Vintage Card Of The Month: 1955 Topps All-American Jim Thrope

This VCoM comes from one of the most popular football sets to ever be released, the 1955 Topps All American set. The set is based on college teams during a time when the NFL was not as big as it is today and college players were more popular and deserving of their own set. The 100-card set was released in three types of packs; 1 card packs for a penny, 9 cards for a nickel and 22 card packs (I am not able to find prices for these packs).

This card is straight off of my Top 6 White Whale want list, so I will happily change it to be my Top 5 White Whale list now.

Jim Thorpe was an all-around athlete playing professional football and baseball, semi-pro basketball as well as being an Olympian who won Gold medals in both the Pentathlon and Decathlon in the 1912 Olympics.

During his professional career he played in the MLB from 1913 through 1919 mostly with the New York Giants but he also spent a season with the Cincinnati Reds and a season with the Boston Braves. His NFL career was quite a bit longer running from 1915 through 1928 playing mostly for the Canton Bulldogs (an early NFL team from 1904 to 1926) but he spent a season with the New York Giants (NFL) and the Chicago Cardinals (Now Arizona Cardinals). He was inducted in to the NFL Hall of Fame in 1963.

What most people never knew is that in the mid-1920s Thorpe played semi-pro basketball with a barnstorming team called the World Famous Indians and from my understanding this is the one of the very few pictures of him in a basketball uniform.

The 1955 Topps All-American cards college based with players from the first half of the Century who were selected as All Americas. Thorpe attended Carlisle Industrial School where he played for the legendary Pop Warner and led the team to an NCAA Championship in 1912 with an 11-1 record, he also played baseball, track and field and lacrosse at Carlisle and to show his diversity he also won the 1912 Intercollegiate Ballroom Dancing Championship.

The card is in bad condition, maybe Poor to Fair at best, and is heavily creased at the top and cut well off center. The colors are still nice and the back looks good for the condition of the card but when top graded versions can sell for hundreds and I am just happy to have one of these cards in my collection.

Vintage Card of the Month: Amos Alonzo Stagg

The College football bowl season has started and I decided to go with a college legend for this month’s Vintage Card of the Month. The card, Amos Alonzo Stagg from the 1955 Topps All American set.

Stagg played as an End for Yale in the late 1880s (1885-1889) and was selected as a First Team All-American in 1889. The year after his graduation he began his coaching career at Springfield College before moving on to the University of Chicago a few years later, he spent 40 years coaching at Chicago and even won two National Championships there (in 1905 and 1913). While at the University of Chicago he coached one season for the basketball team and he was the baseball coach for almost 20 years.

After he left Chicago he continued coaching until he was 96-years old, at Susquehanna University and the University of Stockton. In his almost 70 years of coaching he revolutionized the game including changes to the offense and defense and is believed to have a “hand” in the creation of the forward pass in 1906 and the creation of the Line Backer position.

As was pretty common at the time, the card is cut off-center as well as being off top-to-bottom also. The top two corners are rounded pretty awful but the bottom two corners are in decent shape, the white border has yellowed a bit and the colors have muted over the years. The picture include of Stagg was from his later career (from his time at the University of Pacific) instead of from his college days.

Most ungraded copies sell in the $25-50 range with graded copies running a bit higher depending on grade.

Vintage Card of the Month: Byron Whizzer White

The August Vintage Card of the Month is from the 1955 Topps All American set which featured college stars of the era (1920s-1955). Before he became a Supreme Court Justice Whizzer White was a monster halfback on the football field. He played basketball, baseball and football at the University of Colorado where he led the nation in rushing his senior year.

He was the 4^th pick in the 1938 NFL Draft by the Steelers (Pirates at the time) and in 1938 he led the NFL in rushing before returning to school as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. In 1940 he decided to return to the NFL and signed with the Detroit Lions for the “insane” salary of $15,000/year. Again he led the NFL in rushing before cutting his pro career short to join the Navy at the onset of World War II. After the Navy he decided to go back to school to work on his Law degree instead of playing football.

 The big draw for White’s cards is because of the error, Topps accidently switched White’s back with Gaynell Tinsley’s back and the error cards sell usually for $125 and up while the corrected card sells in the $25-50 range. My copy is the corrected version with White’s bio on the back.

Besides the obvious Topps quality control issues the card is in great shape with only a bit of staining along the right border. The surface is nice and the color is solid. The 1955 All American cards are notorious for being mangled and as you can see with mine, the card is not only off-center but it was cut at an angle. You can actually see the upper corner of the next card on the top right border of my card. Good to know Topps has kept up the tradition poor quality control after 56 years.

Vintage Card Of The Month: Hugh Gallarneau

February’s Vintage Card of the Month turns out to be the epitome of a classic common card. Hugh Gallarneau was actually such a significant force for the Stanford Indians (now Cardinal) that along with teammates Frankie Albert, Pete Kmetovic and Norm Standlee, turned the team from a perennial looser to an undefeated team in 1940 and ended the season ranked #2 in the country. But that success did not carry over in to his pro years.

By the time the 1955 Topps All American set was release Gallarneau was done with football having gone on to have a mediocre career having played only 5 seasons for the Chicago Bears (interrupted by World War II) but he will best be remembered for his time as one of the WOW Boys at Stanford.

As you can see Topps was having QC issues even back in 1955, I would call this at least a 95/5 on centering and there are a number of creases but I enjoy the card none-the-less. This is a piece of history, one of the best football sets of the Century in my opinion. I actually picked up this card recently in a trade.

I love the trivia added to the back of the cards. Did you know that in 1955 if a pass is caught by an Offensive Lineman the team is penalized a down and 5 yards. I had to look in to this one but the penalty now is either a loss of down (if the Defense refuses the penalty) or loss of 5 yards (if accepted).