Nearmint's Vintage Football Card Blog

Did you know that the card companies sometimes hired photographers from the DMV to take pictures for sports cards? As you can see from these examples, it’s true. Those DMV folks are experts at catching people with their eyes closed. At least driver’s licenses expire after a few years. People keep sports cards forever!

So, who are our sleepy players, and what cards do they appear on? From the top, we have:

• 1950 Bowman Bob Kelly, of the original Baltimore Colts (also see Baltimore Colts in Green?)
• 1951 Bowman Al Derogatis
• 1967 Topps Babe Parilli
• 1969 Topps Don Maynard (Maynard is also sleepy on his 1967 Topps and 1968 Topps cards)
• 1970 Topps Mike Tilleman
• 1971 Topps Gerry Philbin

I am undoubtedly missing some. If you know ’em, post ’em!

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?

I learned from Todd Tobias’s new blog, Tales from the American Football League, that Rick Redman’s rookie card, the 1965 Topps card shown here, does not picture Rick Redman. So, if it’s not Rick Redman, who is it? Well, Todd has a nice story to tell about it, so I’ll direct you to his article.

A surprising number of vintage football cards picture the wrong player. I keep a list of them, and Mr. Redman’s card is just the latest addition. You can see all of them on my Mistaken Identities page.

The New York Giants introduced their Ring of Honor at New Meadowlands Stadium early this month. The inaugural class included twenty-two players, plus eight coaches, owners, and executives. You can see the full list of inductees on the Giants’ Wikipedia page. (You can also see the full list on the Giants’ web site, but beware: the page automatically starts a video, and it’s kind of startling.)

Thirteen of the inductees appear as individuals on cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery. You can search for them by choosing “Giants Ring of Honor” in one of the “Honor” menus on the Advanced Search page. At least one more inductee, coach Jim Lee Howell, does not appear on a card of his own, but you can find him on some of the team cards–see him on my interactive 1959 Topps Giants team card, for example.

Two of the inductees, Dick Lynch and Joe Morrison, first appeared on cards in the 1962 Post Cereal set, a minor issue. Their cards are pictured here. (For a description of the Post set, see W is for Wonder Bread–and Other Food Issues.) Lynch’s first card in a major issue–in other words, his rookie card–is a 1964 Philadelphia, and Morrison’s is a 1965 Philadelphia. Despite being stars, both players spent seven years in the league before appearing in a major set.

For more early Giants cards, matchbooks, etc., also check out revmoran’s Giants Football Cards page on the Giants web site. It’s great stuff!

Vince Banonis, an offensive lineman and linebacker for the Chicago Cardinals and Detroit Lions in the 1940s and 1950s, passed away on October 23. Banonis was a member of the Cardinals’ NFL championship team in 1947–the last time the Cardinals won the championship–and of the Lions’ championship teams in 1952 and 1953. A New York Times article about the 1947 Cardinals includes a great photo of a muddy Banonis with Charley Trippi.

Banonis appeared on three cards that I know of: the 1948 Bowman card pictured here, a 1948 Leaf card, and a 1949 Leaf card. I have not yet added the Leaf cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery, but you can usually find them on eBay. The fronts of the 1948 and 1949 Leaf cards are identical, but the backs are different–see L is for Leaf for examples.

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.

Charley Leo, who played guard for the AFL’s Boston Patriots and Buffalo Bills from 1960 to 1963, passed away on October 7. Leo made the 2nd Team All-AFL in 1960 and 1st Team All-AFL in 1961. I found a photo of the 1961 team on the Patriots web site; Leo is number 63, on the left end of the middle row.

Leo appeared on two cards: a 1961 Fleer card, pictured here, and a 1961 Topps. 1961 was the only year that two card companies printed cards of AFL players, and Leo appeared in both the Fleer and Topps sets. He also appeared on a 1961 Fleer Wallet Picture, a black-and-white version of the 1961 Fleer card, cut from a magazine. (See my previous blog article on the 1961 Fleer Wallet Pictures.)

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.

It’s been awhile, but I finally added another “interactive” team card to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. This one is a 1967 Philadelphia Cleveland Browns team card. Just click the image shown here to see it.

Whenever I create one of these, I find a surprise. This time it was #87, Tom Hutchinson, in the front row. I didn’t think I had a card of Hutchinson by himself, but I do: a 1961 Nu-Card, which pictures him still in college, at Kentucky. Hutchinson played for the Browns from 1963 to 1965, then for the Falcons in 1966. He apparently left the Browns shortly after this photo was taken.

Ralph Kercheval, who had been the oldest living pro football player, passed away on October 6. He was 98 years and 10 months old. I wrote a short article about Kercheval and his football cards last year.

With Kercheval’s passing, Ace Parker, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, became the oldest living pro football player. According to his Wikipedia page, Parker is 98 years and 5 months old. To my knowledge, the 1955 Topps All-American card pictured here is Parker’s only vintage card, though he appeared in a few modern tribute sets, as well. You can find many of his tribute cards on eBay.

Parker also played two seasons for baseball’s Philadelphia Athletics, but I don’t know if he is also the oldest living major league baseball player. I did a quick net search for Ace Parker baseball cards, but I didn’t turn any up.

The Oldest Living Pro Football Players web site has a long, long list of the current oldest living pro players. Glancing through the first couple dozen players on the list, I see that only a few them appeared on football cards. Most of the oldest players played in the 1930s and 1940s, and only a few sets of football cards were printed during those decades.