Baltimore Colts Card History Pt. 1... the early 50's

 1950 Bowman #112 Billy Stone

As I've worked to complete the Baltimore Colts vintage card checklist I've toyed with different ideas about presenting it here. I fully realize that football posts don't get much readership but then again if it was readership I was after I'd stick to newer baseball stuff. I've decided, after all this time, just to post what I feel like posting and have fun with it. So there ya go. My plan is to do at least two for each decade of the team's history and show the evolution of the cards. I'll scan a variety of cards within each set to give a good idea of the set's 'flavor'.

Most of the emphasis will be on the major card issues, i.e. Topps, Fleer, Bowman and Philly Gum but I will also post cards from other sets, Kelloggs for example and try to show the various inserts that came with the base cards. Most of those inserts are Topps products in the 1970s.

The Colts can trace their history back quite a way. The franchise was part of the All American Football Conference which formed in 1946. But due to not being able to find a stadium deal they folded up their tent before playing a game, 'moved' to Miami and played there as the Seahawks. That Miami club lasted one rocky season and relocated back to Baltimore as the 'Colts' and played in the AAFL through 1949.

1950 Bowman

The AAFC merged three teams (Colts, Browns, 49ers) into the NFL for 1950 and thus began the life of the team I grew up worshiping. The 1950 Colts are represented in the only major football set of that season, the gorgeous Bowman effort.

 1950 Bowman #77 Bob Kelly

The Colts were still wearing green and white back then and the cards are the 'standard Bowman size' and feature painted photos. There is a fairly even mix of horizontal and vertical orientation among the cards. The backs were printed in blue, red and black with basic player info and a paragraph of text. The back is dominated, at least visually, by the Bowman 'Five Star Football Series' logo.

I lack two of the 11 cards in the 1950 Colts set including the Y.A. Tittle card which is considered his rookie card. It's the most expensive card out there among the 50s decade of Colts' cards other than the '57 Unitas rookie. It's going to take patience to find a reasonably priced Tittle in decent shape.

The Colts finished the 1950 season with a 1-11 mark and they were disbanded by the NFL. Two seasons of no football in Baltimore followed before the Colts re-entered the carrying the shell of the Dallas Texans franchise. 1953 is considered the first year of the long-time Colts franchise. Bowman once again produced an NFL set. That year the cards were larger, the 'standard' size matched the baseball sets of the day.

1953 Bowman

The '53 Colts inherited the colors (blue and white) and some of the players of the defunct Dallas Texans franchise.

 1953 Bowman #19 George Taliaferro

 1953 Bowman #30 Buddy Young

There are only six Colts in the 96 card Bowman set of 1953. Like the 1950 set there is an assortment of horizontal and vertical cards. The big white football with name and team dominates each card. The backs, printed in red and black feature name, card # and vitals across the top. Below that you'll find two of  three elements depending on the players position. Backs and ends have 'Records for last season' and an 'Officials Signals' cartoon. Lineman have the Officials Signals and a Football Quiz.

1954 Bowman Colts

 1954 Bowman #14 Fred Enke

I see the '54 set as a step up from the previous season if for no other reason than the pennant which replaced the football. I'm a sucker for the old 'Colt over the crossbar' logo and it makes it's first card appearance with the '54 set.

 1954 Bowman #  Tom Keane 

Most of the 11 Colts in the set are shown in posed action shots. One notable exception is Buddy Young whose portrait will be reused in the '55 set.

1954 Bowman #38 Buddy Young

The red and black backs of the cards are very similar to the '53 cards. The elements are nearly identical but they have been rearranged. 

1955 Bowman Colts

1955 Bowman #118 Royce Womble

In the final year of Bowman football (they were bought out by Topps for 1956) they departed from the two previous issues. There are ten Colts in the set and they are shown with a 'halo effect' on a background that can only be described as red/pink/orange.

1955 Bowman #20 Bert Rechichar

Most of the cards are posed action shots but again Buddy Young had the close-up portrait. The background on Young's card isn't as vibrant as the others and his photo is 'washed out' a bit. I thought it was just my copy but it's the same on every one I find to some extent.

 1955 Bowman #65 Buddy Young 

In their last set Bowman changes the orientation of the card backs to horizontal. But other than that the backs are very similar. Colors and elements are about the same as the previous three years. 

Topps took over production of the NFL licensed cards in 1956 and their first set is very reminiscent of Bowman's last one. That Topps '56 set will kick off the next post in this little series.

1958 Topps Unitas... or is it Joe Forte?

This 1958 Topps John Unitas card took me awhile for find, not because they are scarce, there are a bunch of them on eBay, but because I didn't want to spend much on a card for my Colts vintage collection that I already had in my Unitas PC. 

I ended up spending about $20 for this one. It's very off center but otherwise in good shape. Decent ones on eBay and elsewhere usually go for more than $30 and the price can escalate quickly from there.

The cheapest one had a minimum bid of $10. Take a look at it and tell me if you would have paid that.

Yes, that's how it showed up in the auction listing. Now I have cards in my collection that have been written on... several of my 1950 Bowman Colts have had their colleges added neatly to their bio... but nothing like this. I wish I knew if the card sold or was yanked from eBay.

I had a link to the auction someplace but I can't find it now. Honestly, I'd have hesitated to spend 10 cents on that thing.

I've googled 'Joe Forte' and can't find a football player by that name. There was a North Carolina hoop player by that name who was drafted by the Celtics (and apparently was a major bust) but that's as close as I can come to puzzling out the info written on the back of the card. I even checked the Duke football media guide to see if they ever had a player by that name and got no results.

So in the end I found a pretty good '58 Unitas to the Colts vintage binder and had a chuckle or two. It's a great hobby, yes?

Brisket in my wallet

It's called Wallet Card, it's from the mind of Gavin at Baseball Card Breakdown. You've probably read about it and I'm late to the party. But I had to find this card. It comes from a University of Houston football set put out in 1992 by a company called Daily Motion. At one time I had cases of this shrink wrapped set but through the years I've given nearly all of them away to my students. I've kept a few. This is my favorite card from the set.

Brisket Howard (he's actually Brisket Howard Jr., his dad had the same name) was a DB and special teams player for the U of H in the early 90s. I left the school's employ in 1990 but I was out there on that same practice field more times than I care to recall. That's downtown Houston off in the distance.

This is my perfect 'wallet card', Houston player with a great name in a shot taken in a spot I know well,  This wallet card thing is a great idea and I hope we all have fun with it. I'm looking forward to seeing where some of these cards travel to.

And here goes Brisket into my wallet...keep your hands off my AmEx card, will ya?

Monday Morning Quarterback #44 Tommy Kramer 1984 Topps

In this ongoing series of posts I am going to feature cards from my fantasy football player collection, specifically the 117 quarterbacks I've had on my team's roster since 1980. I have one selected card for each player in my All-Time Flyers binder. Through the years I've tried to use as many different card varieties as possible while holding on to my preference which is: a card issued in a year I owned the player showing him in the proper team uni in a vertical format. Card availability and my whims have had a big impact on that standard. 

NFL Info: Tommy Kramer was a high school star in San Antonio and went on to play at a high level at Rice University in Houston before being drafted by the Vikings in 1977. He played for 11 seasons with the Vikes having two separate stints as their starter. He's a member of the College Football Hall of Fame. He also had a reputation as a guy who liked living life to the fullest, if you know what I mean.

Fantasy Impact: Tommy Kramer is one of my favorite players ever. I got a chance to meet him back in January of last year at a card show and had him sign a photo with a unique inscription. This post describes that day and what Kramer has mans to me in terms of fantasy football.

The Card: Topps' football designs of the era tend to all run together so when I say I like this one it's probably me allowing my Tommy Kramer fandom override my critical eye. Honestly the front is just sort of...there. It has the team logo so there's that.

The cardback is a bit hard to read with the green blocks and brown type on dark cardboard but all the usual elements are there: vitals, stats, blurb and cartoon. Overall if I was grading the Topps 1984 football set it would get a big fat solid "C".

Hockey, yes hockey... the 1974-75 OPC Howe Family card

This is a card I've had on my wantlist for a long time. I'd forget about it for long stretches and then someone would show off a Gordie Howe card and I'd be inspired to look around for one in my wheelhouse....decent condition at a moderate price.

It happened most recently when Fuji was gifted with this fantastic Oh-Pee-Chee Howe. I immediately went out and snagged the 74-75 OPC Howe Family card you see above. The WHA in general and the Aeros in particular were just a blast to be a fan of during the 70s. I've related a bit of my Aeros history before. Here it is cut-and-pasted:

Maybe the most fun I've had in sports venues was during the heyday of the WHA Houston Aeros during the 1970s when they played in the decrepit old Sam Houston Coliseum in downtown Houston. Those games were just a blast. The WHA was a rough and tumble league of NHL castoffs and has-beens mixed in with a few young and established stars that the league somehow was able to sign away from the NHL with big money contracts. The franchises seemed to shift every year and I recall more than one team folding during a season.

The Aeros had Gordie Howe and his sons and they captured back-to-back Avco Cups in the first few seasons of the franchise's existence. My college buddies and I loved those teams and going to the games. How could you not? The rival Minnesota Fighting Saints always lived up to their name (the 'fighting' part, not the 'saints' part) and building rocked when they were in town. In their second year they had a guy named Gordie Gallant (isn't that the coolest hockey name ever?) who was a cheap shot artist and enforcer who would whip the Aeros' fans into a frenzy.

At the Coliseum the visiting team would have to walk a gauntlet of fans between periods and at games end, trudging on their skates up a rubber mat along a path formed by a couple pieces of rope to the locker-room. It passed right through the concession area. Fans would give the Fighting Saints (we had another 'F' word that we used instead of 'Fighting') a real going over. I'm surprised that none of us ever got clobbered with a stick or kicked with a skate.

After three or four seasons the Aeros moved to the shiny new Summit (now Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church)  and a lot of the fun went out of it. Oh we still loved Aeros hockey but losing the Coliseum took away some of the charm of the whole thing. Eventually the NHL absorbed four of the WHA teams but not our beloved Aeros.

One last WHA story... It occurred the day after the Aeros won their first Avco Cup. A good friend who worked at a department store that had a tie-in with the team was headed into work when he spotted the Avco Cup trophy sitting all by itself on the loading dock. Just sitting there apparently after being delivered by the team for a promo. No one was paying any attention to it as it sat just feet from the morning downtown workers hustling by. Hard to imagine the Stanley Cup in that spot.

My copy of the card isn't bad at all for about 10 bucks. It's off-center off-centre but otherwise just fine for me. Here's a short video segment showing Gordie Howe in action with the Aeros:

And speaking of hockey...yesterday in Target I wasted $2.49 on a pack of "Upper Deck Hockey Something or Other".  I grabbed it because I was bored waiting for my wife to finish her shopping and there was nothing else of interest on the shelves. The pack contained seven cards of guys I've never heard of, the best of which is this one showing this guy knocking the warm-up pucks off the dasher onto the ice.

The eighth card is of Phil Esposito, ringleader of the Evil Empire. That was my perspective on the Bruins circa 1970. Nowadays I think Rangers fans just look at them as another team. Another byproduct of the growth of the NHL from 6 to 45 teams or whatever they have these days.

I'm Wondering

The box of cards sent to me by Joe Shlabotnik spent nearly a week trapped in a locked postal parcel bin because my usually reliable postal delivery person had failed to place the key in my regular mailbox. When I was finally able to liberate it I also found a couple of manila envelopes containing eBay purchases I had begun to worry about. Turns out the box from Joe and one of those envelopes had something in common. They both contained cards from a set I had only discovered a few weeks earlier.

The Cedrick Hardman card is a food issue card, coming from the 1976 Wonder Bread set and was in the box from Joe. I had no knowledge of the Wonder Bread set until I saw one on the Baltimore Colts checklist I was using.

Doing a bit of digging showed me that Wonder Bread had issued cards since at least the mid 70s. They had NFL cards from 1974 thru 1976 and issued non-sports cards as well, at least through the mid 80s or so. Among those were Disney sets as well as Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and 'rock star' sets among others. I saw no evidence of baseball or any other sport other than football being involved.

That Cedrick Hardman card has certainly been well loved but it's all the better for it. I found the discoloration of the cardboard interesting because while purchasing two variations of the only Colts player in the set, George Kunz, I noticed that one was similarly colored. The Kunz cards below were both in an envelope that arrived with Joe's box. First the '76 Wonder Bread version.....

And here is a 'parallel' card that shows it being issued by "Town Talk Bread". Town Talk was a brand that was distributed only in Western Pennsylvania.  The Town Talk version is 'browned' like the Wonder Bread Hardway. But the Wonder Bread Kunz looks white. 

The copyright line shows that they were all produced by Topps. I'm guessing Topps used inferior cardboard in producing these because I've never seen 'regular' Topps cards from this era with this characteristic.

Another interesting aspect of the Wonder Bread/Town Talk cards is that the 'middle' set, the 1975 set uses a design very close to the 1971 Topps football set.

First the Wonder Bread design...(all the below images are taken from the 'net)

And a random '71 Topps base card....

And finally a card from the 1974 Wonder Bread set.

The Wonder Bread/Town Talk sets contained 24 or 30 cards and don't appear to cost much at all. I bought both Kunz cards for less than $5 combined. 

A Regular Joe

I've been working my way through the neat box of cards sent my way by Joe Shlabotnik. BTW...I can proudly say that I've typed that name enough to spell it right without looking it up!

Anyway I wanted to post a few before I head back up to the Metroplex for the second time this week. This time I'm headed to Fort Worth for the Interim Coaches Bowl between my Houston Cougars and the Pitt Panthers.

The box Joe sent contained not only Baltimore Colts cards that cleaned up a big chunk of my wantlist (more on that soon) but he gifted me with enough assorted 70s football that he actually created a quandary for me. I have had the '75 Topps football set in the back of my mind as a possible project for a long time. I wasn't very far along as far as collecting it but it was there nonetheless.

But Joe included cards from several other years and now I'm going wondering just which set I like the most.

I don't have time for much depth here today but this is a quick cross-section of some of the most interesting cards that the box contained. Up top is the '76 Jackie Smith. I can't see his card without thinking of his endzone drop in the Super Bowl while he was a Dallas Cowboy.

The next six cards are of various 70s football badasses. Earl Thomas was a TE at the U of Houston when I arrived there. He wasn't a guy to be trifled with. Jim Marshall is known for his wrong way "TD" run but he should be known as a remarkable defensive lineman. I thought he was Hall of Fame worthy. Pat Tilley is widely known for giving up his football career for military service.

If you followed football in the 70s you know all about Conrad Dobler. His reputation was that of the "dirtiest player in football". Here is a nugget from Wikipedia: Merlin Olsen once put Dobler's name on a prop in his show, "Father Murphy" — a headstone in a graveyard scene.

Rocky Bleier and Lynn Swann were in about 16 consecutive Super Bowls... or so it seemed at the time.

Here we have 1978 Topps quarterbacks Roman Gabriel, Joe Theismann and Archie Manning. They display the three typical Topps photo styles of their 70s sets...portrait, sideline shot and posed action.

Finally here are a couple of Fleer NFL cards from the same era. Fleer had the official NFL license so they could show the NHL team and league logos but they were not able to use player names. What you ended up with were 'Team Action' cards like these as well as cards commemorating the Super Bowls. Joe's box contained several of the Colts related Fleer cards I was hunting.

Now it's off to Fort Worth and a football game that is scheduled to be played in the cold and rain. What fun!!