Nearmint's Vintage Football Card Blog

George Saimes, who played defensive back from 1963 to 1972 for the Buffalo Bills and Denver Broncos, passed away on March 8. There is a tribute to Saimes on the Buffalo Bills web site. Saimes was an AFL All-Star five times, and he played on Buffalo’s 1964 and 1965 AFL championship teams. He was elected to the Bills Wall of Fame in 2000.

Before his pro career, Saimes starred at both fullback and defensive back at Michigan State. In 1962 he finished seventh in voting for the Heisman Trophy. He was inducted into the MSU Athletics Hall of Fame in 2000.

Saimes is pictured here on his rookie card, a 1964 Topps. He appeared on numerous other cards and stamps, as well.

Two players in the Vintage Football Card Gallery are celebrating milestone birthdays today: Elbert Dubenion is 80, and Brig Owens is 70.

Elbert “Golden Wheels” Dubenion, a flanker, played his entire career with the Buffalo Bills in the AFL. He was one of the original Bills in 1960, and he stayed with the team until 1968. Dubenion was AFL All-Star in 1964, and he was elected to the Bills Wall of Fame in 1993. Before his pro career, Dubenion starred at Bluffton University, and there is a nice article about him on the school’s web site. According to oldestlivingprofootball.com, Dubenion is the 494st oldest living pro football player.

Dubenion is pictured here on his 1963 Fleer football card. He appeared on many other Fleer and Topps cards, as well.

Brig Owens, a defensive back, played from 1966 to 1977 for the Washington Redskins. He is second on the Redskins all-time leaders list for interceptions, behind Darrell Green. The team has named Owens one of the 80 Greatest Redskins, and he is member of the Redskins Ring of Fame.

Owens is pictured here on his 1970 Topps football card. He also appeared on several other cards and stamps during his career.

Happy birthday, Messrs. Dubenion and Owens!

Artie Owens is 60 years old today; he was a wide receiver and kick returner from 1976 to 1980 for the San Diego Chargers, Buffalo Bills, and New Orleans Saints. He also played one season, 1983, for the Philadelphia Stars of the USFL. Owens played college football at West Virginia University, where he also starred in track. He was inducted into the WVU Sports Hall of Fame in 1997.

As far as I know, Owens did not appear on a football card as a pro, but he did appear on the 1974 West Virginia playing card pictured here. A few of his teammates in the deck of 1974 West Virginia cards made it to the NFL, as well.

Happy birthday, Mr. Owens!

Ernie Warlick, a tight end for the CFL’s Calgary Stampeders from 1957 to 1961 and the AFL’s Buffalo Bills from 1962 to 1965, passed away on November 24. Warlick was an AFL All-Star all four of his seasons with the Bills, and he was a member of the Bills’ 1964 and 1965 AFL championship teams. The Buffalo News web site has a story about Warlick, including a recent photo.

Pictured here is Warlick’s 1963 Fleer football card. He appeared on one other AFL card, a 1965 Topps “Tall Boy.” He also appeared on several CFL cards with the Stampeders.

Tom Keating has passed away; he played defensive tackle from 1964 to 1975 for the Buffalo Bills, Oakland Raiders, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Kansas City Chiefs. There is an article about Keating on the San Francisco Chronicle web site. Keating played on the three American Football League championship teams: the 1964 and 1965 Bills, and the 1967 Raiders. The 1967 Raiders team went on to play Green Bay in Super Bowl II.

The card pictured here is Keating’s 1968 Topps football card. In 1968, Topps honored the prior season’s Super Bowl contestants, the Raiders and Packers, by giving their cards a different design than the rest of the teams. Keating also appeared on a 1965 Topps card, a 1970 Topps card, and a 1972 Sunoco Stamp.

Yesterday I showed you some miscut 1967 Topps cards that I picked up at the National; today I have a handful of 1961 Topps cards. I hope to collect enough of these to determine what uncut sheets of 1961 Topps cards looked like. I have not seen an uncut sheet, partial sheet, panel, or strip of 1961 Topps cards, so I am starting from scratch with this set. To see what I have so far, check out my 1961 Topps virtual uncut sheet page. As always, if you have miscut cards that would help the project, I would love to see them.

I discovered two more reversed images today, these on the 1961 Fleer Wallet Pictures of Dan McGrew and Chris Burford. It is easy to see the errors when you put the pictures alongside the players’ regular issue 1961 Fleer football cards. Fleer used the same images for all of the players who appear in both the Wallet Pictures set and the regular Fleer set, but they happened to get these two backward. They made lots more errors on the Wallet Photos, too, mostly misspelling the players’ names on the backs.

These are the ten and eleventh reversed images I have identified in the Vintage Football Card Gallery. All of them are pictured on the Gallery’s Reversed Images page.

In a previous article I featured the football cards of several players who played in exactly one NFL, AFL, or AAFC game. Today I added Larry Joe’s 1948 Leaf football card to that article. Joe, I learned, played in one game in 1949 for the AAFC’s Buffalo Bills. Check out the whole list.

Ray Abruzzese, a defensive back from 1962 to 1966 for the Buffalo Bills and New York Jets, passed away on August 22. He was a member of Alabama’s NCAA National Championship team in 1961 and a member of Buffalo’s AFL Championship team in 1964.

Abruzzese had two football cards with the Bills, and both are error cards. His rookie card, the 1963 Fleer card pictured here, has his last name misspelled. The error on his 1964 Topps card is worse: the card pictures Ed Rutkowski, not Abruzzese. (For more cards that picture the wrong player, see my Mistaken Identities page.)

Abruzzese also appeared on a rare–and pricey–1963 Jones Dairy milk bottle cap. His name is spelled correctly on the cap, and the picture on it is his. I do not have the cap, unfortunately.

This weekend I added 1975 McDonald’s Quarterbacks cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. This is a bitty set: just four cards of AFC quarterbacks. Three of the four quarterbacks–Ken Stabler, Terry Bradshaw, and Joe Ferguson–had led their teams to the playoffs the season before. The fourth, Al Woodall of the Jets, was an odd choice. Perhaps he was included because New York was a big market, or perhaps because Marden-Kane, Inc., and Rosenfeld, Sirowitz & Lawson, Inc., the advertising agencies who produced the cards, were based in New York.

On the back of each card is a coupon for 25 cents off a McDonald’s Big Meal. Each coupon was good for a different week early in the 1975 NFL season.