Football Cards

The 1973 Topps Football Team Checklists

by

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!

Why Topps Made Two Base Cards for George Blanda in 1975

by

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!

A Near-Set Of 1959 Bazooka Football Cards, Including Rare Promo Tabs, Hit the Auction Block In 2009

by

In November 2009, Mastro offered for sale an incredible near set of 17 different 1959 Bazooka football cards, 12 of which included the promo tab at the bottom!

Here’s the auction lot’s description:

Collection of 17 different 1959 Bazooka Football cards. The year 1959 was fairly uneventful in Topps’ several entree sports card issues. However, that company’s grist, Bazooka bubble gum, appeared very sparingly in boxed form. The container, a basic cardboard prism, measured approximately 5″ x 3″ x 1″ and held individually wrapped tasty ingots. To lubricate sales, one of an assortment of well-known sports figures would appear, in full-color, on the bottoms of the boxes. Baseball, of course, preceded football. Initially, nine different baseball players were imposed on the boxes. These are scarce. Later, 14 others were added. These are much tougher, and the evidence suggests that sales were listless. Bazooka,under the guidance of Topps, obviously had an investment in preparation, and as kids returned to school, the football segment of the strategy appeared. The marketing scheme was doomed from the start, and very few remains of this misdirected ambition exist today. All that money for one card, which dimensionally disrupted otherwise uniform stacks of cards. Bazooka would later promote the idea by offering panels of three baseball cards. There were 18 different in the 1959 Bazooka football production, and all are very scarce. Of these, three were produced in undetermined shorter numbers and include Conerly, Groza and Tom Tracy. The collection offered here is missing only the Tracy card. Of the 17 cards offered here, 12 include the promo tab at the bottom of the card. Those without the tab are John Arnett, LeBaron, Joe Perry, Kyle Rote, and Tittle. The cards are cut responsibly with very little violation of the dotted lines. Condition Report: Ameche (NR-MT to MT); Arnett (cut slightly inside dotted lines, EX-MT); Brown (very light crease on back, EX+); Casares (NR-MT to MT); Conerly (mild crease on back, EX); Ferguson (NR-MT to MT); Gifford (NR-MT to MT); Groza (light crease on back, EX+); Layne (mild crease through tab, NR-MT ); LeBaron (light surface wear, EX+); Lewis (light crease on back at tab, EX-MT); Matson (mild crease on back, writing on back, EX); Perry (NR-MT to MT); Retzlaff (NR-MT to MT); Rote (very slight miscut on left border, EX-MT); Tittle (left border cut imperfectly EX+); Unitas (mild surface wear, EX-MT).

Minimum Bid $1,500

I previously highlighted the set in a piece about a complete box featuring Frank Gifford in which I mentioned that Larry Fritsch believed that the Chuck Connerly variations were the toughest to track down, but this collection, as stated, was missing the Tracy card, one of the other presumed short prints.

By the way, the cards, particularly Jim Brown’s, are pretty pricey these days. In October 2024, Heritage sold an SGC 5 graded Brown for $9,600.

I haven’t seen any complete or near-sets for sale recently, but over a decade ago, REA sold a near-complete set (17 of 18) cards for $6,518. It lacked the Perry card. For more on the set, check out this net54Baseball thread and this article from Sports Collectors Daily.

Happy collecting!

A Quick Look at NFL and AFL Trading Card Rights in the Early 1960s

by

In the middle of 2022, on X, I shared a handful of 1961 Topps and 1961 Fleer football unopened products, and someone asked how it was that both Topps and Fleer had a license to print AFL and NFL cards in the same year. We also noted that it was weird that it was midway through seemingly exclusive 4-year deals for each brand. Honestly, after more research, I still don’t know why or how this happened, but I thought I would share some information about NFL and AFL trading card rights in the early 1960s.

This all started with the founding of the American Football League in 1959 and its inaugural season in 1960. They were challenging the established National Football League, who, as PSA wrote, “…had a fan base. They had connections with college athletes, and they had Topps bubble gum cards. The popular trading card company had issued its first professional football set featuring NFL players in 1956, which began an uninterrupted streak of Topps football sets featuring contemporary players that ran through the 2015 season.”

So, just as the leagues were competing against each other, Fleer and Topps would also. Fleer printed football cards from 1960 to 1963, having the rights to the AFL players in 1960, 1962, and 1963, and Topps had the rights to the NFL players during that time. Somehow, in 1961, both companies had players from the AFL and NFL.

Here is the year-by-year breakdown of each set.

1960 Fleer: The set has 132 cards, 125 with players and seven showing head coaches. It was Fleer’s first football set and was made up entirely of AFL players. And since it was the first year of the AFL, most players were coming into the pro ranks out of college, so Fleer showed them in college uniforms.

1960 Fleer #76 Paul Lowe

1960 Topps: The 132-card set only has NFL players and showcased the expansion Dallas Cowboys.

1961 Fleer: Fleer released the 220-card set in two series, the first with 132 NFL players and the second with 88 AFL players.

1961 Fleer #11 Jim Brown

1961 Topps: The 198-card set featured NFL players in the first series (#’s 1-132) and AFL players in the second series (#s 133-197), with card 198 being a checklist. 

1961 Topps #1 Johnny Unitas

1962 Fleer: The set has cards of 88 AFL players, and many collectors believe it had the lowest print run of any of the Fleer football sets.

1962 Topps: The 176-card set features NFL players 

1963 Fleer: The set features 88 cards of AFL players and a great unnumbered checklist. The set is known to have three of the most sought-after vintage football cards of the ’60s (the Checklist, Charles Long, and Bob Dougherty).

1963 Fleer Football Checklist

1963 Topps: The 170-card set of NFL players was grouped alphabetically by city name.

1963 Fleer #96 Ray Nitschke

Things got interesting after that. In 1964, the Philadelphia Gum Company obtained NFL rights through 1967, and Topps printed AFL-only sets between 1964 and 1967, leaving Fleer with no product in football (or baseball). Then, in 1968, after the NFL and AFL agreed to merge, Topps got the rights to both leagues.

I can make a lot of guesses about exclusivity and printing rights in the early 1960s that led to the 1961 sets from Fleer and Topps having both AFL and NFL cards, but I really don’t have any facts. If anyone knows what happened, please let me know in the comments and happy collecting!

A Rare Sight: Mint 1965 Topps Tall Boy 5-Cent Display Boxes

by

You’re not going to see many mint 1965 Topps Tall Boy 5-cent Display Boxes on the market; I scanned this one from Mastro’s December 2007 catalog.

This empty box once held 24 5-cent packs, and one or more of them may have contained Joe Namath’s rookie card. Its minimum bid was $300 at the time, but I’m unsure what it closed at.

As I said, the box is rarely found, especially in mint condition. However, you may remember that in September 2017, MileHighCard Co. sold a full unopened BBCE-authenticated box for $145,746 and a box with 21/24 packs for $106,149.

Exploring auction history over the past few years, it looks like mid-grade display boxes have been selling for between $250 and $500.

Happy collecting, and don’t forget to check out The Unopened Archive!

Faux Wood Grain Bordered Sports Cards

by

Love ’em or hate ’em, you definitely have an opinion about the faux wood grain bordered cards; they’re pretty unforgettable. In this article, I’ll run down a few details about five key wood grain framed sports card sets in the hobby and share a few thoughts about them.

1955 Bowman Baseball

1955 Bowman #202 Mickey Mantle

The first faux wood-grained border set was Bowman’s final vintage postwar set. I consider it the first bold design choice that Topps or Bowman made with the horizontal color television set style (inspired by the 1950 Drake’s cards). Most real TVs at the time had a wood-grain paneled look. The first 64 cards have a lighter wood grain within the set, and the rest are darker.

The look of these cards is incredibly recognizable, show one to a vintage collector, and they KNOW it’s a 1955 Bowman card. Sports Collector’s Digest once wrote in an interview that “if collectors mention the set they hate from the ’50s the most, the 1955 Bowman set is the one that’s mentioned probably 80-85 percent of the time.” I don’t hate ANY sports card set, but I probably fit more in the group that isn’t a fan of this design than the group who loves it; it’s just a little tacky/cheesy; perhaps I’m just too young to appreciate them!

It’s also weird that the card fronts don’t show the player’s first name, team name, or position. However, Bowman’s last set is still important to the hobby. So, I think the best way to summarize the set is something I once heard during a hobby chat: the cards are ugly but historic. I do applaud Bowman for trying to do something different.

1962 Topps Baseball

1962 Topps Baseball #387 Lou Brock

The next major release to use a faux wood grain background was Topps’s 1962 baseball set. This time, they made the image look like a sticker peeling away from the wood background, revealing the player’s name, team, and position. 

The look of the wood seems a bit more “elegant” this time. Some say they are inspired by the 1955 Bowman design, but Topps did the design in a way that works a lot better to me. The vertical orientation, the move away from the television screen, and additional player information on the front make a complete design. It’s still not the most attractive design Topps has made, but it’s nicer than the 1955 Bowman set.

From a collector’s perspective, the edges in this set show chipping, so, just like the 1955 Bowmans, the cards are tough to find in better condition.

1966 Topps Football and Hockey

1966 Topps Football #96 Joe Namath
1966 Topps Hockey #35 Bobby Orr

The 1966 Topps Hockey and Football sets have the same color TV-based design of a player’s photo within a faux wood grain border with the player’s name, position, and team printed along the bottom of the horizontally aligned card. They’re just as polarizing as the other sets I mentioned.

The hockey card images are imposed in front of a game crowd, which I think looks pretty cool. The football cards seem to have either the background from where the photo was taken (likely a practice field and usually of the sky) or a pure red or yellow background.

Color TV was still new in 1966, so the cards were probably pretty appropriate for the time. Also, the hockey cards have a TV shape on the back (white text on a black background shipped like an oval TV).

1987 Topps Baseball

1987 Topps Baseball #320 Barry Bonds

I think the 1987 Topps Baseball set pulled off the wood grain border the best. The frame looks like a baseball bat and fits the era well. Therefore, it’s one of the most recognizable sets from the 1980s.

The box around the player’s name, the black texted Topps logo, and the team logo in the upper circle look great from a design perspective. It’s the cleanest of these designs, so I’m a big fan.

As I said in the intro, these wood grain-bordered cards definitely elicit a reaction and opinion from collectors, so I’d love to hear what you think about them in the comments.

Happy collecting!

PS: In writing this article, I considered including the 1958 Hires Root Beer set but wanted to concentrate on major releases.

The Original Artwork For The 1953 Bowman #51 John Karras Football Card

by

Here’s a true hobby one-of-one: the original artwork for card number 51 in Bowman’s 1953 football set, featuring John Karras of the Chicago Cardinals.

The piece was a part of Mastro’s December 2005 Sports Premier Catalog Auction. They described it as a hand-crafted artifact measuring 3-1/8” x 4-5/8” (larger than the as-issued card). The item description mentioned that the item’s corners were chipped as a function of the working process. Also, the art piece was matted with an Ex sample of the final card on display measuring 11-3/4” x 15”, but Mastro didn’t share a photo of the combined display in the catalog.

So, here’s an example of the published Karras Bowman football card.

Happy collecting.

PS, check out The Original Artwork Archive if you want to see more pieces like this one.