February 3rd, 2011 |
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Player Deaths
Ken Carpenter, who played halfback from 1950 to 1960 for the Cleveland Browns, Saskatchewan Roughriders, and Denver Broncos, passed away on January 28. Carpenter was with the Browns for four seasons, from 1950 through 1953, and the Browns played in the NFL championship game in each of those four seasons. They won one of those championship games, in 1950, against the Los Angeles Rams.
According to his obituary at oregonlive.com, Carpenter was a player-coach while he was with Saskatchewan and Denver, and he continued coaching after his playing days.
The card pictured here is Carpenter’s rookie card, a 1950 Bowman. He also appeared on a 1951 Bowman card and a 1953 Bowman card while with the Browns. He appeared on a few CFL football cards while at Saskatchewan, but I don’t have those yet in the Vintage Football Card Gallery. You can usually find a few on eBay.
October 16th, 2010 |
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Interactive Team Cards, New in the Gallery
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.
September 28th, 2010 |
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Autographs, New in the Gallery, Team Issue Photos
Yesterday I added 1968 Browns Team Issue 7×8 photos to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. The set contains just seven players, the team’s offensive stars at the time. The photos are printed on lightweight cardboard, and the backs are blank. The “7×8” in the set name is to distinguish it from a second 1968 Browns team issue, in which the photos are 8-by-10. The 8-by-10 set, according to Beckett’s site, contains twelve photos, with some overlap with the 7-by-8’s.
There are facsimile autographs on the photos, and as far as I can tell, they are copies of authentic signatures. (This isn’t always the case on vintage cards; see my article on the facsimile signatures on Kahn’s Wieners cards.) At first I thought that the signatures on the Browns photos might be real, not facsimiles, because Ernie Green’s extends into the border. But then I noticed white fisheyes in the “F” and “k” of Frank Ryan’s signature, which I don’t believe would appear in an original.
August 8th, 2010 |
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CFL Cards, Sites I Like
Here’s another 1963 Topps CFL card of a player who had a short career in the NFL. Bob Ptacek was drafted by the Cleveland Browns in 1959, spent one season with the team, then went to the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders. According to his Cflapedia page, Ptacek was a jack-of-all-trades for the Roughriders, playing quarterback, linebacker, and defensive back at different times in his six seasons with the team. He made the West All-Star team twice, both times on defense.
The back of Ptacek’s card claims that “Ptacek came to the Roughriders in 1960 in a trade for Jim Marshall,” but I am skeptical about that. Ptacek and Marshall did swap teams in 1960, but I don’t think the CFL and NFL had any trading agreements (someone please correct me if I’m wrong), and Marshall’s Wikipedia page says he was drafted by the Browns in 1960, not obtained in a trade. (Ptacek’s Cflapedia page also mentions this alleged trade, but I suspect that that information came from the card.)
In 1959, before his rookie season with the Browns, Ptacek was named the MVP of the Chicago Charities College All-Star Game. This was an annual preseason game between the top college players and the NFL champions from the previous season. Amusingly, Ptacek isn’t mentioned in the game summary on the College All-Star Game web site. The Baltimore Colts dominated the game, 29-0, but the MVP was always chosen from the college team, and Ptacek apparently had a few bright moments for the All-Stars.
Ptacek appeared on a Topps CFL card each year from 1961 to 1965. So far I have just his 1963 card, but you can see the rest on eBay.
July 10th, 2010 |
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Player Deaths
Milt Morin, who played tight end for ten seasons with the Cleveland Browns, passed away on July 9. Morin was selected for the Pro Bowl twice, in 1968 and 1971. He played college football at the University of Massachusetts, and he is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame’s class of 2010.
Pictured here is Morin’s rookie card, a 1971 Topps, issued in his sixth year in the league–and three years after his first Pro Bowl. Topps compensated for their omission by including a card of Morin in each of their sets from 1971 to 1975. He also appeared on a 1972 Sunoco Stamp.
June 6th, 2010 |
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Player Deaths
Jim Copeland, who played guard and center for the Cleveland Browns from 1967 to 1974, passed away on June 4. Copeland played in two NFL Championship games: in 1967, against the Baltimore Colts, and in 1968, against the Minnesota Vikings. After his NFL career, Copeland served as athletic director at William and Mary, Utah, Virginia, and Southern Methodist. There is a nice photo of Copeland and a summary of his career at VirginaSports.com.
To my knowledge, Copeland did not appear on any football cards–not unusual for a lineman. He did, however, appear on the 1972 Sunoco Stamp pictured here. There are twenty-four players per team in the base 1972 Sunoco Stamp set–twice as many as in a typical card set of the time–so the set includes numerous players who never made it onto cards. As I wrote in an earlier article, the photos of several Browns in the Sunoco set, including Copeland, were from a mud game against the Colts.
March 30th, 2010 |
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Interesting eBay Auctions
This uncut sheet of 1946 Sears Cleveland Browns cards was on eBay last week. 1946 was the Browns’ first year; they were part of the new eight-team All-American Football Conference. The Browns were the AAFC champions all four years of the league’s existence, 1946-1949, and they joined the NFL when the AAFC folded in 1950. As far as I know, these Sears cards were the only cards printed of an AAFC team.
Conspicuously absent from this set are Marion Motley and Bill Willis, African American stars who later made the Pro Football Hall of Fame. According to Willis’s Wikipedia page, the two did not play in the Browns’ 1946 game against the Miami Seahawks, because they were forbidden by law to play against white players in Miami.
This small Sears set contains pre-rookie cards of three other Hall of Fame players: Otto Graham, Dante Lavelli, and Frank Gatski. (For more pre-rookie cards, see my pre-rookie card page.) The black-and-white head shots are nice, but otherwise the cards are unremarkable: all eight have the same ad on the front and the team’s 1946 schedule on the back.
The set is rare–these particular cards are the first I have seen–so it is hard to assign a value to the cards. The highest bid in this auction was $2000, and it did not meet the seller’s reserve. Perhaps the seller will list it again with a better description and a scan that shows the corners of the sheet.
For more interesting auctions, see my other Interesting eBay Auctions articles.
January 15th, 2010 |
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New in the Gallery
As I reported earlier, a few weeks ago I bought a set of 1972 Sunoco Stamps, and now I’m scanning them for the Vintage Football Card Gallery. Yesterday I did the Cincinnati Bengals and Cleveland Browns. As I’ve said, overall, I’m not fond of the images used in the set. The stamps are small, and because the images are mostly action shots, you can’t see much of the players.
When scanning the Browns cards, though, I noticed that several of the action shots pictured the Browns in a mud game. Now these I like! I love watching weather games, be they in snow, rain, mud, or wind. For one thing, I prefer defensive battles to offensive shows, and bad weather slows the offenses down. For another, it’s just fun to see guys flopping around in the mud. To me, the weather is part of the game, and playing in a dome is playing something short of real football. I’ll take a mud game in Cleveland or a snow game in Buffalo over a dome game anytime.
October 10th, 2009 |
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Player Deaths
Leon Clarke, a receiver for the Rams, Browns, and Vikings from 1956 to 1963, died on October 5th. He was selected to the Pro Bowl in 1956, his rookie season with the Rams. Clarke played college ball at USC, and he was a member of the Trojans’ 1955 Rose Bowl team. His obituary in the Los Angeles Times has a nice photo of Clarke in his college all-star uniform.
Pictured here is Clarke’s 1959 Bell Brand Rams card. He also appeared on a 1961 National City Bank Browns card.
August 6th, 2009 |
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Funny Poses
I love some of the poses on vintage football cards. Here is a 1953 Bowman card of Lou Groza, the Browns’ Hall of Fame tackle and kicker, blocking and kicking at the same time. Because of his multiple skills, Groza was chosen by the Cold, Hard Football Facts staff as one of their All-Time 11. Groza was an iron man: after playing 14 years and on 7 AAFC and NFL championship teams, Groza retired in 1959–but in 1961 he un-retired and played 7 more years!
