The Baltimore Colts

I know what you're thinking... "This guy couldn't even maintain the blogs he had, and yet he's starting a new one?"

Guilty as charged. The truth is I was frustrated by the fact that I didn't have much of an audience on those other blogs. As the new, shiny cards became more popular I was spinning farther and farther away from the current card interest orbit. I felt like I was shouting into an echo chamber. Add to that the fact that I was getting ready to sell the bulk of my complete sets and blogging became less and less of a priority.

On the other hand, my Baltimore Colts collection is something I'll never let go of. I loved the Colts and as a kid, I spent Sunday mornings during the football season at 9:00 Mass praying for Johnny Unitas and crew to work their magic once again. 

I put most of the entries for this blog together about five years ago when I completed the collection. They went on the back burner along with my other blogs. But I always intended to publish them, even if they never got any views or comments. So here they are.

I'm going back through each post and cleaning up some references to 'recent' purchases and blog entries. They are posted in chronological order, i.e. the last group of sets to be showcased will be the last ones that depicted the Colts in their rightful hometown of Baltimore. 

Once I'm done with these I'll put together entries to show off more on my Colts collection, my media guides and display pieces, etc. 

I chose the '63 Fleer Lenny Moore card to show at the top for one reason. It's my favorite Colts card. I love his pose, the Memorial Stadium crowd, and the scoreboard behind him. The 'leaping Colt' logo is perfection. It's art on a 2x3 piece of cardboard.

I welcome any and all comments. It will be nice to know someone, anyone is out there reading my nonsense. Let's Go (Baltimore) Colts!

Colts Cards.. the Beginning, the early 50s

 1950 Bowman #112 Billy Stone

As I worked to complete the Baltimore Colts vintage card checklist I 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 decided just to post what I felt like posting and have fun with it. So there ya go. I've posted at least two for each decade of the team's history, showing the evolution of the cards. I scanned a variety of cards within each set to give a good idea of the set's 'flavor'.

Most of the emphasis is on the major card issues, i.e. Topps, Fleer, Bowman, and Philly Gum but I also have included 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 in 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 were the 'standard Bowman size' and featured 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.

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 league 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, and 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

1953 Bowman #8 Sisto Averno

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 names, card # and vitals across the top. Below that you'll find two of three elements depending on the player's position. Backs and ends have 'Records for last season' and an 'Officials Signals' cartoon. Linemen 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 its 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 back to horizontal. But other than that the backs are very similar. Colors and elements are about the same as in the previous three years. 

NFL-licensed

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.

Colts cards (Part 2) The late 1950s

1956 Topps #60 Lenny Moore

1956 saw Topps take over Bowman and this is the first of their football sets.

1956 Topps

The first Topps effort strongly resembles the final Bowman one. The posed shots are set against a red/orange background. The 'colt over the crossbar' logo returns but it's more of a closeup than a full logo. It appears that each team's cards had a consistent color and it seems that it's a coincidence that the Colts had the same background color two years in a row. There are ten Colts cards in the 120 card set including the Colts team card and I've acquired all ten. This season saw the first team cards produced for football. The first checklists are also part of the '56 Topps set and at the prices I've seen I'm glad they were not on my want list.

1956 Topps #72 Jim Mutscheller 

1956 Topps #48 Baltimore Colts Team Card

The backs didn't change much from the previous season. They are again red and black but now contain vitals, a blurb, a simple stat line, and a cartoon.

The team card has a write-up and a listing of team record holders.

Lenny Moore's card is his rookie and it's the most expensive of the team set but it's not unreasonable in decent shape. Mine is way off-center and has a crease but it's mighty fine nonetheless. I love the classic pose he's striking on his card. The back is dominated by text as he has no previous NFL stats.

1957 Topps

In 1957 Topps made a great leap away from the Bowman 'template' with a set of horizontal cards featuring two shots of each player, a portrait, and a posed action photo. Each team had their own unique combination of colors. The Colts' cards were all orange and green with the player's names in a box done in either black or white on green. Player positions and the team nickname were black on white. No team logos were used. This was the first year that Topps issued cards in what we have come to know as the 'standard' size.

There are 13 Colts in the set and I have completed it. The cards are not pricey except for the John Unitas and Ray Berry rookie cards. I've bought, sold, and re-bought the Unitas rookie. My Berry rookie card has a crease the length of the white strip between the two photos and wouldn't get much of a grade but in a binder page the crease isn't all that noticeable and I knew I'd never find another copy for $20 in usable condition.

Billy Vessels, whose picture is reused from the '56 set, was no longer active in 1957. He had been a Heisman-winning college star at Oklahoma who played in Canada and served in the Army before his one NFL season.

1957 Topps #29 Billy Vessels

1957 Topps #17 Art Spinney

This Spinney card is faded to the point his background appears to be yellow, but the card is actually orange in better-conditioned copies. Like the Marchetti card below my scanner did it no favors. They both look much better in hand than in these scans.

1957 Topps #5 Gino Marchetti

Topps didn't revise the backs as much as they did the fronts from prior years. The colors remained the same. In a layout that follows the front design, there are side-by-side sections with the left containing vitals, a paragraph blurb, and, for skill players, stats. The right side has two cartoons.

Topps included checklist cards in the set but team cards took a year off. Following the breakthrough 1957 set Topps issued football sets the next two years that foreshadowed the following spring's baseball issue.

1958 Topps

Real photo backgrounds, circular photos, and card color variety highlight the '58 Colts cards. These cards with their oval posed photos resemble the 1959 baseball set. 

There are ten Colts players in the '58 set plus the team card. Eight of the players' cards are framed with orange while the club's two running backs, L.G. Dupree (yellow) and Lenny Moore (red) are exceptions to that rule. Most of the players are shown in posed action while Moore and DB Milt Davis have portraits. 

As far as prices go the Unitas card, as expected, tops the list. In fact, the Unitas card is the most costly card to acquire in any upcoming team set until you get to a handful of 1972 high numbers. 

1958 Topps #120 Raymond Berry

The iconic (well, it is!)  horseshoe helmet makes its first card appearance this year. It's tucked under the arm of DB/kicker Bert Rechichar.  The players are still wearing the old jerseys with three-sleeve stripes. The 'UCLA loops' a.k.a. shoulder loops were adopted in '58 but didn't appear until the 1959 cards. 

1958 Topps #74 Bert Rechichar

1958 Topps #117 L.G. "Long Gone" Dupre

The '58 Colts team card is one of my favorites as it shows them in what seems to be a training camp shot and, unlike the upcoming '59 baseball team cards retains the background to the photo. Add in the old school logo and it's a winner in my eyes.

1958 Topps #110 Baltimore Colts Team Card

The card backs in '58 are the first to employ a 'gimmick', this one being a 'Football Fun' question whose answer is revealed by rubbing the box with the edge of a coin.

The rest of the gaudy red card backs were pretty mainstream with vitals, bios, and numbers.

The back of the team card had to be music to the ears of young Colts fans back then. It foretells the soon-to-be championship the club would bring home that fall.

1959 Topps

Topps'  1960 baseball set with its gaudy alternating color lettering received a 'trial run' with the 1959 football set. As defending champs the Colts earned a bigger share of the checklist. There are 15 Colts players included as well as a checklist-backed team photo card and a team pennant card. I recently picked up the pennant card and finished this year off.  

1959 Topps #17 Baltimore Colts Team card/First Series checklist

1959 Topps #68 Baltimore Colts Pennant card

Mostly posed action shots again dominate the team with backgrounds in orange, yellow, pink-red, and one green. Johnny Unitas, coming off his remarkable rise to the top of the league in 1958 got the honor of having card #1 in the set.

The leaping Colt logo returns, minus the crossbar. Interestingly the little colt has a helmet that is 'white' on some cards and colored either light or dark blue on others. There is no rhyme or reason for the variation regarding card background color or card numbering. I suspect that it is all due to printing variations /flaws. I see some variations of shading on different copies of the same card which also would make it seem like part of the printing process.

The logo Colts' white and dark blue helmets can be seen on the Mutscheller and Unitas cards below.

1959 Topps #89 Jim Mutscheller

1959 Topps #1 Johnny Unitas, the Greatest Football Player Ever (Well, he is!)

The team photo card has the Series One Topps checklist on the reverse (see below). The same checklist appears on other team photo cards. Others later in the set carry the Series Two checklist. 

The player card backs and the pennant card back follow fairly similar layouts, The pennant card has a blurb about the Colts championship and then a 'magic' football question for which the answer is revealed by rubbing the space with a coin. That's just like it was done in 1958.

The player cards have vitals and stats for the 'skill position' players with a short paragraph replacing those stats in all other players (linemen, etc).

Topps was done, at least for a while, as a football card monopoly after 1959. Fleer entered the picture with an AFL set in 1960 and went head-to-head with Topps with NFL cards in 1961. Those sets and more will kick off the next post in this Baltimore Colts card history series.

The remarkable blog, The Topps Archive, has posted a great and rare find. It's a football counterpart to the 1959 Bazooka baseball set. The cards came on the back of 20-piece gum boxes. Lo and behold the example posted on the blog is of Colts' fullback Alan Ameche.

More about this rare and beautiful set is in this entry at SCD online. The checklist is below. In addition to Ameche, John Unitas appears in the set. There is a third Colts card but that one is a Colts card with a huge asterisk... Giants QB Chuck Conerly is labeled as a Colt but a corrected version fixes his team affiliation. Both versions are very rare as is this set in general. It looks like I have a couple of new white whales!

• Alan Ameche Baltimore Colts
• Jon Arnett Los Angeles Rams
• Jim Brown Cleveland Browns
• Rick Casares Chicago Bears
• Chuck Conerly ERR Baltimore Colts
• Chuck Conerly COR New York Giants
• Howie Ferguson Green Bay Packers
• Frank Gifford New York Giants
• Lou Groza Cleveland Browns
• Bobby Layne Pittsburgh Steelers
• Eddie LeBaron Washington Redskins
• Woodley Lewis ERR Chicago Cardinals
• Ollie Matson Los Angeles Rams
• Joe Perry         San Francisco 49ers
• Pete Retzlaff Philadelphia Eagles
• Tobin Rote Detroit Lions
• Y.A. Tittle San Francisco 49ers
• Tom Tracy Pittsburgh Steelers
• Johnny Unitas Baltimore Colts

Here's the Johnny U as seen on the Trading Card Database...

This is my collecting 'white whale', at least as far as football stuff is concerned. I doubt I'll ever pick one up but I never say 'never'!

And the Conerly error from the same site:

Colts Card History Pt. 3 The Early 60s

1960 Topps #5 Jim Parker

After the two colorful and innovative sets Topps produced in '58 and '59 they took a step back in 1960, at least in my eyes. 

1960 Topps

On the plus side, Topps had better photographs in the '60 set than the ones they used previously. Mostly posed portraits and 'action' shots with training camp backgrounds. But the set is otherwise pretty nondescript. The player names, team, and position on a color football. The colors are random through the set with the Colts getting mostly red with a couple of orange and a yellow. Other teams had blue and green mixed in. To me,  the design isn't 'clean' enough to be clean (and I do like plain, simple designs) nor is it 'fancy' enough to be 'fancy'. If that makes any sense. It's just sort of 'there'. 

The Colts got the first 10 cards in the 132 card set with #11 being their team card. The Colts' team card has the second series checklist on the reverse.

1960 Topps #4 Ray Berry

The Johnny Unitas card always draws comments because of his 'spaced out' expression. My 'Colts Project' copy is far from pristine but it fills the spot. I have a nicer copy in my Unitas PC. 

1960 Topps #1 Johnny Unitas

1960 Topps #6 George Preas

I wish Topps had used the actual background for the team cards. I don't understand the point of doing otherwise. They have used natural backgrounds on previous team cards so why do this in a set where player cards show trees, grass, and sky? It was one of my complaints with the 1959 baseball set as well. At least the leaping colt makes an appearance.

1960 Topps #11 Colts Team w/2nd Series checklist back

Green card backs are new. The usual vitals appear at the top with either year/career numbers or a bio blurb below that. 'Football Funnies", at least the ones I can read on the cards I have, are not particularly football-related outside of kids wearing helmets in 'Bazooka joke style' comic panels.

Here is the above comic panel shown in a larger scan.

1960 Topps Metallic Sticker

Topps had these 'metallic stickers' as inserts in 1960. 

In '60 Fleer had jumped into the football card game with a set featuring players from the brand-new AFL. In 1961 they expanded their football offering and included NFL cards. Topps added AFL players to their set as well in '61 so while this was the 2nd year of competition for kids' nickels between the two companies it was the first (and only) year that saw them both going 'all out' with players from both leagues.

1961 Topps

Topps' set in 1961 isn't much of an improvement over 1960 and may very well be a step backward. The eight Colts included are shown with portrait photos for the most part. These are cut and pasted on solid color backgrounds of orange, red, or yellow. Green and blue backgrounds show up with other teams. There are no team logos on either the front or back. The Fleer set used the teams' logos so I'm not sure if there was a licensing issue this year. Anyone?

1961 Topps #6 Jim Parker 

1961 Topps #4 Ray Berry

1961 Topps #9 Colts Team

Blue backs are new but the standard elements remain. Vitals, a bio paragraph or stat box, and a 'coin rub' cartoon are set horizontally for the player cards.

The team card, horizontal on the front gets a vertical back.

Scattered throughout the set are '1960 Football Highlights' cards. The Colts are shown on this one commemorating Johnny U's 25 TD passes. His numbers were impressive at the time but in the current NF,L they would be mundane. Times have changed.

1961 Topps #57 Highlights Johnny Unitas

The tattoos that Topps issued in the early 60s as inserts are generally out-of-sight prices, particularly the Unitas which is considered a 'test issue'. But this sticker, which I just purchased minus the tab (you can see the perforation markings on the left), was very cheap.

                                              1961 Topps 'flocked' sticker

Meanwhile, across the tracks, Fleer was producing what may be my favorite football set not issued by Philly Gum.

1961 Fleer

The majority of the players in the Fleer set are shown in pregame stadium shots and many of the NFL players had their picture taken at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. That fact, I'll admit, has a bearing on my view of this set. But beyond that these are terrific cards. These are football players by God!

The cards feature great posed portraits, the team log,o and clean white borders and text block. There are ten Colts in the set, seven of them are in the Pro or College Football Hall of Fame, or both.

1961 Fleer #36 Bill Pellington

1961 Fleer #39 Art Donovan

1961 Fleer #37 Gino Marchetti

The backs don't quite match up to the fronts but the team logo makes another appearance at least. Each player gets a minimal info block and a fair-sized paragraph write-up.

The light green doesn't do much to make the cards readable and on faded/browned cardboard like the Marchetti card below the white name and green titles all but disappear. Several of my cards in this set have similar back issues so I guess it's an issue with the cardboard used.

But despite the shortcomings on the reverse, the fronts put the '61 Fleer far ahead of the Topps set. I've scanned four examples of the cards of the same player for comparison's sake. Take a look:

That Fleer Lenny Moore, with the view of the scoreboard along the right edge, is a Top Ten football card in my collection. And I'm more in love with that Fleer Artie Donovan card every time I see it. Those Fleer cards are just more 'alive'. It's too bad the company was relegated to 'AFL only' cards for the next two seasons before leaving the football cards business for a decade.

For the next two seasons,  Topps was again in the driver's seat as far as NFL cards were concerned. Luckily it appears that they were spurred on to better designs in 1962 and 1963. Oh, and Post cereal boxes featured NFL players in 1962. I've got some Colts to show off, too.

1962 Topps

For the first time since 1957, Topps went with a horizontal format for its cards in '62. And the black border was downright revolutionary, at least in Topps sports cards. The cards, with a large full-color shot and a smaller action one, are not unlike the 1960 Topps baseball cards. Name, team, and position appear in a color box. The Colts had red and yellow boxes while other teams had these colors as well as blue and green.

1962 Topps #8 Gino Marchetti

1962 Topps #5 Raymond Berry

There were eleven Colts players plus a Colts team card in the 176-card set.

1962 Topps #12 Baltimore Colts Team 

1962 Topps #3 Alex "The Hawk" Hawkins

Vertical backs featured basic info, vitals, stat,s and/or a short bio and a cartoon that was tied into a football quiz question. The cartoon artwork seems more detailed and sophisticated than much of what has been seen up to now. I like it a lot.

Topps issued Football Bucks, miniature dollar bills with NFL players in 1962 as an insert into the packs of their football cards. There were four Colts in the 48-card set...Unitas, Berry, Moore, and Marchetti. 

1962 Post

Post Cereal boxes carried NFL cards that mirrored their baseball counterparts of the era. All are posed action shots with training camp backgrounds. Lots to love with these. You can find these in poorly trimmed condition (which I have) and that holds down the cost. I'm fine with Post Cereal cards in this condition.

Topps had one more year of producing NFL cards before the license went to Philadelphia Gum for four years.

1963 Topps

The 1963 football card set is colorful and fun. The 170-card set had eleven players for each team and a team card. The Colt's cards are yellow and orange/brown. Johnny Unitas got card #1 for the fifth consecutive year. Oddly the team card (for all teams) didn't match the colors found on the player's cards. The Unitas card is, as expected, the most expensive of the group. 

Lots of grass, sky, and trees are found behind the Colts players, five of whom are in the Hall of Fame. Taken individually these cards might not make you say "What a cool set!" but flipping through a few 9-pocket pages of these things will convince you it is.

1963 Topps #11 Bob Boyd

1963 Topps #9 Billy Ray Smith

1963 Topps #3 Ray Berry

1963 Topps #12 Baltimore Colts Team

'63 saw Topps change the color of the backs once again. The orange-on-white backs have the standard info and stats or a short bio. The cartoon is different though. Now it is in the form of a question about the player on the card and the answer is revealed by laying a small sheet of red cellophane over it. The cellophane came in every pack. I believe it is the first time the cellophane was used with a Topps product since the 1952 mostly non-sport Look 'N See set. Don't quote me on that though.

1963 will be the last Topps football set to contain NFL players until 1968. For the next four years, the NFL license was held by the Philadelphia Gum Company and Topps took over the production of AFL cards. Fleer was the 'odd company out' and would be out of the football card business until the mid-1970s.

The Philly Gum sets will all be posted in the next of this series. The four editions range from good to terrific.