July 1st, 2011 |
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Brothers, Player Deaths
Preston Carpenter, who played twelve seasons for the Cleveland Browns, Pittsburgh Steelers, Washington Redskins, Minnesota Vikings, and Miami Dolphins, passed away on June 30. Carpenter played halfback for the Browns in his rookie season, 1956, then spent the rest of his career as a receiver. He made the Pro Bowl in 1962 as a tight end with the Steelers.
Carpenter’s older brother, Lew, who also had a long NFL career, passed away last fall.
The card pictured here is Carpenter’s rookie card, a 1957 Topps. He appeared on numerous other cards during his career, as well.
June 27th, 2011 |
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error cards
Last week, while I was scanning 1969 Glendale Stamps for the Vintage Football Card Gallery, I noticed that the Bob Griese and Mel Farr stamps have reversed images. The players’ jersey numbers were what clued me in: Griese wore number 12 for the Dolphins, and Farr wore number 24 for the Lions. I’ll bet that there are more reversed images in the set, but most of the players’ jersey numbers are not visible, so it is hard to tell.
There are several other reversed images in the Gallery: Charley Trippi on one variation of his 1948 Kellogg’s Pep card; Bill Wade, Doug Atkins, and Frank Varrichione on their 1960 Topps cards, and Dick Butkus and Joe Namath on variations of their 1972 NFLPA Vinyl Stickers.
April 27th, 2011 |
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Player Deaths
Jim “Mad Dog” Mandich, a tight end from 1970 to 1978 for the Miami Dolphins and Pittsburgh Steelers, passed away on April 26. Mandich played on four Super Bowl teams: the Dolphins of 1971, 1972, and 1973, and the Steelers of 1978. Three of those teams–all but the 1971 Dolphins–won the Super Bowl, and 1972 was the year of the Dolphins perfect 17-0 season.
After his playing days, Mandich was a Dolphins radio announcer for 19 years. You can hear him in a video tribute at nbcmiami.com.
The card pictured here is Mandich’s rookie card, a 1975 Topps. He also appeared on 1976 Topps, 1977 Topps, and 1977 Topps Mexican cards.
You can see Mandich’s career NFL stats at pro-football-reference.com.
January 10th, 2011 |
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CFL Cards, Player Deaths
Cookie Gilchrist, who played fullback from 1962 to 1967 for the Buffalo Bills, Denver Broncos, and Miami Dolphins, passed away this morning. He was a member of the Bills team that won the American Football League Championship in 1964. Before playing in the AFL, Gilchrist spent six seasons with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, Saskatchewan Roughriders, and Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League. There is a comprehensive article about Gilchrist’s career on the Pro Football Researchers web site.
The card pictured here is Gilchrist’s 1963 Fleer football card. He also appeared on Topps AFL football cards each year from 1964 to 1967. His 1963 Fleer card is considered his rookie card, though he appeared on several CFL cards prior to 1963.
October 31st, 2010 |
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Funny Poses, Silly Stuff
Happy Halloween! This is the scariest vintage football card I can think of, easily topping last year’s Don Hutson card. It’s a 1967 Royal Castle Dolphins card of Ed Cooke, which I recently added to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. (See my earlier article about the Royal Castle Dolphins cards.) The image appears to have been cropped from a 1966 Dolphins press photo, an example of which I found on eBay. The seller of the press photo, historicimages01, has other sports photos on eBay, as well.
I believe that this is Cooke’s only card, though he played in the NFL and AFL for ten seasons. He got around, spending time on six different teams. His longest stint was with the New York Titans/Jets, where he spent four seasons. There is a slightly less scary photo of Cooke at fanbase.com.
So, what’s your favorite scary football card?
October 21st, 2010 |
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Autographs, Interesting eBay Auctions
A few weeks ago, when I added 1967 Royal Castle Dolphins cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery, I wrote that I had seen only one example of the Bob Griese card, an autographed copy in the SGC set registry. Well, now I’ve seen two. My friend Steve at thecowboysguide.com emailed to tell me about this one, another autographed copy, which just sold on eBay for $1007.75. Because the card has writing on it, and because it has paper stuck to the back, my guess is that it would get about the same grade as the one on the SGC site, fair to good.
What, you say, “because it has writing on it”? It’s his autograph! Well, when grading cards, the grading companies treat signatures like any other pen marks: harshly. You might not expect it, but an autograph on an otherwise high-grade card can actually hurt the card’s value. I don’t know the value of a Bob Griese autograph, but I suspect that this is one card that would be worth more unsigned.
So, why $1007.75 for a “fair to good” card? The buyer could be a big Dolphins fan, he could be a vintage collector who wants everything, or–my guess–he could be a pre-rookie card collector. It is generally accepted that Griese’s rookie card is his 1968 Topps card, so this Royal Castle card pre-dates his rookie card by a year. See my pre-rookie card page for more examples.
It is interesting that both of the Griese cards I have seen from this set have been autographed. I wonder if he did a promotion at one of the restaurants and signed both of the cards the same day. I haven’t seen examples of the other short prints, but if some autographed ones turned up, I might conclude that the only way to get the short prints was in person.
For more interesting football card auctions, see my Interesting eBay Auctions tab, above. For more on regional vintage football card sets, see K is for KDKA Steelers–and Other Regional Sets.
October 18th, 2010 |
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Halls of Fame, New in the Gallery
I recently added the ability to search the Vintage Football Card Gallery for members of the Miami Dolphins Honor Roll. According to Wikipedia, “The Miami Dolphin Honor Roll is a ring around the second tier at Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, which honors former players, coaches, contributors, and officials who have made significant contributions to the Miami Dolphins franchise.” The Wikipedia article includes a list of inductees and a picture of the ring. Oddly, I couldn’t find a reference to the Honor Roll on either the Sun Life Stadium web site or the Dolphins official site. Perhaps it’s a user problem.
Pictured here is one member of the Honor Roll, Dick Anderson, on his 1969 Topps rookie card. Anderson once intercepted four passes in a game, an NFL record he shares with seventeen other players.
To search for players in other teams’ Rings and Halls of Fame and Honor, see the Gallery’s Advanced Search page.
September 24th, 2010 |
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Autographs, Interesting Message Board Threads, New in the Gallery
Today I added 1967 Royal Castle Dolphins cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery–or two-thirds of them, anyway. All of the cards in this regional set are scarce, and ten of them are short prints, so they’re doubly scarce. The short prints are the ones that I don’t have yet. The backs of the cards say that two cards were made available each week of the season, and I can only guess as to why some were short-printed. Perhaps the promotion didn’t get the response the restaurants expected, so they didn’t print as many cards in the later weeks. Or perhaps the promotion was more popular than the restaurants anticipated, so they increased their print runs after five weeks, and the cards printed earlier became short prints.
According to a Miami Herald article, Royal Castle restaurants were modeled after White Castle, and at one time there were at least 185 Royal Castles in the Miami area. By 2008, only one or two were still in operation. A message board thread on roadfood.com includes pictures of the last two Royal Castles and their fare.
The card pictured here is Wahoo McDaniel, who wrestled professionally in the off-season and after his football career. I don’t remember McDaniel as a football player, but I do remember watching him battling Baron von Raschke on Saturday nights. There is a nice photo of him flexing his muscles on the onlineworldofwrestling.com web site.
The key card in the Royal Castle set is a pre-rookie card of Bob Griese. It is a short print, so I don’t have it yet, but there is a picture of one on SGC’s web site. Oddly, it appears that Griese dedicated his signature to “Alan,” but the signature on the card is a facsimile.
