Nearmint's Vintage Football Card Blog

I am continuing to identify players in the Vintage Football Card Gallery who have been honored by the individual teams. Today I added the members of the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame. There were a lot of members to add!

Pictured here is one of them, Tobin Rote, on his 1950 Bowman rookie card. I learned today that in 1956, Rote led the league in passing yards and passing touchdowns, led the Packers in rushing, and finished second in the league in rushing touchdowns.

You can use the Advanced Search page of the Gallery to find members of the Packers Hall of Fame and recipients of other honors.

Dom Moselle, who played halfback and defensive back from 1950 to 1954 for the Cleveland Browns, Green Bay Packers, and Philadelphia Eagles, passed away yesterday. He was a rookie on the Browns team that won the NFL Championship in 1950, their first year in the league. Moselle also spent one season, 1955, with the Calgary Stampeders of the CFL.

Moselle is pictured here on his 1952 Bowman Small card. He also appeared on a 1952 Bowman Large card, identical except for its size.

I am developing an interest in old CFL cards, but there are a lot of them out there, and it is hard to decide which ones to collect. I thought that I would start by picking up a few CFL cards of players who also played in the NFL or AFL. Some of these players–Sam Etcheverry comes to mind–started in the CFL, did well, and then got opportunity in one of the U.S. leagues. (This happened a lot in the early 1960s, when the AFL was formed and the NFL expanded.) Others started in the NFL, lost their places on the roster, and had more success in the CFL. Still others–Babe Parilli, for example–bounced around between the three leagues.

Pictured here is an example of a player who started in the NFL but had more success in the CFL. Ernie Danjean was drafted in 1957 by the Packers, but he spent only one season with the team. In 1959 he joined the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the CFL. He played two years for Hamilton, and then three for the Calgary Stampeders. He appeared on at least three CFL cards with Calgary: the 1963 Topps card shown here; a 1962 Post Cereal card, which you can see on his cflapedia page; and a 1964 Topps CFL card, which you can find on eBay.

As you can see, the fronts of 1963 Topps CFL cards are plain compared to their NFL counterparts. The backs of the cards in the two sets are essentially the same, except that the text on the CFL card backs is printed in both English and French. A piece of red cellophane would reveal the answers to the “mystery quiz” questions on cards in either set. I have a bit of that cellophane somewhere–if only I could find it!

• See more 1963 Topps CFL football cards on eBay.

Yesterday I added an “interactive” 1961 Topps Packers Team Card to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. By placing the cursor over a player, you can see who the player is, and by clicking on him, you can see all of his cards. (It doesn’t work on the card pictured here–you have to go to the gallery page.)

In the process of looking up the players, I learned a few things:

• Ray Nitschke wore number 33 in his rookie season.
• Hall of Famer Len Ford spent the last year of his career with the Packers.
• Billy Kinard was a Packer before joining the AFL’s Buffalo Bills in 1960.
• Steve Meilinger appeared on a 1958 Topps card with the Redskins, but he actually played for the Packers that year.
• Joe Johnson, who appears on this team card, also appeared on a (very bright) 1951 Topps Magic card. I don’t believe he appeared by himself on any other cards.

For more gallery features, see A Tour of the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

Jack Cloud, who played fullback and linebacker for the Packers and Redskins from 1950 to 1953, passed away on June 19. Before his pro career, Cloud starred at William and Mary, where he scored five touchdowns in one game and a school record 102 points in one season. After leaving pro football, he coached and taught physical education for 37 years, including 32 years at the Naval Academy. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1990.

Pictured here is Cloud’s 1951 Bowman card. He also appeared on a 1948 Leaf card while still at William and Mary. I don’t yet have that card in the Vintage Football Card Gallery, but you can see examples of it on eBay. Cloud’s obituary at hometownannapolis.com includes a relatively recent photo.

In a comment on my article about Jim David’s helmet last week, a reader pointed out that Ron Kramer’s 1958 Topps card also pictures him in his college helmet. My follow-up comment was that a lot of players appear in their college uniforms on football cards (most of the players in the 1960 Fleer set, for example), but not many are wearing their helmets. So “players wearing their college helmets” is a nice subject for a few articles.

Pictured here is the card the reader mentioned, which shows Kramer in his Michigan jersey and distinctive “winged” helmet. (Topps, thank goodness, did not recolor the jersey and helmet Packers green-and-gold.) I was curious about Michigan’s helmet–was it supposed to somehow symbolize a wolverine?–so I did a web search and turned up an article on its history. No, it turns out, the design has nothing to do with wolverines; it was actually standard on a model of Spalding helmets in the 1930s. The design was functional: the wings and straps helped bind the other pieces of the helmet together, and the additional leather provided more head protection. Michigan’s Coach, Fritz Crisler, merely painted the helmet different colors to dress it up, as he had done at Princeton a couple of years earlier. Several other schools colored their helmets in the same fashion, but they changed their designs when they moved from leather helmets to synthetic ones. Michigan not only kept the winged design, but eventually used it in other sports, too. For a while, even the swim team’s racing caps bore decorations based on the construction of 1930s football helmets!

Getting back to Ron Kramer: it’s appropriate that he appeared on a card in his Michigan uniform, because he was one of Michigan’s great athletes. According to Wikipedia, he earned three letters each in football, basketball, and track, and he led both the football and basketball teams in scoring for two years. As a sophomore, he also led the Big Ten in punting.

Kramer’s 1958 Topps card is his rookie card, though, ironically, he was in the Air Force in 1958 and did not play. He returned to the Packers in 1959 and became a three-time Pro Bowler during their championship years. There is a nice article about Kramer’s football career at Profootballresearchers.org.

• See all of Ron Kramer’s cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery
• Search Nearmint’s Cards for Ron Kramer, Michigan alumni, Green Bay Packers
• Search eBay for Ron Kramer, 1958 Topps

I mentioned in F is for Fleer that the logo is reversed on every one of the 1961 Fleer Green Bay Packers cards. Fleer didn’t employ any geography majors, apparently. Other than the logo problem, the cards are great. It appears that all of the photos except Bill Forester’s were taken on the same day, since the players are all wearing the same sweater, and most of the images show the stadium in the background.

Here are a few of them, all Hall of Famers. You can see the whole 1961 Fleer Packers team set in the Vintage Football Card Gallery. (Incidentally, some collectors consider the Jim Taylor card pictured here and his 1961 Topps card to be his true rookie cards, since his 1959 and 1960 Topps cards picture another Jim Taylor.)

Here is the Packers logo in its correct orientation, with Green Bay and Door County in the east, from Chris Creamer’s sportslogos.net. Later variations of the logo, such as the one on the 1967 Philadelphia Packers insignia card, had dots on the little Wisconsin map for both Green Bay and Milwaukee, since the Packers played home games in both cities.

There are lots of scary images on old football cards, but this Don Hutson 1963 Stancraft playing card struck me as the Halloweeniest. He looks like he’s wearing a homemade super hero costume. Add a pair of antennae, and he could be Ant Man!

The 1963 Stancrafts are an interesting set. I have read that they were issued for the opening of the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963, so though most of the players in the set eventually became Hall of Famers, only 17 were members the year the set was printed. (Hutson was one of the initial 17; you can see the rest on the Pro Football Hall of Fame site.) The cards were issued as a two-deck bridge set: one deck with red backs and one deck with green backs in a red plastic tray.

You can see the full set of 1963 Stancraft Playing Cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

Randy Johnson, the first quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons, died on September 16. Along with Tommy Nobis, Johnson was a first round draft choice for the Falcons in 1966. Johnson played for five years with the Falcons, then went on to play for the Giants, Hawaiians (of the World Football League), Redskins, and Packers. In his last professional game, Johnson started for the Packers and led them to a win over his first team, the Falcons.

Pictured here is Johnson’s rookie card, a 1967 Philadelphia. You can see all of his cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

Bob Kowalkowski, who played guard for the Lions for 11 years, died on September 17. Kowalkowski joined the Lions in 1966, and he started every game for the team from 1972 to 1976. He ended his career with the Packers in 1977.

Pictured here is Kowalkowski’s rookie card, a 1974 Topps, issued in his ninth season. (Rookie card is a misnomer, and this is a good example. Many players, especially offensive linemen and defensive players, didn’t appear on cards until well into their careers.) Kowalkowski also appeared on Topps cards in 1975, 1976, and 1977.