The Seahawks South Of The Border

One of the cards that I have been hunting is the 1977 Topps Mexican Steve Largent card, it is actually on my White Whales list. In 1977 Topps was attempting to extend their football line beyond the border and released a set in Mexico that was exactly like the set released in the U.S. except in Spanish. The above left card is the base version and the above right card is the Mexican release.

The packs only contained 2 cards and a stick of gum, which means a good portion of the cards out there have some sort of gum stain (as mine does on the front) so these are very condition sensitive cards. Many of the cards are rather cheap outside of the top players like Bradshaw, OJ Simpson and Steve Largent’s rookie card.

While my search for a reasonable priced Largent RC from the Mexican set has been unfulfilled I have happily added another Seahawks rookie, Jim Zorn, from the set to my collection.

Jim Zorn is not as popular as Steve Largent but he was the Seahawks first quarterback and was the starting QB for 9 seasons before being replaced by Dave Krieg in 1984. After retiring in 1987 he coached a couple of years in college before moving to the NFL where he has been a QB coach for 5 teams plus two disastrous seasons as the Washington Redskins head coach.

The 1977 Topps Mexican football cards are not always apparent at first considering that some of the team names and positions are the same in English and Spanish but when you flip the card over it is all in Spanish. I also noticed that the Mexican card is a flimsier cardboard, almost a sticker like cardboard stock, but the ink is brighter.

Vintage Card Of The Month: 1977 Topps Steve Largent

This month’s Vintage Card of the Month is from the 1977 Topps Football set, Steve Largent. The 1977 Topps football release was the first set to include both of the 1976 expansion teams, the Seattle Seahawks and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. This card is Largent’s rookie card, remember the days when a player had only one rookie card?

 

Last month I selected a Largent relic card for my vintage card so this selection should be no surprise. Steve Largent is my favorite Seahawk and is among the Seahawks pantheon of gods along with Dave Krieg, Walter Jones, Curt Warner, Shaun Alexander, Matt Hasselbeck, Cortez Kennedy and Mack Strong.

 

Topps was the only major football card company at the time and they had a pretty standard design in the mid-late 70s; a white border, close-up shot of the player, a banner of some sort with the team name and the player’s name. If you look at the base cards from 1975 through the 1983 sets you will see there were only minor changes from year to year.

 

The card is in good shape and besides a smudge on the front (above the “E” in Largent) and cut slightly off center on the front it looks great. I picked up the card about 10 years ago on eBay for less than $8 shipped so a pretty good bargain.