John

The 1973 Topps Football Team Checklists

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I’ve mentioned a few times that I’m a checklist collector. However, when asked about team checklists, I say I don’t collect them, but that’s only because I need to focus my collection a little. That’s not to say I’m not a fan, though! I think the 1973 Topps Football Team Checklists are pretty interesting.

1973 Topps Football Baltimore Colts Team Checklists

The set has 26 cards, one for each National Football League team. They’re unnumbered and were inserted in packs. The upper quarter of the card is an action photo. Beneath that is a Topps helmet, the team name, and the words “Team Checklist.” Then, the bottom 2/3 of the card is an alphabetical list of players, with the card number on the left of the player’s name, their uniform number, and position to the right.

The backs of the cards form a photo of either Joe Namath or Larry Brown. Unfortunately, as I said, I don’t have these cards, so I can’t piece them all together. However, I did find one of Joe Namath online and a photo of all the backs, but not in “order.”

1973 Topps Football Checklists – Joe Namath
1973 Topps Team Checklist Complete Set – Reverse

PSA has graded 909 1973 Topps Team Checklists; fewer than 10% have hit ultra high-grade PSA 10 or PSA 9 grades. There are 7 PSA 10s and 76 PSA 9s. However, there are a lot of eights and sevens with 320 and 209, respectively. So in ultra-high-end, these are tough cards, but the eye-appealing 7/8 range cards are readily available (and affordable).

The Green Bay Packers, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Los Angeles Rams are the most commonly graded checklists. And the least graded are the Chicago Bears with 21, Atlanta Falcons with 22, New York Jets with 23, and St. Louis Cardinals with 24.

1973 Topps Football New York Jets Team Checklists

A couple of years ago, a few higher-end sales included a PSA 10 Dallas Cowboys checklist for $482 in June 2019, a PSA 9 Atlanta Falcons for $599 in early 2020, and a PSA 9 New York Jets checklist for $214 in mid-2019.

1973 Topps Football Atlanta Falcons Team Checklists

Complete raw sets can be purchased for between $50 and $200, depending on condition and whether they’re marked. Just a few years ago, you could commonly find them for between $25 and $50.

1973 Topps Team Checklists Complete Set

There are also variations where one or two asterisks can be found printed next to the copyright symbol.

Once I check off a few of my bucket list checklists, I’ll probably go after the 1973 Topps Football Team Checklists. As you can see above, a complete set of these looks great together and could make an excellent wall display for a football fan. Let me know in the comments or on X if you have any of these cards, and happy collecting!

From Mastro to PSA to Heritage: The Journey of a Signed 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle

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I noticed a nice signed, raw, 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card while perusing Mastro’s September 2000 catalog and wondered if it ever got graded. Yup! Heritage sold it for $132k in August 2021.

Here’s how Mastro described the card back in 2000:

The prized possession of any Topps baseball card collection is the 1952 Mickey Mantle rookie card. In prime condition, its cost is dear for the collector who seeks the highest grades possible. However, in the real world, most such cards passed through young hands for years, with the resultant wear that is necessary in creating the value for the very scarce high condition examples. This 1952 Topps Mantle, with rounded corners and creases, is an example of a card that LOOKS like a vintage card almost 50 years old. With that said, the card does have good color and an unmarred image of Mantle. In addition, the great Yankee slugger has graced the card with an ink signature which grades 8.5/9. The most sought afterTopps card, signed by Mickey Mantle, a perfect combination. LOA.

Here’s a nicer photo of the front and back of the card slabbed, as scanned by Heritage.

This is their description of the card:

The Mick leaves his mark…

1952 Topps Mickey Mantle Signed #311 PSA Poor 1, Auto 8. If a mathematician were to undertake the task of calculating the probability of this card’s existence in the collecting hobby today, beginning with Mickey Mantle’s unsteady debut in pinstripes, we would see this relic for the lightning-strike-on-a-lottery-winner that it is. Though the Mick now stands near the pinnacle of the baseball pantheon, he might just as easily have fallen into anonymity had he not heeded his father’s advice to soldier on after early failures in Joe DiMaggio’s shadow.

Mantle’s early departure from the Majors alone might have deleted his number 311 card from the Topps company’s late season printing run of the rare and coveted high number series, and surely would have left little interest in having one autographed by a Yankee drop-out if its production continued. But, as it stands, this most famous baseball card of the post-war era remains painfully scarce despite the elite status of its subject. Planning miscues for the fledgling Topps company delayed the release of the final 1952 baseball series until far too late in the season, the packs made available to only a small fragment of American geography, and for a very limited time. Hundreds of cases were left to languish in a warehouse until the need for storage space was solved by a burial at sea of the obsolete stock.

This brings us to the final twist of fate. Today, there’s not a living legend who hasn’t autographed hundreds if not thousands of rookie cards. As a collecting subgenre, signed trading cards has never been more popular. But this hobby advancement was in its infancy when the Mick succumbed to liver failure in 1995. Only fourteen signed examples of this card appear in the PSA population.

Oddly, that population lists only the grade of the card itself, and not that of the autograph, and this is one of three listed at a Poor 1 assessment. Six are simply “Authentic.” While the significant edge and corner wear validate the grade, the image area is a beauty, far better than the technical rating. The autograph itself is applied in 8/10 blue ballpoint vertically, which proves to be the ideal position, making use of the largest area of blank space the obverse of this important relic affords. A wonderful autographed example of the hobby’s post-war trading card king. Encapsulated by PSA, Poor 1 Auto 8.

Today, there are 20 signed 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle cards in PSA’s signed Pop Report.

Happy Collecting!

Rare 1945 Cubs World Series Ticket Sign: A Cool Hobby Cave Piece from Wrigley Field

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If you’re a Cubs fan, how’s this for a cool hobby cave display piece: a 1945 World Series Ticket Sign from Wrigley Field?

This one came from a 2003 auction catalog, but in June 2016, Lelands sold the following Game 6 copy for $360, and I think it’s the exact same one (see the top right corner)

You can find other 10” x 14” Gate versions of these signs, but this one depicts four mounted proof tickets for Gate 2 and Game 6: Standing Room ($3.60), Lower Grand Stand ($6.00), Mezzanine ($7.20), and Box ($7.20). The tickets were used so ticket takers could identify fakes and differentiate tickets intended for that gate.

And hey, the Cubs actually won this game!

Happy collecting!

Why Topps Made Two Base Cards for George Blanda in 1975

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The other day, I was looking through the checklist of the 1975 Topps football set and saw the George Blanda had two consecutive cards, #7 and #8. I then read that this was the only time Topps has put a player on consecutive cards, but why?

The answer is pretty simple, and it’s rooted in his longevity in the game. George Blanda played an incredible 26 seasons of professional football as a kicker and quarterback between 1949 and 1974. His statistics were too long to fit on the back of a single card, along with his vitals/biography, so Topps made two cards, one is now known as the Black Jersey card and another now referred to as the White Jersey card.

1975 Topps #7 George Blanda Black Jersey – Front
1975 Topps #7 George Blanda Black Jersey – Reverse
1975 Topps #8 George Blanda White Jersey – Front
1975 Topps #8 George Blanda White Jersey – Reverse

Blanda threw for 26,920 yards and tossed 236 touchdowns as a quarterback, and made 335 field goals and 943 extra points as a kicker. He also had the NFL record for interceptions thrown with 277 until Brett Favre broke that record. When Blanda retired, he was pro football’s scoring leader with 2002 points, but now sits 7th on the list behind Adam Vinatieri, Morten Andersen, Gary Andersen, Jason Hanson, John Carney, and Matt Stover. He went into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1981, which was the first year he was eligible.

Some collectors consider the two 1975 Topps Blanda cards to be tributes since the Black Jersey card (#7) shares his bio and key achievements, while the White Jersey card (#8) lists his career scoring record (he scored nine touchdowns too).

The White Jersey card is a little more challenging in premium (PSA 9/10) grades than the Black Jersey card, but that doesn’t result in a price premium.

Overall, PSA has graded 214 Black Jersey 1975 Topps George Blanda cards. Here are some more population and price sale data (from PSA’s APR) for Blanda’s 1975 Topps #7 card:

  • PSA 10 – Pop 19 (doubled the past 2.5 years from Pop 9) – Last two sales were $100 in September 2021 and $84 in August 2021
  • PSA 9 – Pop 72 – Last two sales were $32 in January 2025 and $25 in February 2022
  • PSA 8 – Pop 76 – There’s a lot of variance in these with prices over the last year ranging from $3.25 to $22.18

PSA has graded 227 White Jersey 1975 Topps George Blanda cards. Here are the population and price sale data for card #8:

  • PSA 10 – Pop 11 – last two sales were $84 in August 2021 and $80 in October 2017
  • PSA 9 – Pop 57 – last two sales were $50 in Mar 2022 and $26 in June 2022
  • PSA 8 – Pop 92 – Just under $10

The 528-card 1975 Topps football set features another Blanda card too. Card #351 is a record holder card honoring Blanda as the All-Time Scoring Leader. Funny enough, it’s a Pop 2 now in PSA 10 (up from one 2.5 years ago), so it would be the most expensive Gem Mint 10 of his three 1975 Topps football cards.

1975 Topps #351 George Blanda – Front
1975 Topps #351 George Blanda – Reverse

The fact that Topps only once put a player on consecutive base cards is the sort of vintage trivia I really enjoy. And it makes sense that Topps would have wanted to honor Blanda’s career accomplishments this way in the final set he’d be in as a player. What’s particularly nice is if you want these cards graded, the pair, in PSA 8 condition, will only cost you ~$20, happy collecting!

An Extremely Rare 1950 Royal Pudding Salesman’s Booklet

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The rarest of the rare — here’s a 1950 Royal Pudding salesman’s booklet. It’s the only example I’ve ever seen and was available in an April 2003 auction catalog.

This is an accordion-style booklet containing 11 highly desirable trading cards produced by Royal Desserts during the early 1950’s. The “Royal Pudding” cards (listed as F219 in the American Card Catalog) are super-scarce in their own right. Veteran collectors consider themselves lucky whenever they find a single example from the series, most often at the National Convention or similar large venue. Due to their method of distribution as box panels, the cards are usually in rough shape when they do surface. They’re all tough, and every item in the set is a “key.” The offered mini-collection is even rarer than an assembly of high-grade singles. Carried outside the company only by sales representatives, a few booklets like this one were presented to favored contacts. When folded, the 4-1/4″ × 5″ booklet’s cover only hints at the remarkable contents: “23 New Stars to Help You Crown Your Royal Sales.” Opening the small volume reveals a gallery of nearly perfect Royals, including numbers 1-14 and 16 picturing baseball subjects and 1-6 depicting film stars. (The actual cards total 21 by our count, but the company must have felt its gelatin spoon and batting tips offers, also featured on the booklet’s pages, qualified as additional ‘stars.) Fully unfolded, a long slogan emerges above the cards to act as a display advertisement in banner form. The baseball stars included in the booklet form an amazing roster. Hall of Famers Stan Musial, Pee Wee Reese, George Kell, Warren Spahn, Phil Rizzuto and Luke Appling are among the baseball luminaries whose cards appear on leaves of this booklet. Dom DiMaggio, Andy Patko, Bobby Thomson, Ewell Blackwell and Tommy Henrich are among the other ballplayers present, and Forrest Tucker, Farley Grander, Tony Curtis, Joan Evans, Ann Blyth and Allan “Rocky” Lane represent the promotion’s movie star category. Externally, condition is a well-preserved and gently handled Excellent, and individual pages approach Mint in a number of cases. The booklet is dated “7/50,” in small print on the back cover. This is an almost never-seen item, created to promote an extraordinarily difficultspecialty issue.

Please get in touch if you have more information about this item and happy collecting!

Jerry West’s Vintage All-Pro Basketball Shoes Are My New Grail

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I may become a sneakerhead after all; I’d love to get a pair of these Jerry West All-Pro Basketball Shoes for my collection!

These sold for $367 back in November 1999 with the following auction lot description:

Perhaps the greatest shooting guard in NBA history, “Mr. Clutch,” averaged 27 points per game for an amazing 14 seasons. This 14-time All-Star was a real fan favorite and a natural for endorsements. One of these endorsements was All Pro “Jerry West 44” basketball shoes. The distant ancestor of the Air Jordan, these circa 1960s rubber-soled sneakers are offered in their original Near Mint condition box. The lid features a classic image of West, and the box bottom includes 10 “Exclusive Tips” from the Laker guard. The sneakers themselves are unused, Navy blue “boys boat” style shoes, pristine and protected in their original tissue paper wrapping. A refreshing, unusual item that is perfect for display.

I can’t find another for sale online, but then, I have no idea how to search for shoes…happy collecting!

The Original Artwork for Card #13, ‘The Training Station’ from the 1941 Gum Inc. Uncle Sam Set

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Here’s the original artwork for Card #13, The Training Station, in the 1941 R157 Gum, Inc. Uncle Sam set.

It was offered in Mastro’s Classic Collector Internet Only auction held in October 2007. Pricing data for original art from this set is all over the place today, with lots selling for between $250 and $925.

Here’s the final product, plus the back.

Happy collecting!