1951 Bowman Football
 

Well, after several years of musing, I've decided to take the dip and try to start/finish the 1951 Bowman football set in about VG-/VG+ condition (no graded cards). My reasons are simple: I have always loved the painted artwork of the 1950-52 Bowman baseball cards, and the 1951 Bowman baseball set has been and is my favorite, but unfortunately that set is too cost prohibitive to complete (with the Mantle, Mays, high numbers, etc.), so it currently is at 62 cards (with a Williams and Campanella so far)...

So, the 1951 Bowman football set appeals to me; love the similar backs to the baseball set, love the fronts with the player names plus the team logos (why didn't they do this for baseball?) Over the past two weeks, I've acquired seven cards so far. In researching, I see the Landry, Baugh, Graham cards to be the top cost cards; anyone have any suggestions or tips as I start through this amazing set?

Thanks!

You are right, it's a great set! I'm four cards short of a full set and don't really have any advice except have fun with your cards!
Larry

Larry:
Thanks, and that's awesome! Which four are you missing?

Congrats, Jay! Keep us posted and show your cards as you get them. 1951 isn't difficult to put together so you should be able to just focus on finding ones you like and enjoying the ride. Here are a few others besides the ones you mentioned that are stars you'll need to snag.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/6F...s=w421-h640-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/94...U=w423-h640-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/rT...8=w640-h422-no

Of course, no set is complete without its wrapper ...

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/MW...Y=w635-h754-no

jeff

Wow, very cool, Jeff. Thanks for sharing. I will certainly post my cards as I acquire them. Will probably be a long process. I've been working on and off on the 1951 Bowman baseball since 1979! Of course, with a really attainable goal, the 1951 football won't take near that long!

#2 Otto Graham
#4 Norm Van Brocklin (RC)
#20 Tom Landry (RC)
#90 Tony Canada

This is one of my favorite football sets ever. I'm slowly working on it as well. I was about 75% through it in PSA 7 or higher, then sold all of my graded cards. I'm about 30% in now in Vg-Ex/Ex. Even in mid grade, they are gorgeous!

Hi Jay,
You've picked a beautiful set to work on! I also think it's very undervalued (I don't collect as an investment but it is something that you should be aware of). Most of the attention goes toward the 1950 and the two 1952 sets (Large & small) due to the abundance of rookie cards in them but this set is every bit as nice in my book.

A few of the attributes that you'll want to be aware of are the following:

1.) As with any vintage issue, well centered cards can be tough to find. The cards overall are relatively plentiful with the high #'s being slightly tougher to find. From what I've read about the set, the Lavelli card is one of the more difficult cards to find centered.

2.) Print lines and sub par registration are common with this issue (much like the baseball issue from the same year). I always look at the team logo as my litmus test for optimal picture quality. This is important on cards like the Baugh where his face is little and even a slight shift in the print quality can make the details muted (imo).

3.) Again, similar to the baseball issue wax stains on the reverse are fairly common. As long as they're not huge, I don't really worry about it.

Good luck on your pursuit and keep everyone posted. Here are some of the key cards from the set in my collection (I know, its a lot but its one of my favorite sets and I'm proud of them).

Some more favorites:)
http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w...n/Scan_23.jpeg
http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w...an%201_11.jpeg

Love the 51 Bowman
 

I have been building the 51 Bowman set for about 5 years now. The last 3 years have been a slow go...but did just upgrade and picked this card up. First addition to the set in over a year. About 5 cards from completion.

Sweet 51s everyone!

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One of my favorite 51 Bowmans
 

Being an old center and an offensive line coach I have always loved this card.

51 Browns
 

Since being a Cleveland Browns fan all I have is the past....here are the cards of the greatest team ever...the 40/50 Browns!

That Bulldog Turner is siiiiick! Love the Otto and Groza too. I was sort of collecting Groza for a while. Believe I have most of his cards except his rookie.

You guys are quite the influence. I bought a nice looking EX/EX+ common from this set this morning. Like Jay, I really enjoy the look of the paintings of the early 50s Bowmans---baseball and football. This is especially true of '51 Bowman baseball, but Mantle and Mays especially make that not very likely for me in the near future. However, the early 50s Bowman football sets look doable for me in the near future, with the possible exception of '52 Bowman Large. I especially like '51 because of the colorful team logos. Those really do it for me! I might try for a nice crease/wrinkle free mid grade set. I would like to have it raw in a binder, with the possible exception of maybe Van Brocklin and Landry.

Speaking of raw in a binder, you guys who have your small Bowmans stored this way, do you use standard size pocket pages or something smaller for Bowman?

I store mine in standard size pocket pages (9) and it works great!

jeff

Thanks, Jeff. I might go that route, or I might use 4-pocket 3-1/2" x 5" pages with the cards in Card Saver Is inside of these binders: http://www.unikeep.com/binders-and-a...h-overlay.html. I really like these, and they are stackable.

I store my ungraded cards as singles in Ultra Pro holders.

I too am drawn to the artwork. Another cool thing about the 1951 Bowman Football set is that it wasn't just a re-cropped, re-issue of the previous years art the way that the Baseball set seems to have been. I would estimate that at least half of the artwork in the 1950 Baseball set was reissued the following year (Ted Williams, Warren Spahn, Casey Stengel, etc...).

The lead artist for the Gum Inc & Bowman sets (Baseball, Football, Non-sports) was a guy named Charles Steinbacher. Below is a link the the philly.com website about his family discovering some of the artwork that he produced for the George Moll Advertising Agency. Sorry it deals with mostly the Non-sports cards (I found it interesting though).

http://articles.philly.com/1993-09-2...l-war-war-news

Scott, I have traditionally stored my cards as singles, but this time I am thinking of trying something a little different.

For a long time I couldn't quite decide which type of card drew me in the most. I do like photographic aspects of some cards (though usually not simple black and white), but I find the drawings/paintings of card issues the most compelling...when they are done well. Many folks I am surrounded by are exclusively Topps people, but I have increasingly become a Bowman guy. There is just something about '50, '51, and '52 Bowman baseball and football. I like the latter two the best. '50 sometimes looks a bit barren with the absence of the team logos, though I can appreciate what some might see as the uncluttered simplicity of the '50s.

You make a great point about the relative originality of the '51 football set's art. The repetition of '50 and '51 Bowman baseball has always bugged me. For example, Ted Williams has the same card in back to back years with the exception of the black box included with the '51s. Topps was even more guilty of this tactic throughout the 1950s. Budgets and bottom lines I guess.

Thanks for the link to the Steinbacher article...interesting read.

Great input (thanks!) and awesome posts so far. I now have eight cards in the set (one on the way) and will post as soon as it arrives. All are commons, and when you see, you'll find mine are in the VG-/VG range, which is okay. Just want to collect cards that are presentable to me and affordable :o

When I post, you'll also note that centering is not a big deal for me as long as the card looks okay visually.... Thanks for all the posts. I really like the colors on the Ken Carpenter card; the yellow/orange background really makes the card pop!

Jay,
Nothing wrong with collector grade cards. Mine are mostly mid-grade as well (5-6). Very few people can afford the set in high grade (NM or better). I don't mind a soft corner or shift in centering if the price is right and I think that most collectors would agree with that. :)

I'm looking forward to seeing your cards. Hopefully you got the Jack Zilly card (best looking card in the set imo)!

Take care,
Scott

Scott, I am right there with you. Mid grade all the way for me. If I tried collecting high grade, I would never finish and wouldn't be any happier.

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Here's my L. A. Rams team set:

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8...psmtiijznt.jpg
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8...psbojg0mnl.jpg
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8...pspryqqksa.jpg
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h8...psuuottk0z.jpg

Steve

Steve, those Rams cards are so awesome! Every time I cruise through looking at 51s and 52s, the Rams cards stand out! I think I am going to work on this set, thanks to the inspiration provided by Jay. Can't wait to get the Rams cards!

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Oh, I did buy a common the other day. Kalminar was my first one because he's a Ram!

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Sorry, Kalmanir.

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I agree that those are some great Rams cards!

Keep those great scans coming! Such an awesome looking set.

I will post my scans later this week. Will have 7-8 cards to post (so far).

Also, through some research, saw that the topic of the 1951 Bowman football set had been discussed on the forum back in 2007:
http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=111176

Anyone know of sheets that fit these?

I will be going down this road myself. I am falling in love with this set more everytime I look at it! Jeff said he uses the standard 9 to a page pocket sheets. I have considered this and believe it would work fine. Jeff has some great stuff and knows what he is talking about.

I am also considering 4 pocket 3 1/2" × 5" pages. In using these I would first put the card in a Card Saver I then into the pocket of the page. You could get up to 8 cards per page if you placed them front and back or 4 if you want to see the backs. These pages can hold up to postcard size from what I understand. So you could store all of your sets uniformly if you wanted. Also, instead of the standard Ultra Pro binder, I think I will use a Unikeep binder. I have a link to their site in this thread. They are stackable and archive-safe binders. I really like them. I can't take credit for the 4 pocket page/unikeep system. I stole it from Adam aka exhibitman.

I currently store some vintage photos in the Unikeep binder I have and will soon transition my '53 Topps baseball set and '65 Topps baseball partial set into the 4 pocket pages and Unikeeps. It is probably a little more expensive this way but worth it IMHO. I want to get them out of the boxes they currently reside in and enjoy flipping through them without endangering them.

Sorry for what turned into a long -winded response.

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Here are more of the key cards of the set....they truly are little works of art.

Beautiful cards!

I agree, great cards!

I love this set and purchased a mid grade set several years back and have been slowly upgrading (mostly centering). Pretty close to Ex-Mt which is as high as I want to go. I also choose the 4 pocket design as the set is raw save for one card. For some reason, I cut the top off the Card Savers. Not sure why I did that as it works both ways.

As Jeff mentioned above, no set is complete without a wrapper and I agree. Here is my set's wrapper and a couple of pages scanned including the one graded card (Landry).

Very nice! Thanks for sharing.

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I just love the Landry cards being shown

In theory I always liked the idea of using 4 pocket sheets for small sets where each card is also inside a top loaders. Lots of protection with that method. The issue I've had is that if you happen to tilt the binder towards the top when picking it up, some of the cards side out of their pockets and spill out onto the floor or table. Same thing has happened when I've used 4 pocket sheets to hold graded cards ... particularly PSA holders.

So for raw cards I always use the smallest pocket available that they fit into to keep them from moving around too much. I don't even try to put graded cards in binders any longer.

jeff

Since my initial post on 5/31 (at which time I had 7 cards), I have added 17 more, including Sammy Baugh and Y.A. Tittle. Total of 24 cards now and counting, with only one below the VG-/VG+ range and will be a filler (purchased as part of a 4-card lot). This is one really nice set, and I'm having fun collecting football cards, something that I have not done since 1979. Here's what I have so far:

Looking at these great cards make me wish that someone still made pages for this size card, same goes for Chicle or Goudey sixed cards?

If anyone is looking to pick up some 1951 Bowman, 50 Bowman and few 52 Bowman Small & few Larges drop me a PM.

I added two more this weekend at a local card show; now up to 26 cards and counting. This is fun!

Cool, which ones?

Office Depot used to have 10 pocket pages for business cards,

I don't know if they are still available.

Worth checking into.

Roger

I've added the following since the scan:
44 John Rauch
100 John Prchlik
101 Robert Smith

27 cards now

I tried the four-pocket/semi-rigid method with my 1960 Parkhurst Indianapois Speedway Winners set myself and loved it so much that I use it for all my vintage racing, including pre-war.

As I get further along in the vintage football sets I've started, I will put them in the four pockets as well.

Good luck and have fun on your journey with the set!

Kind of resurrecting an old thread, but since my last post over a year ago, I now have 46 cards in the set. Working slow but steady! So, since a post in October of 2016 to January of 2018, I've picked up an additional 20 cards.

Congrats, Jay! Keep up the great work and enjoy the set.

jeff

Fantastic progress. Earlier, we posted about different sized sheets. About a year ago I bought some 10 pocket sheets and they fit the 51 Bowmans perfectly! You should check them out.

Hi, Sam, and thanks! Regarding the 10 pocket sheets; are they Ultra Pro brand?

Well, in revisiting a thread I started almost 4 years ago, one could say I am a "slow but sure" collector, as with two recent commons, I am now up to 74 cards; a little more than half the set, which now includes Landry, Van Brocklin, Baugh, and Tittle. So it seems I have the "big cards" and now just need to start filling in more commons and the semi-stars. I'm using the smaller sized 9-pocket Ultra Pro sheets that I purchased from amazon.com about a year and a half ago, partly to fit my 1951 Bowman baseball and football, and also to fit my vintage Japanese Calbee cards, which are really the only type of baseball cards I now collect.

Stay safe!

Hi. That's a great project. Just checking to see if you still need #6 Fears. Picked it up in a small lot awhile back and not really in my wheelhouse. If you are interested in it, if you scroll down the most recent page of the "new acquisitions" page, I have posted that lot I picked up and it is in there. If you need a better pic I could do that as well. Just lmk, and continued good luck with the set.