New in the Gallery: 1963 IDL Steelers
September 14th, 2010 | Published in New in the Gallery
Today I added 1963 IDL Steelers photos to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. These resemble the team issue photos I have been adding recently–1955 49ers, 1960 Eagles, and 1958 49ers–and I wouldn’t really call them cards. They are about 4 inches by 5, and they are printed on thin stock, approximately the thickness of a magazine cover. The backs are blank, or at least they were when they were printed. All of mine but one have “URBANI’S PHARMACY” and its address stamped on the back.
I learned from Wikipedia that IDL stood for Independent Drugstores League, and that the IDL “was a cooperative of independent drugstores that disbanded in the late 1960s.” I also did a web search for “Urbani’s Pharmacy,” and I found an obituary for Mr. Arthur Urbani, who owned the drug store that my photos came from. He sold his store to Rite Aid in 1984.
The images in this set are action shots cropped such that only the players’ faces and upper bodies are showing. The players are clearly exerting themselves, but you can’t see what they are doing, so many of them appear to have odd expressions on their faces. The Buddy Dial photo shown above is one example. Cropping action shots this close is not a good idea.
As is common with team sets, the IDL Steelers photos include a few players who, to my knowledge, never appeared on cards. Those players are Frank Atkinson, John Burrell, Lou Cordileone, and Glenn Glass. As I’ve written before, the thing I enjoy most about team sets is getting to see a few new faces.
