New in the Gallery: 1963 Topps CFL Football Cards
March 14th, 2012 | Published in CFL Cards, New in the Gallery
This week I added 1963 Topps CFL cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. This was my first CFL set, so most of the players were new to me. I did find a few familiar faces: Joe Kapp, Dave Mann, Pat Holmes, and Bobby Walden all appear on NFL cards, as well. Walden, I learned, was a running back and kick returner in the CFL, as well as a punter. After he moved to the NFL, he stuck to punting, though it appears from his NFL stats that he faked a few punts and ran instead.
Topps apparently really liked the image on Joe Kapp’s card, because they used the same image on his 1960, 1961, 1968, and 1969 cards, and on his 1969 mini-card. I don’t know why he is in a green jersey, though, because I don’t believe any of his teams wore green. I suspect that the image was originally a black-and-white photo from his days at the University of California, and that someone at Topps colored it. The jersey on his card resembles the one he is wearing in the photo on his College Football Hall of Fame page.
