It may be because I recently published The Uncut Sheet Archive, but I’ve been seeing a lot of awesome uncut sheets lately while perusing old catalogs lately, like this 1962 Topps uncut proof!
Ron Oser Entperises offered it in their April 2001 catalog and included the following description:
With 43 cards appearing on a 21″ x 28″ blank backed partial process proof sheet. Includes: Bunning, Snider, Kaline AS, Aparicio, Ford AS, Zimmer, etc. Only includes the actual photos used for the cards without the baseball card information. There is some moisture damage around the edge on the front with heavier damage on the reverse. Of the stars only the Bunning is affected. Minor creasing is also apparent.
Here’s an example of the final 1962 Topps Snider (top right corner of the sheet) and Ford All-Star cards for comparison (bottom row, third over).
There are quite a few production proof sheets in the archives of the major auction houses, but just a handful are actual photo-based. For example, REA sold this one, which included a handful of photos from the 1959 Topps set. It sold for $1,860 in the summer of 2019.
On the football card side of the house, Heritage sold this 1962 Topps Football Player Portraits Uncut Proof Sheet with 44 Players, including the Tarkenton Rookie, for $1,920 in December 2024.
I ran across this awesome point-of-sale sign featuring halfback Charley Trippi and QB Paul Christman of the Chicago Cardinals in Mastro’s December 2005 catalog; since Christman only played for Chicago until ’49, It must be from the ’40s despite being titled as a ’50s piece.
Here’s Mastro’s complete item description:
Check out this awesome display for “Wilson Sports Equipment!” Wilson has been a worldwide leader in the sports industry for decades due to the quality of their products and the effective promotion of their equipment. Years of using athletes and teams to endorse new product lines elevated Wilson USA into its unique, elite position in the sporting goods industry. Offered here is a football “cradle,” counter sign utilizing images of halfback Charley Trippi and quarterback Paul Christman of the Chicago Cardinals. Entitled “It’s a Wilson,” the 16″ x 14″ x 6-1/2″ display has a working stand-up back showing off the fantastic NM condition of the artifact. This 1940’s-1950’s point-of-sale advertisement possesses beautiful, bold colors and shows only the slightest signs of aging and use. What a spectacular piece!
I’ve been looking for other examples of this piece online or across The Hobby Library but haven’t seen another, so I thought it would be cool to look at the cards of the two “famous stars of the National Football League” instead.
Trippi, a Pro and College Football Hall of Famer, has the slightly more coveted cards and a deeper run of them since he played until 1955. He has two rookie cards from 1948, a Bowman and Leaf.
However, my favorite among his cards is the 1952 Bowman. However, his exhibit is fascinating in the context of the cardboard ad sign since the image is similar.
Christman, a College Football Hall of Famer, also has 1948 Bowman and Leaf rookie cards.
Welcome to part four of my series about Upper Deck commemorative sheets. As with the baseball, hockey, and basketball ones, Upper Deck used the football sheets to celebrate specific events and sets as promotions for the brand. However, like the basketball ones, there isn’t a lot of documentation about the football ones out there either, so I’ll be categorizing them the same way, by the year printed on gold seal (or gold football) or for later years, the date printed between the words “Limited Edition” and the serial number.
1991 Upper Deck Football Sheet
The first Upper Deck football limited edition collector series sheet I ran across in my research was this one saluting the New York Giants defeating the Buffalo Bills 20-19 in Super Bowl XXV.
1991 Upper Deck Football Sheet – Redskins vs. Giants
The pictured cards are all New York Giants from the 1991 Upper Deck football set. However, the date on the sheet is October 27, 1991. That was a week nine game played between the Redskins and Giants that the Redskins won 17-13. So I presume this sheet was given away at that game, given the title of the sheet, “Redskins vs. Giants,” and the date. Upper Deck was honoring the Giants’ performance from the Super Bowl the year before; Super Bowl XXV was played on January 27, 1991.
1992 Upper Deck Football Sheets
Most of the Upper Deck football sheets I discovered were from 1992, and we can sort them into two categories: those released in partnership with Sports Collector’s Digest and the NFL playoff sheets.
TCDB explains that “Upper Deck produced eight different football sheets for insertion into the September 18, 1992 issue of Sports Collector’s Digest. 8,000 of each sheet were produced, and one was inserted into each SCD issue. Each measure 11’’ by 8 1/2’’.” Unlike most of Upper Deck’s other limited edition sheets, the backs of these aren’t blank; text was repeated across the back. Here are all eight variations.
1992 Upper Deck Football SCD Sheet – Version 1
1992 Upper Deck Football SCD Sheet – Version 2
1992 Upper Deck Football SCD Sheet – Version 3
1992 Upper Deck Football SCD Sheet – Version 4
1992 Upper Deck Football SCD Sheet – Version 5
1992 Upper Deck Football SCD Sheet – Version 6
1992 Upper Deck Football SCD Sheet – Version 7
1992 Upper Deck Football SCD Sheet – Version 8
Upper Deck gave away the AFC and NFC championship sheets at the Super Bowl Card Show III and the NFL Experience in Minneapolis. While the Super Bowl XXVI sheet was given away at various locations in the Minneapolis area during the week of the Super Bowl, it’s just weird to imply the Bills at Super Bowl XXVI champs since the Redskins ended up defeating them 37-24 on January 26, 1992.
1992 Upper Deck Football Super Bowl XXVI Sheet – Redskins
1992 Upper Deck Football Super Bowl XXVI Sheet – Bills
You can see that the NFC playoff sheet salutes the Redskins for defeating the Lions 41-10 on January 12, 1992, and the AFC sheet sales the Bills for shutting down the Broncos in a 10-7 game to earn a trip to the Super Bowl.
1992 Upper Deck Football NFC Champion Sheet – Lions vs. Redskins
1992 Upper Deck Football AFC Champion Sheet – Broncos vs. Bills
All four playoff sheets have 1992 dates on the gold football seal and feature 1991 Upper Deck football cards. Here’s the Comic Bowl sheet.
1992 Upper Deck Comic Bowl Sheet
1994 and 1995 Upper Deck Football Sheets
The 2006 Standard Catalog of Football Cards says four sheets were issued at the Super Bowl Card Show VI in 1995, and it included the Rookie Class 1994 sheet, the Jan. 26-29, 1995 sheet, a sheet saluting the St. Louis Rams, and another saluting Dan Marino. However, the sheets I found don’t seem to align perfectly with that checklist, and the “Limited Edition” dates are slightly different.
This first sheet appears to be associated with Upper Deck’s Collector’s Choice brand and features Marshall Faulk. I’ll note that a 1994/95 Collector’s Choice Crash Super Bowl XXIX set was available at the NFL Experience card show in Miami, so it’s possible this sheet was available there.
1994 Upper Deck Collector’s Choice Football Rookie Class of 1994 Sheet
This next sheet, the Rookie Class of 1994, also has a 1994 date and advertises the Upper Deck football set due to launch in August 1994. That seems like a weird item to be shared at the Super Bowl Card Show in 1995.
1994 Upper Deck Football Rookie Class of 1994 Sheet
I also ran across a pair of Joe Montana sheets with 1994 dates on them; one celebrating his three Super Bowl championships, and the other a few of his biggest comebacks.
1994 Upper Deck Football Joe Montana Super Bowl Sheet
1994 Upper Deck Football Montana’s Magic Sheet
The next sheet was definitely for the Super Bowl since it has Super Bowl Card Show VI printed along one side and Super Bowl XXIX on the other.
1995 Upper Deck Football Super Bowl Card Show VI Autograph Sheet
If The Standard Catalog was correct, here’s the Rams sheet they described, with a 1995 seal and copyright.
1995 Upper Deck Football Salutes the Saint Louis Rams Sheet
And here’s the 1995 sheet celebrating Dan Marino’s records.
1995 Upper Deck Football Salutes Dan Marino Sheet
And finally, a 1995 sheet celebrating Joe Montana.
1995 Upper Deck Football Salutes Joe Montana Sheet
FYI, The 49ers, behind QB Steve Young, defeated the Chargers 49-26 in Super Bowl XXIX on January 29, 1995. Also, during this time, Upper Deck had a lot of inserts and unique sets devoted to both Marino and Montana.
Conclusion and Further Reading
I imagine there are more football sheets out there, so if you run across any, please leave a comment or email me. Anyway, that wraps up my four-part series about Upper Deck commemorative sheets. If you haven’t checked them out, here are the previous three articles about the Upper Deck Baseball, Hockey, and Basketball sheets; I hope you enjoyed the nostalgia!
Kit Kiefer was a former editor of Baseball Cards Magazine and the VP of Professional Hobby Consultants, so he knows a thing or two about sports cards. Here’s his list of the 10 most significant action photos of all time, in order of importance. Not bad, huh?
The list was part of a much longer article in the February 1997 issue of Sports Card Magazine, in which he mentioned that “action photos on sports cards were non existent for the first 100 years, but today they are as common as a new pack of cards.”
In terms of popularity, you have to consider adding the 1991 Topps Carlton Fisk card featuring Cecil Fielder barreling toward him; here’s the Desert Shield version (4 Sharp Corners was offering it on eBay for $759 in November 2024).
I shared Topps Magazine’s tribute to Willie, Mickey & The Duke in early October. Well, the ‘Topps Remembers’ series continued, and in their final issue (Fall 1993, No. 16), Topps featured a fantastic piece on the legendary multi-sport champion Jim Thorpe!
Given the article, I thought sharing some of his most significant cards made sense. Note that PSA does have a Master set for Thorpe that currently requires 112 cards, though no one currently even has 10% of them.
Today, his two most well-known cards are probably his 1955 Topps All-American card (I highlighted the original wire photo in April 2024) and the 1933 Goudey Sport Kings card.
In the spring of 2016, REA sold this 1955 Topps All-American PSA 9 copy for $5,100.
Heritage sold this PSA 8 1933 Goudey Sport Kings Thorpe card for $7,767 in May 2015.
However, he has a few cards that are much tougher to track down, like this 1916 Famous & Barr card (there are a handful of variations of this card) that Heritage sold for $4,182 in November 2010.
Thorpe also has a Zeenut PCL card; REA sold this one in the spring of 2022 for $39,600.
And if you’re looking for a cheaper Thorpe, I recommend the card he shares with Teddy Ballgame.
Sports Cards Magazine & Price Guide had a great feature in the mid-’90s, providing “a wrapup of some of the country’s largest sports auctions.” This one from September 1996 was chockful of incredible items.
Larson highlighted the John F. Kennedy signed ball as the highlight of Mastro’s auction that topped $850,000 in sales. But I wanted to compare two of the cards to today’s prices. The PSA 8 graded 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle sold for $24,394; today, that’s probably a $1M card. And the PSA 8 1914 Crack Jack Joe Jackson, well, Heritage sold one nine years ago for $101k.
As for the rest of the article, half of that stuff won’t show up for sale again, but if any of it does, you can bet on it being a lot pricier!
A couple of older hobby periodicals have so much alpha that I recommend completing the back issue runs to everyone. One example is Topps Magazine; sure, it had a lot of self-advertising, but it also had great pieces like this one about Topps’ Non-NFL sets.
How many of you have all 14 Topps AFL, CFL, and USFL sets Dwight Chapin mentioned in this article?
Now, let’s see how pricey some of the cards mentioned in this Fall 1993 article are today (Near Mint 1993 prices compared to recent PSA sales).
1958 Topps Cookie Gilchrist: $22/$151 PSA 6 in October 2020
1961 Topps Joe Kapp: $20/$109 PSA 8 January 2024
1961 Topps Jack Kemp: $110/$221 PSA 9 June 2020
1964 Topps Checklist #176: $125/$1,480 PSA 9 in May 2024
1965 Topps Joe Namath: $1,250/$36,400 PSA 8 in May 2024
1966 Topps Funny Ring Checklist: $325/$4,446 PSA 8 in September 2023
1984 Topps USFL Jim Kelly: $185/$91 PSA 8 in October 2024
