After eight years with Topps at the forefront of NFL trading cards, the 1964 season brought a big change. Philadelphia Gum, founded by a former Bowman Gum executive 16 years earlier, snared the exclusive rights to make football cards for the next four seasons. Their first effort came in the fall of 1964 and it's the focus of this week's Vintage Pack Facts. … [Read more...]
Vintage Pack Facts: 1975-76 Topps and OPC Hockey
It was a good news/bad news proposition for hockey card collectors as the 1975-76 season approached. Topps boxes now contained 12 more packs than the year before. If you wanted to collect the entire set, though, it would require more dimes and nickels as Topps increased the size of its set from 264 cards in 1974-75 to 330 for '75-76. While the 1975-76 Topps … [Read more...]
Vintage Pack Facts: 1974 Topps Baseball
There was a lot going on in Topps' New York City offices and in their Duryea, PA plant in 1974. The San Diego Padres were thought to be moving to Washington, D.C., creating headaches for the company that prided itself on keeping its cards as current as possible. They were, for the first time, making plans for a "factory set," allowing collectors to buy the year's … [Read more...]
Vintage Pack Facts: 1967 Philadelphia Football
Swell brand bubble gum is what they were really selling. It's all over the packaging of Philadelphia Chewing Gum's trading cards in the 1960s. For football card collectors, though, it's those "Philly Gum" cards that are most memorable. Nostalgia if you're old enough. Retro fun if you're not. Philadelphia Gum had wrestled the NFL trading card license away … [Read more...]
Vintage Pack Facts: 1971 Topps Football
Much larger sets were coming soon, but in 1971, football card collecting was the same as it had been. Two series of 263 cards and inserts. This time though, the insert was interactive: game cards and player posters that occupied hours upon hours of chilly autumn and early winter days and nights for kids around the country. The costs remained much the same … [Read more...]
Vintage Pack Facts: 1963 Topps Football
The Green Bay Packers had won their second straight NFL championship and then enjoy 27 picks in the draft. Jim Brown would rush for 1,863 yards in 14 games and Y.A. Tittle would toss 36 touchdown passes. The 1963 NFL season also brought some of the most colorful football cards in history. This week's edition of Vintage Pack Facts takes us back to the fall of … [Read more...]
Vintage Pack Facts: 1955 Bowman Baseball
The end would come soon enough but in 1955, Bowman Gum was making one last-ditch effort to try to collect as many nickels and pennies as they could from baseball card collecting kids. They came up with a design that incorporated America's new favorite evening pastime. They created a whopper of a set at 320 cards and they gave kids more cards in their packs. It wasn't … [Read more...]
Vintage Pack Facts: 1961 Topps Football
The checklist got bigger as Topps welcomed American Football League players into its set. It would be six more years before the New York-based card maker had the rights to make cards of players from both leagues. While the business end of football cards got a little complicated in the 1960s, the experience remained pretty much the same. This week's edition of Vintage … [Read more...]
Vintage Pack Facts: 1969 Topps Football
The football world was changing 50 years ago. The AFL and NFL were getting ready to merge into one big league and the New York Jets were about to emphatically state that there was little difference in the quality of play between the two. The Lombardi era was ending and a new generation was about to take over. Youngsters who spotted the new edition of … [Read more...]
Vintage Pack Facts: 1960 Topps Football
Topps had some competition in the football card market as the decade of the 1960s dawned. The company reported selling about 70 million football cards in 1959. There was a new league with franchises in new cities. Who knows how many kids opted for Fleer's AFL set in 1960 but Topps dropped the number of cards in its 1960 NFL set from 176 to 132. With no … [Read more...]