Monday, October 24, 2022

Building a football collection several sets at a time

Nothing is one at a time for me.   Baseball started all over the place when I got back into collecting, then I decided on just building sets between 1968-1986.  Still working on the first 5 sets (1968-1972), but there's no hurry.

Hockey was the same way, all kinds of cards as fast as I could.  Now, even though it's the lowest focused of the 3 sports that I collect currently, still have the goal of finishing 1970-71 OPC through 1989-90.  Only have 4 of those sets finished, again there's no hurry.   

Football seems to be headed in the same direction.  I've discovered just how great the football sets are in the same era as the baseball sets.   1968-1986 seems to be the timeline that I'm going to chase.  The early sets are relatively small in size, the 73-79 sets all look good (although I'm not partial to '78, more to come down the road on that set), and the early to mid 80's are solid and fairly inexpensive.

I recently completed a trade on TCDB that netted me a few cards from a couple of late 70's FB sets.


I do like '77 Topps, a lot.  I've seen the Spanish version of some of these cards as well which I get a kick out of trying to figure out what position the guy on the card plays.  

I didn't know that each team has their own checklist card as part of the set.   I like that.  It's a shame that there's no logos on the helmets as you can see on the Garo Yepremian card, but it's small in importance for me with these sets.


I wonder if John Dutton of the Colts knew that he would be the title character's name of a very popular show over 40 years later.  That reminds me, I need to get caught up on Yellowstone some day.


Notice that the Team Leaders card in the '79 set has the team checklist on the back, which is the opposite of the '77 shown above, where the Team Leaders are on the back.  

I haven't met a card back from the '70s that I didn't like.  When I have my reading glasses on and the eyes are focused, all the backs are great.  Easy to read, some good cartoons and the '74 set has a game as well.  

Thanks to Marco on TCDB for the great trade, it is appreciated!

Robert


4 comments:

  1. Those are the two football sets I collected as a youngster. So happy I've completed '77. The '79 set has taken a backseat for me, but I'll get back to it. ... Also, I have little interest in the '78 set, too. I didn't collect it then and the look isn't great.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I must be in the minority, because I like the look of the '78 set. A lot of the photos in it are awfully boring though.

    ReplyDelete
  3. loved Topps football cards from the mid 1970s to the late 1980s because you never knew who was going to make the set or not - look at those Falcon and Dolphins lists. Look at Atlanta 10 cards - includes 2 kickers and a center. The Dolphins checklist is more rounded.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Let me know when you get around to '76. I can start you with over 75% or so of the commons at least.

    ReplyDelete