How popular were FB cards in the 50's?
 

For those who collected cards in the 50's(Ted Z and any others), how popular were football cards compared to baseball in the 50's? How did kids generally view football cards?

Wasn't alive in the 50's...but most accounts I have read refer to football cards as "fillers" that occupied the spots of baseball cards in the racks or on the shelves between baseball seasons.

Looking at ebay numbers over the last ten years it is probably safe to say that for every one football card produced in the 50's eight+ baseball cards were produced.

More than you might think
 

I collected football cards in the late 50s and early 60s, and, though they certainly weren't as popular as baseball cards, football cards had their appeal. It may be a function of where you grew up, of course.
I was raised outside Pensacola, Fla., where the closest major league baseball franchise was hundreds of miles away (St. Louis until the Houston Colt 45s were born in 1962). There was only one baseball game on television each week and the only radio games were the Mutual Game of the Day each weekday afternoon and the Cardinals on KMOX at night. Though NFL cities were just as distant, college football (Auburn and Alabama more than Florida State and Florida, which were not the powers they are today) was a year-round topic. There were lots of areas of the US like that in the 50s and 60s. By the way, the TV networks fed us a weekly dose of Washington Redskins games (and they were pretty bad then), considering D.C. the NFL's Southern outpost.
Besides the familiarity with college football players (remember that NFL sets emphasized a player's college credentials and some earlier sets had pictured active college players), the football sets were small and featured mostly star players. Thus, much less of a financial commitment for youngsters and more bang for your nickle (don't forget the insert stickers, tattoos, etc.).
Bob Richardson

When I was a kid in the late 50s and through the mid 60s, baseball was unquestionably the National Pastime. In the NY metro area, we could watch or listen to a game every day of the season. The baseball season was six months long. Football games were once a week for three months or so. There were no pre-season games on television. There was a championship game but no playoffs or Super Bowl. We had no cable or satellite tv so you usually got only one or two televised football games per week. I collected football cards only because at the end of the football season, Murray, the guy who owned the local candy store would give them away rather than throw them away. He probably sold more baseball cards in a day than he sold football cards in a month.

Very interesting. Oddly enough, I started collecting football cards first, then only bought baseball because there was no football to buy during baseball season. Buying the baseball cards eventually made me a huge baseball fan. This was 1980 though.

I grew up in WNY in the '40's & '50's and bought FB cards almost at the same time I bought BB.

Started w/ BB in '48 & '49, then started FB w/ the 1950 Bowman issue as soon as they hit the market & BB season was over.

I have complete Bowman sets from 1950, '51 Topps Magic, & both '51 & '52 Large, all saved & bought originally in packs.

Of course BB was my main sport, but wanting to collect year round back then I bought FB & NonSport as well. So did my friends, but BB was #1 w/ all of us!!

In the past few yrs I had my 1950 & '52 Large completely graded by SGC, just as I had saved them all these yrs, both the good & the not-so-good! Both sets have a grade average of just under 8 on the SGC Registry.

I just this month decided to upgrade a few of the 1950 set that were in lesser condition, but have not entered them on the Registry at this point.

Here are a couple of names you will recognize from my '52 Large set:

Fred, Did you have 1952 Bowman small FB cards in your area? Were they an option to buy or did you just prefer the Large?

From a different geographical perspective I grew up in the south. We bought baseball cards from time to time in the Summer when we found them but most kids only knew the Yankees and Cardinals players.

When school started we would all stop by the local candy/pet store by our grade school to buy football cards. Since college football was and is so big down here we enjoyed the stickers or pennants included as much as the cards I think.

I didn't start buying until 1960 on both but really kicked it into gear in 1962 on both sports. I stopped buying baseball after the 1963 season but kept buying football until 1967. In our area I never saw anything other than Topps for both sports except a local laundramat I walked past had a vending machine with 5 cent Fleer baseball packs in 1963. We had a washing machine (Mom hung our clothes out to dry) but I would stop by the laundramat to watch the machines!

Chris---

Yes, I bought the small as well. My recollection is that the small were available 1st and I bought quite a few, but then the Large came out, liked them better, stopped buying small & bought the Large until I completed the set.

I had maybe 1/2 set of small & sold them all a few yrs ago.

I grew up in Dallas in the late 50s and early 60s. I started collecting football cards before I ever became aware of the Cowboys or Texans. My friends all preferred baseball cards but for some reason I preferred football (the cards as well as the game). I'm not sure why I didn't care for baseball. I'm a big fan of the Texas Rangers now but about the only baseball team I was aware of back then was the Yankees.

Fantastic thread, some great recollections here! Anyone remember buying any 1948 Leaf football? Curious how that went and how frustrating it was if you bought Leaf again in 49 only to discover the skip numbers?

How about 1957 Topps football? It's been said they came in two series, but the uncut sheets show both series on one sheet, leaning it towards one series.

Joe

Both series of 1957 Topps football came mixed in the same 5-cent packs, at least late in the season (Dec.) when I got most of mine in Pensacola, Fla. As I recall, there were fewer cards from the second series checklist in each pack, but that's based on the gaps on my checklist rather than careful examination of each package. I didn't follow football nearly as closely as I did baseball, so I didn't really worry about the cards I was missing once I got Hopalong Cassidy, my favorite player, and cowboy.
Bob Richardson