1969 Baltimore Colts 4 in 1s from Angus

Angus, a frequent commenter*, football fan and blogger (Cleveland Browns-centric Dawg Day Cards) recently knocked two items off my much neglected Baltimore Colts needs list.

These  Topps 1969 inserts called "4 in 1's" are actually stamps which were intended to be separated and placed in the appropriate team folder. They are 'stamps' rather than 'stickers' in that they have moisture (spit!) activated glue on the reverse rather that a peel-and-stick system like the Fleer stickers everyone has stacks of from the 80s.

There were ten Colts issued and many, if not all, use photos that were also used on the 1969 regular issue cards. I think a couple used photos from earlier Topps sets but right now I'm too busy to verify this. You can see more of these in this post from my Baltimore Colts history series.

Johnny Unitas graced the cover of the album which was the same size as the 4 player 'cards', the standard 2" x 3". EDIT: I found this article with more detail on these including a few variations.

Despite of the fact he was the album cover boy (or maybe because of that) he was not one of the two 'Colts Stars' that were featured in the little album's centerfold. 

Angus' swell gift inspired me to go find my final needed stamp card (Willie Richardson) and I snagged it recently. Slowly chipping away at my Colts list will be a fun retirement project.

Angus helped stuff the envelope with this Ray May Action Packed card which I didn't have. Since it was from a 1990s set I hadn't gone after it. But it does picture a BALTIMORE Colt and is intended as a salute to an honor he won with them so I can happily add it to my binder in the miscellaneous Colts card section.

Man, my scanner did a terrible job on this one. Silver foil+embossed surface=multiple attempts to get a usable image. LOL

Angus, thanks so much for the cards, for reading and remarking, and for cranking up your blog again. Maybe the cards I have headed your way will help in a small way to brighten up a lousy Browns season.

*=is that even a word?

Show Haul II

Here is the second and final installment of 'Stuff from the Hotel Show'. Pales in comparison to what's been posted around the blogs and on Twitter after the National show but that's fine by me. If the National show ever finds its way back down my way I'll hit it up. 

I already have a 1970 Xographs/Kelloggs Brooks card but in case I ever decide to put the set together I'll have one for that binder and my Brooks/Orioles binder. Like the rest of these this came out of the 10 for $6 bin. I used my credit to nab them. 

Xographs evolved into the company that made Sportflics cards a decade and a half later. But those things can't touch the 1970 Kelloggs cards.

Darrell had a huge stack of the '69 Topps Deckle Edge inserts. I wish I had picked up more but I'm certain that they will still be in the bin at his next show.  Topps used this Juan Marichal picture in their 1965 set.

This shot of Brooks is from 1965.

Hawk Harrelson in his A's uni and an airbrushed BoSox cap.

Deckle Edge #4..Luis Tiant. This set was notorious for misprinted cards.

I brought home this much loved 1957 Topps Orioles team card. It was like a homely, sad, lonely puppy at the pound begging for a home. Even though I already have multiples of it I couldn't have slept had I walked away from it.

This is what team cards should always be. Team pic on the front, info on the back. I don't care about Gatorade bath shots from the previous June.

"Pennant Winning Teams: 1944" That would be the Browns. Someone, maybe a kid in Catonsville or Towson, edited the roster on the back using two different pens. One day after I retire and have the time I'm going to do some research and break the code of the red and blue. I thought I had it figured out but Dick Williams' comings and goings with Baltimore complicated things to the point I gave up.

The roster as seen on the back of one of my better examples of this card. Topps dropped a comma before the name of the last player listed, Chuck Diering, making it seem as if he's a bat boy.

Here is the original photo of the '56 Orioles.

I don't have plans to ever chase the Topps World on Wheels set from the early '50s these were hard to pass up.

When I was in Springfield Massachusetts a couple of years ago the hotel we were staying at was hosting a Kaiser-Frazer owners convention. There were some really neat and unusual cars in the lot.

These last two items came from the last hotel show I went to, in June I think. They were stuck in a pocket of my backpack and I didn't remember them until I went thru my bag after last weekend's show. Kelloggs' Presidential stickers. I've read that there was a card set and a sticker set put out by Kelloggs in 1980. But I think the truth is that there were two different sticker sets. Beckett's 2016 Non-Sports catalog is useless in finding any info. It has nothing (but it does had about 35 small print pages devoted to trashy Bench Warmer cards) and I regret wasting my money on it.

Anyway, here are JFK and George Washington.

Everything else I picked up went out in PWEs and such. The next show rolls around at the end of September. I can't wait.

Civil War News Additions (and a subtraction)

I'm slowly adding to my '62 Topps Civil War News set. I've found that there is no middle ground with these either price or condition-wise. I've exhausted the supply of needed and affordable (under $2) examples on COMC. Now I'm doing a daily check on eBay. It's hard to find anything under $5 there.

These two come from an earlier eBay purchase and are in better shape than most of my other ones. That one up top is one of the nightmare-inducing examples that stuck in my memory from my elementary school days. A painting of soldiers impaled on abatis stakes tends to stay with a kid.

Here is the back. I bet I was disappointed that there wan't a description of the gruesome scene depicted on the front. Instead it discusses the reaction of CSA General John Bell Hood to the lost battle of Nashville in December of 1965. But. as has been documented, that story was made up by the Topps writers who did the 'News' on these cards. More on that in a bit.

#52 Friendly Enemies depicts wounded from both sides sharing a canteen after presumably fighting each other moments before.

The card's back references the post battle atmosphere of Chattanooga in September of 1863.

I was able to find a couple of nice examples of the faux Confederate currency that was inserted into the packs. They in 10 different denominations. Some serial number variations bring the total to 17 different. Once I'm done with collecting the cards I may try to nab a few more of these bills. This $100 note is the better of the two I have.

The title of the blog mentions a 'subtraction'. Here's why:

In my haste to scoop up all the cheap ones available on COMC I added this #58 Angel Of  Mercy to my cart. When the package arrived it stuck out from the rest of my purchased lot. The obvious difference was the size of the card. It was smaller than the rest and flipping it over the the pink/red is brighter as is the cardboard itself.

  

And then there was this:

I had no idea that these cards had been reprinted by Topps' 'kissing cousin' AB&C in England in 1965. I think of them as a football (soccer) card maker but they did loads of non-sports issues as well. Scroll down on this webpage for a list of AB&C card issues. 

I'd obviously misread (or not read) the card description and ended up with the British version of this creepy Clara Barton card. It isn't the first time I've 'mis-bought' something online. Won't be the last either. And it IS pretty creepy. Her bloddy and bandaged patient looks like something from those Friday The 13th films. Here are comparison views of the AB&C card and one of my Topps cards.

Reading the card backs and poking around the internet doing just the barest of research turned up the fact that the card backs are far from an accurate chronicle of the Civil War. I recently came across a 1998 interview done with Len Brown who was one of the Topps employees involved with making this set. It's very long and the page uses very small type but it's still worth looking at if you are interested in this set. It's a good read even if you just want some insight into how these old non-sports sets were done.

Late in the interview Brown is asked about the backs and how they were developed and here is that exchange:

{Paul} ....... By the way, who did the stories on the backs of the cards?
{Len} Uh-oh, I was afraid you were going to ask that. I slaved over the backs.... but what I am not proud of was that I misled lots of children to think that these were true events that took place during the war. Most of them were just fictional. We planned the pictures.... composed the scenes out of our imaginations..... after the paintings were done, I wrote a little story about the front of the cards---then I would look up a town or date that seemed appropriate and would try to publish a newspaper back as if it were a real event. I remember getting a letter from a schoolteacher years ago, thanking us for helping the children in her class to learn about the Civil War. Yet, sad to say, facts never got in the way of telling an interesting story.
{Paul} That's okay, Len. The stories were great. I enjoyed reading each of them -- true or not. Were there any stories that were factual? I remember a particular card; "The Silent Drum" was about a drummer boy who was killed. Or were they all made up?
{Len} There might have been a few accurate stories that were written up. I suspect "The Silent Drum" was fictional. We were just trying to tell an interesting story about the picture on the front. If I had to guess, I would say 80 to 85% of the stories were complete fiction pieces. The battles were based on fact, but the incidental details were really fiction.
{Paul} Well, the stories were good, factual or not. 

The origin of the Confederate currency inserts is also discussed:

{Paul} So is it an authentic copy, or just an artists conception of what the money looked like?
{Len} I don't believe they were 100% authentic. We purchased some antique confederate bills and reworked the designs a little bit. It was a combination of several elements. I think they came off looking pretty real because we stayed close to the original. In those days we were afraid of just "counterfeiting" the Confederate money, even though they were no longer considered real currency.

I'm lacking about 30 to complete the Civil War News set.  expect it to take me quite awhile to finish it off but having a project always makes this hobby fun.

Baltimore Colts Card History Pt. 8 The Late 70s

The Colts Topps football sets of the late 70s (and into the 80s for that matter) are more or less interchangeable. 23 or 24 players, a team leaders card more often than not, leagues leaders (if the Colts had someone who fit) and a checklist of some sort. The designs changed but the player pics tended to come from the same few photo sessions with sideline shots mixed in. Any helmet was airbrushed to remove the logo.

1977 Topps

There were 24 Colts in the '77 Topps set. All are vertical and included practice field shots, 'blue wall' portraits, sideline shots, etc. The other teams got different colors and some had actual game action photos.

The All Pro selections got a ribbon under the team banner. The Colts had three, George Kunz as seen below plus Roger Carr and John Dutton.

This Bert Jones is one of my favorites of the late 70s. I bet that jacket he's wearing has a 'jumping Colt' logo on it that's been airbrushed out. I'd sell my family to pirates for one of those.

Lydell Mitchell, the busiest man in show business, got a '1000 yarder' award on his card. Mitchell ran the football, caught the football and sold ads for the yearbook.

The checklist had the leaders for the Colts over the previous eight seasons listed on the back. There was no team leader card per se. I was looking at the leading receivers list on that card and saw that in 1973 Glenn Doughty led the Colts with 26 receptions. That seemed oddly low so I checked. Turns out that the Colts completed only 137 passes in the 14 game season. Yes, 137 completions. For the whole team. In 14 games. Seriously? BTW...BR lists Doughty with 25 receptions. Sheesh.

The card backs, in black and tones of red/pink were fairly readable. I like the bulleted list of accomplishments. It reminds me of the old Seasons Highlights element of the back of the 1960 Topps baseball set.

The 'College Corner' idea was new and kind of neat. A fact from each players collegiate career was included.

Toni Linhart led the NFC in scoring and could have won a role in a Monty Python show with that hair.

Topps had a parallel set that was sold in Mexico. The checklist is identical but the cards themselves are done in Spanish. I have one of the Colts from that set, Howard Stevens. I blogged that one here a few months ago. Here is another look at the US and Mexican versions. Much more is in that post I linked. Other than a slightly different (darker) border, probably due to a different quality of cardboard, and some 'bumpy' edges due to the cutting process, the two cards are identical on the front. The Mexican version is the one on the left.

Of course the backs are is different languages. And the fonts/type sizes are not the same.

I love how it says Stevens was acquired from 'Los Santos'!!!

1977 Fleer

Fleer continued with their licensed set of team and game oriented cards. The checklist for these hardly changed from year to year. The Colts had cards #1 and #2 until Fleer decided that all the teams would be listed in alpha order regardless of their conference. The Colts than had cards #3 and #4 behind the Atlanta Falcons.

Super Bowl III card was always #59 and Super Bowl V was always #61. The pictures changed but the sets are pretty much clones of each other. 

Fleer also had stickers and those things are hard to date. I'm not sure if any of the ones I have now or any of the stack I have coming my way are from '77. There were no other national issues (aside from the Topps Mexican set I mentioned), food issues or oddballs that I could find although there were likely several Baltimore area promotional items that elude cataloging. There are a few Colts that appear on 'Sportscaster cards', the humongous set-by-subscription that were distributed from 1977 through 1979 but I don't have any, nor am I particularly interested in them.

The 1977 Colts were the last good Colts squad. Beginning in '78 the team fell under the mismanagement of a drunk, idiot owner and entered a death spiral that resulted in the team leaving after the 1983 season. 

1978 Topps

Topps came up with a very generic, bland design for 1978. The borders were different colors for each team and the photos were the usual mix. This year the Colts got a few action shots although the were not very 'action-ish'.

But leave it to Topps to come up with another great Roger Carr card. In this one he looks like a guy rousted out of bed by a hotel fire alarm and standing across the street with a Red Cross blanket watching the flames shoot out of the Hyatt's 11th floor windows.

Black on green  backs were among the easiest to read of that era. Vitals, stats and a bio again. The 'extra' was a choice nugget of info on the player with a related cartoon inside a helmet.

If you are familiar with the T206 Chief Bender variation cards, one with a tree in the background, one without, then you can appreciate the Colts leader card with two shots of Lydell Mitchell. Identical pictures except for the fact that one has a tree over his shoulder while the other has the background removed so it look like an overcast day in Timonium.

The team checklist is on the reverse of the leaders card.

Lydell, in a shot we will see again, is on the League Receiving Leaders card. There is also an Interception Leaders card with Lyle Blackwood on it.

1978 Fleer

The four Fleer cards got a yellow border. And different pictures on the Super Bowl cards. 

Kelloggs' issued team stickers in 1978 They came in panels of three. I wasn't able to find a Colts sticker by itself so I picked up the three team intact version.

The second year of the Holsom Bread cards saw them expand from a regional issue (Packers and Vikes) to a national set. Lydell Mitchell had a card as a Charger butthe card's place in the checklist reveals it was intended to be a Colts card before he was traded a few weeks before the '78 season started. Obviously this isn't a Colts card but I like little quirks like this.

1979 Topps

Rather than take a chance on a wild and crazy design Topps opted for bland, again. Not ugly, just un-inspired. Two color ribbon, position on a football, There were no Colts with the All Pro designation. That would have been noted on the football. Topps had a Record Breakers subset but again, No Colts.

The pics mirror the past several years with practice field shots, sideline candids, etc.

Again with the brooding Roger Carr.

I always enjoyed watching Joe Washington play. He was a poor man's Barry Sanders.

The purple and yellow backs held no surprises. The usual info and a player tidbit illustrated with a cartoon. Nothing else to say about the backs, it's Topps, it's the late 70s, it's football cards.

The team leader cards again had the team checklist on the back. Joe Washington got a cropped version of his regular card's pic but Roger Carr got one that makes him look like a kid wearing his old man's helmet.  

1979 Fleer

Fleer got a touch more creative in 1979 by randomizing the colors of the card borders. They threw a few horizontal cards into the mix as well. But other than that it is the same  old thing. And Fleer's Team Action cards would always be 'the same old thing". I like them well enough but I sure wouldn't have bought a second pack of these once I saw what they were.

I have a Fleer sticker, supposedly a 1979 version. The backs formed a puzzle. 

The full set of puzzle pieces made up a Super Bowl panorama. This is an image of a full (uncut?) sheet from the net:

If there are any other national of large food issues, etc. I am unable to locate them. I also don't believe that Topps had any inserts but I reserve the right to amend that belief if proven otherwise.

I'll have at least one more post in this series which will cover the remaining sets of Baltimore Colts' mainstream issues, 1980 thru 1983, the last season before the "Mayflower Incident" that ended the franchise in 1984.

I also will post some of the really neat (to me anyway) stuff I've picked up from earlier years that I didn't get a chance to post before. It'll be a 'Stuff I Missed' post.