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1961 Lake to Lake Green Bay Packers Specs
Year: 1961
Title: Lake to Lake Green Bay Packers
Size: 2-1/2″ x 3-1/4″
Number in Set: 36
1961 Lake to Lake Green Bay Packers Overview
Wisconsin’s Lake to Lake Dairy released this set of 36, slightly smaller than standard-sized Green Bay Packers cards regionally in 1961. Many cards appear with staple holes or torn corners since they were stapled to milk cartons. The dairy would also send sets to collectors who requested one directly, without staples.
The front of each green-toned card features the player’s photo with the card number. Beneath the photo is the player’s name in all white capital letters, and beneath are their uniform number, height, weight, and college. The backs offer “PACKER FANS” a few prizes (a patch, glazed ceramic figure, book, and football) that could be redeemed by sending cards and some money to the company’s P.O. Box in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
Cards 1-8, 17-24, and 33-36 are considered short prints and are much more difficult to find than the non short prints (9-16 and 25-32). You can see this in PSA’s Population Report (which is just a guide). Cards 1-8 each have about 20 graded copies, 17-24 a few more with an average of about 30 graded copies each (37 for Bart Starr and 45 for Ray Nitschke), and 33-36 have an average of a little over 30 graded copies each. On the other hand, and remember, the non short prints aren’t necessarily worth grading like the short prints are; cards 9-16 and 25-32 each have, on average, ~120 graded copies each.
1961 Lake to Lake Green Bay Packers Significant Sales
Heritage Auctions sold what was then the #1 set on the SGC Registry (84.1 rating)for $2868 in April 2010. Robert Edward Auctions resold the set in August 2021 for $6300.
Lelands sold the following high-grade complete set for $4041.60 in March 2017. They wrote, “This set originated from a collector in Wisconsin, who picked this set card by card directly from the factory in 1961 and these do not contain any staple marks which was standard when the cards were distributed.”
Collect Auctions sold a lot of 16 non-short-prints (cards 9-16 and 25-32) in August 2017 for $160.
Heritage Auctions also sold a complete PSA-graded set of 36 cards in May 2020 for $1860.
And most recently, Memory Lane Inc sold a complete PSA-graded set, then #9 on the registry with a GPA of 7.09, for $8065 in December 2021.
Here are a few examples of high-grade individual card sales from the set:
- 1961 Lake to Lake Packers Ray Nitschke #19 PSA 8: $2263 in August 2005
- 1961 Lake to Lake Packers Ray Nitschke #19 PSA 8: $1075 in October 2014
- 1961 Lake to Lake Packers Bart Starr #18 PSA 7: $851 in December 2015
- 1961 Lake to Lake Packers Gary Knafelc #7 PSA 8: $607 in December 2015
- 1961 Lake to Lake Packers Fuzzy Thurston #22 PSA 6: $510 in February 2012
- 1961 Lake to Lake Packers Dave Hanner #20 PSA 9: $3000 in August 2020
- 1961 Lake to Lake Packers Paul Hornung #10 PSA 9: $182 in March 2019
1961 Lake to Lake Green Bay Packers Example
1961 Lake to Lake Green Bay Packers Key Cards
The short prints are all tough cards, but the gems among them are Bart Starr (his rarest card) and Ray Nitschke (his pre-rookie card).
1961 Lake to Lake Green Bay Packers Checklist
1 Jerry Kramer (short print)
2 Norm Masters (short print)
3 Willie Davis (short print)
4 Bill Quinlan (short print)
5 Jim Temp (short print)
6 Emlen Tunnell (short print)
7 Gary Knafelc (short print)
8 Henry Jordan (short print)
9 Bill Forester
10 Paul Hornung
11 Jesse Whittenton
12 Andy Cvercko
13 Jim Taylor
14 Hank Gremminger
15 Tom Moore
16 John Symank
17 Max McGee (short print)
18 Bart Starr (short print)
19 Ray Nitschke (short print)
20 Dave Hanner (short print)
21 Tom Bettis (short print)
22 Fred Thurston (short print)
23 Lewis Carpenter (short print)
24 Boyd Dowler (short print)
25 Ken Iman
26 Bob Skoronski
27 Forrest Gregg
28 Jim Ringo
29 Ron Kramer
30 Herb Adderley
31 Dan Currie
32 John Roach
33 Dale Hackbart (short print)
34 Larry Hickman (short print)
35 Nelson Toburen (short print)
36 Willie Wood (short print)