Nationally recognized football card experts Mike Bonner and Carl Lamendola have written the ultimate vintage hobby guide. The lively and superbly- researched text is supplemented with unique checklists and images of rare items. An absolute must for advanced collectors and novices alike!
Collecting Vintage Football Cards A Complete Guide With Checklists
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COLLECTING VINTAGE FOOTBALL CARDS: A Complete Guide with Checklists
Copyright © 2013 Mike Bonner & Carl Lamendola
ISBN 978-1-61434-874-0
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
Published in the United States by Booklocker.com, Inc., Bradenton, Florida.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper.
Booklocker.com, Inc. 2013
First Edition
COLLECTING VINTAGE FOOTBALL CARDS: A Complete Guide with Checklists
By Mike Bonner and Carl Lamendola
Henry Ward Beecher’s 1887 Goodwin Champions N162 card, the first football card.
This book is dedicated to our families: For Carol and Karen, from Mike Bonner For April and our children, from Carl Lamendola
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
Most of the chapters in this book previously appeared in a modified form in the following publications: Gridiron Greats, Sports Map, Sports Collectors Digest, Beckett Sports Collectibles Vintage, Beckett Football Cards Plus, Sports Cards Gazette, Tuff Stuff, SGC Collector Magazine, and Allen Kaye’s Sportcards. Grateful acknowledgement is herewith made to the editors of those publications. DEFINITION OF VINTAGE: For the purposes of this guide, the authors have defined the word “vintage” to apply to those football cards and sets, with one intentional exception, that appeared before the pivotal hobby year of 1989. Within the text, the cards are examined in a general chronological order, from the earliest to the latest, covering just over a one hundred year time span. Additionally, we have chosen not to include a price guide for the cards featured in this book. Instead, we recommend the annual Beckett Football Card Price Guide as the most accurate current reference on card values. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: We’d like to thank Frank Rose, Joe Colabella, Don Niemi, Mike Hattley, Mike Moiser, AJ Firestone, Dick Dunlop, Bill Mastro, Mike Blaisdell, John Alutto, Jerry Bell, Ed Kabala, Dan Hitt, Dick Dunlop, Dave Lee, and the late Dave Kelts for their sage advice and expert information.
vii
Chapter One — Early Football Cards
A Rough History of Football stopped card companies from Cards making ever more glitzy Since 1989, an incredible products. outpouring of football cards has However, our main interest been fueled by a surge of in putting together this vintage interest from collectors around guide has been to look at the the country. oldest and rarest of these cards. The vigor demonstrated by Though few in number, the hobby is ironic because compared to baseball, football until the 1980s, football cards cards are fascinating and existed as a poor cousin to the revealing examples of hobby of baseball card American popular culture. collecting. Where do football cards, Even though the first and for that matter, trading football cards appeared about cards in general come from? the same time as the first Sports cards themselves owe baseball cards, they were not as their existence to competition popular as their baseball among tobacco companies in counterparts. Mainstream the late 1880s. football cards practically In those days, tobacco vanished after their debut over firms were in a furious battle to a century ago. When they came attract customers to their back to life during the cultural products. At the time, cigarette explosion that accompanied the smoking was considered a end of World War II, popular manly and harmless habit. interest made it clear that they One day, an unknown were going to be around for the marketing genius conceived the long haul, but in a secondary idea of enclosing small role. cardboard pictures of celebrity Still, that hasn’t stopped and sports figures in cigarette collectors from acquiring them packs, as a promotion. in great amounts, and it hasn’t
3 Mike Bonner & Carl Lamendola
The idea took off and soon By 1920, several thousand everybody had cardboard boys baseball subjects had pictures in their cigarettes. appeared on cards. There were images of boxers, Football players were not pool players, singers, so lucky. Professional baseball musicians, cowboys, explorers, had roots in the United States soldiers, vaudeville stars, and from the Civil War forward and baseball players, among many was a natural for card makers. others. Anybody who was No football equivalent to major famous was likely to be the league baseball existed until the subject of a cigarette card. early 1920s. The first American professional football league, the National Football League, was founded in 1921. Thirteen teams with names like the Canton Bulldogs, the Chicago Staleys, the Dayton Triangles, and the Rock Island Independents burst upon a sports-crazed America in the Roaring Twenties. A multi-sport card set was issued by Spalding’s Sports Company of America brand in 1926. The Sports Company set had approximately 30 college football stars and is notable for Album page for the 1887 being the first card set to be Goodwin Champions N162 set issued separately from a
tobacco product. The most avidly collected The football hobby of these pictures were the ones considers the Sports Company of baseball players. Adolescent set a minor issue, as the cards boys and young men especially feature only west coast players. seemed to like them. The Sports Company cards are
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scarce and practically unknown In the history of the hobby, to most hobbyists. most years only produced one It wasn’t until 1933, when set. Until recently, multi-set Goudey Gum released another years in football cards were multi-sport set called the Sport rare. Despite what seemed to be Kings, that football cards fertile ground for a new reappeared nationally. Three national sport, the NFL storied football names appear struggled in fits and starts among the Sport Kings set— before the affluent and leisure- Red Grange, Knute Rockne, rich 1950s guaranteed success. and Jim Thorpe. But with only three football cards among stars of many sports, the Goudey set is by football card standards only a minor set. A more important set of 36 cards was issued by National Chicle Gum two years later. It featured pro football players like Bronko Nagurski, Dutch Clark, Beattie Feathers, Bernie Masterson, and a college coach of some renown, Knute Rockne. The Rockne card is No. 9 in the National Chicle set. Sport Kings and National
Chicle cards have between The 1952 Bowman Jim them six of the ten most Lansford “Large” card, No. valuable football cards. No 144, a coveted collectible more football cards were produced until 1948, when The 1960s also saw chewing gum brands grew considerable growth in the sport popular in the postwar years. but profits were small because a From 1948 to the present, at competition raged between the least one football card set has two major leagues, the AFL and been produced annually.
5 Mike Bonner & Carl Lamendola the NFL. Not until the 1970s, There are several when a merger ended the explanations why sane people competition, did pro football should choose to make a hobby begin to supplant baseball as of collecting slips of cardboard the national passion. Interest in bearing images of professional football cards have followed the athletes and others. Collectors rise of the sport across the can learn interesting facts, country. make money, and have When the Topps Chewing something to talk about. The Gum monopoly finally ended in hobby even gives people 1989, a pent up wave of new somewhere to go on the cards was swiftly unleashed on weekends. Card shows are collectors. The backwash from popular in many American that wave is with us even now, cities. and all but the sharpest As far as collecting goes, hobbyists have felt its trading cards have most things financially treacherous beat for variety, cost, undertow. convenience, and quality. During the autumn of 1989, Besides sports, dozens of types the number of major card sets of trading cards are being sold. jumped to four. The following Releases include soap opera year five appeared. The big stars, musicians, war heroes, explosion came in 1991, when cars, motorcycles, cartoon thirteen sets were issued. In characters, movie and TV spin 1992, proving it was no fluke, offs, animals, politicians, and twenty major nationally criminals, to name a few. distributed sets of pro football The subjects suitable for stars made it to market. display on trading cards are just Football cards have inundated about limitless. Advances in the hobby market in a most computerized printing remarkable fashion. technology and the peculiar Things have settled down American craving for celebrity somewhat since that great burst mementos have encouraged the of enthusiasm, But today it is recent explosion in trading card still a collector’s market. production. Today it’s much like the days when trading
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cards first appeared in cigarette works: Usually you want to buy packs. But without the smokes. the first card issued of a player Like most pro sports, as a professional. In hobby football cards come major and parlance, it’s the rookie card. minor. In the football card With luck, your player makes it hobby, major cards and sets are to the championship or some distinguished from minor sets other feat of obvious by factors of availability, excellence. quality, and collector interest. Major football sets, or “mainstream sets” as they are often called, are the products of companies like Topps Chewing Gum and enjoy nationwide distribution. Minor sets are usually produced by local companies for local fans and collectors, although the larger companies occasionally make minor sets. Football cards owe everything to their cousins in the baseball card hobby. Baseball is where it Marion Motley’s 1950 began. Bowman rookie card, No. 43 But football card collecting has achieved a solid second Now that rookie card you place, with basketball and bought early on might be worth hockey cards rising fast. The hundreds of dollars. With the biggest new customer base for ease of buying and selling on the hobby is men over thirty, the internet nowadays, savvy although the youth market collectors can sometimes make (mainly boys between six and a killing. The trick is, you have sixteen) is stronger than ever. to know which players will Buying and selling sports have great careers and which cards is like a stock exchange in ones won’t. Very few do. human images. Here’s how it
7 Mike Bonner & Carl Lamendola
Another thing that Books and magazines determines value for a card is containing price guides are condition. Collectors are picky handy references, but as writers about wear. Creases and other we wanted to go beyond the set defects can drive down the descriptions, fully educating price, even among rarities. ourselves in this frequently Card centering is another fascinating, sometimes big concern for hobbyists, frustrating field. To know especially vintage collectors. football cards you must know Many early cards were cut so football. that the image was shifted to one side or the other of the card face. Fleer football cards of the 1960s are notorious for this problem. A badly centered card is far less valuable than a well centered card, other things being equal. The original pioneer in the trading card hobby is a gentleman by the name of Jefferson Burdick. A lifelong sufferer from rheumatoid arthritis, Burdick poured his energies into the pastime of collecting paper ephemera, especially trading cards. He invented the hobby as Cover of the Burdick Collection a hobby, putting together a vast Directory, New York Museum collection of baseball cards and of Modern Art codifying most of the formal
terms erudite collectors use to Card values are invariably talk shop. Burdick is known as tied up in the career of the the “Father of Card Collecting” player shown on the card. High and his book, American Card visibility offensive players like Catalog, is the classic work on quarterback, running back, and the subject.
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wide receiver are generally understanding American more valued than linemen, obsessions in general. What do linebackers, or defensive backs. football cards really represent? But there are exceptions. If you’re a follower of sports, Another rule of thumb is that cards may be a chance to invest old cards are usually more in the career of your hero, if valuable than new cards. only at the tiniest level. Similarly, scarce cards are A few collectors follow the more valuable than common career of a single player, cards. Exceptions exist to these seeking out memorabilia for rules as well. Although it is that player alone. Others have tricky to grasp what makes broader tastes, chasing cards for cards valuable, there are several a team, a college, or yearly sets positive things to consider: covering an entire sport. For the Football card collecting can be convenience of collectors, a lot of fun. A major reason is companies have often the wide variety of colorful and responded by producing extremely intriguing football complete “factory sets.” cards in existence. Factory sets are the annual Some of the more eagerly set of one card each issued by a sought after cards include the company for players in a Mayo John Dunlop card, the particular sport. Unlike a “hand 1935 National Chicle Nagurski set” or “hand collated” set, a card, the 1952 Bowman Large factory set didn’t have to be put Lansford card, the 1965 Topps together from card packs. It Joe Namath card, and the 1983 came from the card company as Jogo CFL Warren Moon card. a complete set. Recently issued items are less Collecting cards of sports rare in most cases, but are no figures remains the central and les interesting. most enduring pillar of the Significant cards and sets trading card industry. Football abound in the football hobby. cards have emerged as a Not only are these cards glamour sector of the industry. significant as aspects of our Other collecting fads may come popular culture, they are and go, but there will always be valuable as aids to interest in sports cards.
9 Mike Bonner & Carl Lamendola
Baseball, with a long number of players pictured has continuous history dating to the increased at the same time tobacco era more then a century design values have vaulted ago, should always be the most upward. popular. But football cards are This represents a welcome getting close. Collecting cards change from the years up to is but one of the countless 1989, before the Topps collecting hobbies that have monopoly ended. Most early modern Americans hooked. football cards were crude, Acquiring everything from poorly designed, and few in Hummels to metal lunch boxes number. has become a national mania. Now even an average Not for nothing does the player can expect to be pictured popular bumper sticker say: on a card during his career. “He or she who dies with the Maybe even two or three times. most stuff wins.” For adults, Careers in this high speed game collecting football cards for are short. The chief poet of their investment potential can modern football, Vince be of absorbing interest. Lombardi, saw the game as While this can (and does) place where a man, helped by make the hobby profitable for his comrades, would “run to some, it can easily go awry, as daylight.” unlucky collectors who have Lombardi’s phrase is a made poor choices will attest. It simple and powerful evocation is good to remember what of football’s near hypnotic financier Malcolm Forbes said impact on spectators. about collecting: The highest award in “Surround yourself with professional football is named the things you love, regardless after Lombardi, the game’s of investment potential. That greatest coach. Every year the way, even if they lose value, winning Super Bowl team you will have nice things.” receives the Lombardi Trophy. It is gratifying to note as A chance to participate in well that football cards are football’s crowning pageant is finally beginning to do justice the goal every NFL player to a swift, violent sport. The carries with him on the field. It
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is the opportunity to become Football Scraps: one with the legend of the The Earliest Specimens sport. Football picture cards help us remember the men who Before football was even a have been our gladiators. fully-evolved sport, there were Formidable and heroic players some football cards floating may live forever in the memory around. They were not cards in of fans, but it is also nice to the traditional sense, but were have a tangible keepsake, more like paper souvenirs along however small. What follows is the lines of advertising the landscape of football cards, premiums, cut outs, and paper and, wherever appropriate, brief dolls. Pioneer collector glimpses of the game itself. Jefferson Burdick gave many of these unique items formal designations in his classic work, American Card Catalog. Advanced hobbyists know them by the collective term “scraps.” The word “scraps” comes from a portion of Burdick’s main collection, as described in the ACC. Sections 27 and 31 of the book differentiate these scrap specimens from other cards. The material in Burdick’s book details his renowned collection, (now housed in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.) The Burdick collection holds The 1990 Score card of four full albums and five boxes legendary pro football coach, devoted to 19th century scraps. Vince Lombardi The era to which the scrap items belong runs from the years immediately following
11 Mike Bonner & Carl Lamendola the Civil War to about 1887, of sudden shifts of fortune and when the first recognized hard, glorious struggles. It football card, Henry Beecher, provided a showplace for pure appeared. Early football was a athletes like Jim Thorpe and fluid game, more like rugby tactical geniuses like Amos than how we now play the Alonzo Stagg. Although the game. In the early years young sport originated in rugby, by men at elite eastern colleges 1883 American football was were the chief participants. truly its own game, a thing Because he helped write apart. most of the key rules, Yale legend Walter Camp is widely regarded as the father of American football. At Camp’s insistence, American collegians discarded the early rugby-style game during a span of three years, 1880-1883. Records show that Camp talked the college rules convention into adopting the line of scrimmage, the center snap, 11 players to a side, and giving up the ball if it hadn’t been advanced five yards (later changed to 10) in three downs. Otherwise the teams retained the egg-shaped ball from rugby instead of using a round one, Paper scrap from Spalding’s and the action still centered on 1896 die cut tribute to Walter tackling the guy carrying it. Camp (front) After Camp and his friends finished tinkering with football, Soon afterwards, American it became the quintessential football swept through the American game—swift, violent, ranks of collegians. In another unpredictable, and exciting, full innovation, Camp put a new
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scoring system in place, American football was very including points for nearly the complete modern touchdowns, conversions, sport. safeties, and field goals In the old days, as now, advertisers looked at any new fad, especially in sports, as a way to sell products. The new game of football earned its share of such attention. Most of these early promotional items are lost forever, but a few survive. Collectors eagerly seek material from football’s formative years. An interesting pre-Camp example of an early football “scrap” is the Raphael Tuck Company paper doll of an early college rugby player. This scrappy fellow measures 12” tall and 5 1/2” across at the Paper scrap from Spalding’s base. 1896 die cut tribute to Walter The Tuck piece came Camp (back) equipped with a little easel for standing him upright. Although Additional changes greeted the date of the Tuck scrap he game in 1906 when concerns cannot be established exactly, about violence were raised. an educated guess would place President Theodore Roosevelt, it around 1880. a great fan, insisted that the Is it possible to guess colleges ban mass momentum which game the young man was plays like the Flying Wedge playing? Football or rugby? because they were too Sports memorabilia expert Bill dangerous. By the time World Mastro leans strongly towards War I broke out in 1914, the idea that rugby is the game the Tuck player represents.
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“The little hat says the “The short pants are a dead Tuck piece is a rugby issue,” giveaway,” Walsh said. “They Mastro said. “Small hats were are in a style geared to rugby.” popular among rugby players Another Tuck Co. scrap back then.” clearly identifies itself as a rugby issue. This is an entire paper doll panorama showing rugby players in a match featuring two British schools, Newport and Cardiff. According to the set’s directions, arranging the papers dolls on their bases would “give you the famous Newport and Cardiff Rugby Football Match in full play.” Cardiff was chartered as a school in the British system in 1883, which means the rugby match depicted on the paper cut outs had to have taken place after that date. But by 1883, American schools had already adopted the Camp version of the game.
Scrap from the Raphael Tuck Before 1883, Americans set of college rugby players, a played rugby with just a few 12” tall paper doll minor variations. From 1876-79 Princeton, Harvard, Columbia Football collector Chuck and Yale played a slightly Walsh thinks the essential clue Americanized variation of lies in the abbreviated pants the rugby. Camp himself said later player is wearing. on that he had not invented American football, he had simply improved on what was already there.
14 Nationally recognized football card experts Mike Bonner and Carl Lamendola have written the ultimate vintage hobby guide. The lively and superbly- researched text is supplemented with unique checklists and images of rare items. An absolute must for advanced collectors and novices alike!
Collecting Vintage Football Cards A Complete Guide With Checklists
Order the complete book from
Booklocker.com
http://www.booklocker.com/p/books/6647.html?s=pdf
or from your favorite neighborhood or online bookstore.