfortunate. I do like that the images of the players cover most of the cards, unlike the peephole views on 1958 Topps cards.

The 1960 Topps set was printed on a single 132-card sheet. There is a virtual 1960 Topps sheet, and a few notes about the set, in the Vintage Football Card Gallery. One bit of trivia about the set is that three of the cards–Bill Wade, Doug Atkins, and Frank Varrichione–have reversed images. Another is that, to my knowledge, this was the first Topps set to contain inserts in the packs. The inserts were metallic stickers: novel, but homely.

1960 Topps was the first major set in which all cards from a given team were grouped together numerically. I always liked this feature. Topps continued the practice until 1968, then abandoned it. Coincidentally–or was it?–1968 was the year they no longer had competition.

Finally, the 1960 Topps set was the first in which the Dallas Cowboys appeared. The Cowboys joined the NFL in 1960. Doyle Nix is the only Cowboy in the 1960 Topps set who did not appear on an earlier card for a different team.

1961 Topps

The 1961 Topps set was released in two series, the first containing NFL players, and the second containing AFL players. This is how Fleer released their 1961 set, as well. Though the price guides give higher values to the second series cards in both sets, the second series cards are in fact more plentiful than the first series cards. Be skeptical of your price guides.

1961 Topps was the first set to contain action cards, like the Eddie LeBaron card shown here. Each action card was framed by a woodgrain TV, a precursor to the 1966 Topps cards. The 1961 Topps and Fleer sets were the first to contain Minnesota Vikings cards. The Vikings were an expansion team in 1961.

Oddly, most of the Houston Oilers in the 1961 Topps set are shown in pink jerseys, though their team color was powder blue. Only George Blanda was spared the pink treatment.

1962 Topps

I love the design of the 1962 Topps set. Each player card shows two images of the player: an above-the-waist still image, and a black-and-white inset photo of the player in action. Some of the inset photos show the wrong players, however. It turns out that Topps even altered some of the photos to give the impostors different numbers.

The 1962 Topps set is tough to assemble in high grade, because the black borders show wear easily. I think high grade is the only way to go, though, since even a little wear can make the cards look bad.

I have seen a few recolored cards from this set, where someone tried to touch up a corner or an edge with a black marker. You can often detect recoloring by looking at the edges of a card, because the ink from a black marker will bleed onto the edge.

Other than the unique design, I can’t think of any remarkable features of this set. The unique design is enough for me, though.

1963 Topps

The 1963 Topps set is another tough one. Its colored borders are slightly more forgiving of wear than 1962’s black borders, but this is another set I would try to get in high grade.

There are a lot of short prints in the 1963 Topps set; they are marked in the Vintage Football Card Gallery. That tells only part of the story, though. Many of the short prints–in particular some of the Steelers and Redskins–are practically impossible to find well-centered. Most of the problem cards were on the edges of the sheets. You can see what the sheets looked like on my 1963 Topps virtual uncut sheet page.

There is one bit of innovation in the 1963 Topps set. The backs have questions with hidden answers, like some scratch-off cards. (See S is for Scratch-Offs.) You don’t scratch them to see the answers, though. Instead, you hold a piece of red cellophane over them. I used to have a bit of the red cellophane, which I assume came in a pack with the cards, but I can’t locate it now. I might never know the answers to these questions.

One last thing worth mentioning is that the backgrounds of many 1963 Topps cards vary in color: you can find them with either a blue sky or a purple one. There used to be a good article on geocities about the variations, but the article is no longer there. Someday maybe I’ll write about the variations myself. Until then, you can see the purple and blue variations of Willie Wood’s rookie card in one of my previous blog articles.

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