Nearmint's Vintage Football Card Blog

You have probably seen 1970s Topps football cards on which the team logos have been airbrushed from the players’ helmets. (For a couple of examples, see my article about airbrushing on 1972 Topps San Diego Chargers cards.) Well, apparently Topps couldn’t show the NFL logo on football cards, either. Last week, while scanning this 1976 Topps C.L. Whittington card, I noticed that someone had traced over the NFL on Whittington’s football and changed it to WPD. At first I thought it was only on my card, but the C.L. Whittington cards on eBay all have WPD on the football, too.

It seems like it would have been preferable to cover the logo with a dab of brown, but changing the letters was definitely better than how they handled Bob Hayes’s 1970 Topps Super and 1970 Topps Super Glossy cards. On those cards it looks like they burned the logo off the ball!

Here’s a site old sports fans will enjoy: LogoServer.com has logos from all sports imaginable, from football to rugby to roller hockey. Many of the logos you’ll see on vintage football cards appear on the NFL, AFL, and AAFC pages. The site includes logos of defunct teams, such as the Canton Bulldogs and Boston Yanks, and of attempted expansion teams, such as the Baltimore Bombers and St. Louis Stallions. (I must say, I’m a bit relieved that the Memphis HounDogs didn’t make it.)