A Curious Tale of Bubba Smith...

[JollyElm]

Every time I run across an old Bubba Smith card, it seems to feature the same photograph, so I finally decided to dive in and see what the heck was going on.

• In his relatively short Topps career, the very same picture was used on his:

1970 'rookie' card, his 1971 card, his 1972 All Pro card, his 1975 card, and also on his very last card in 1976. The only year 'free' of this picture was 1973, and he didn't appear in the 1974 Topps set, but you have to assume that if any mock-ups were produced, they undoubtedly featured the same outdated, standby photograph. Pictured as a member of three separate teams, the art department airbrushed him into three different colored uniforms.

Couldn't Topps have snapped some other pictures during his playing career??? Did their photographers decide to take a knee on the play?? Perhaps a phone call to his parents would've been warranted: "Mrs. Smith, Topps here. We're wondering if you happen to have any recent photos of your son, Charles, that we could borrow?"

On a side not, the massive DE appeared on a single Kellogg's card (in 1970). Take a frickin' wild guess what photograph they used??

bubbasmithcards.jpg


Are there any other players in sports who even came close to this amount of same-photograph coverage over the years???

[ALBB]

Yea, thats crazy !, and he came into the NFL in 1967 !!!, a 1970 rookie card ??

In college, they would chant " kill Bubba kill " LOL

[G1911]

I forget Bubba is not in the HOF sometimes. I chalk up that he didn't get a card until 1970 to the small set sizes for Football. I sort of mini-hoard his 1971 card, I love that set and buy all the stars and HOFers I see from it when I find 'em cheap. Got to have 50 Bubba's by now.

The coolest Bubba Smith card in my eyes is one that doesn't use this boring portrait:

[roarfrom34]

1bubba.jpg

1972 Sunoco Stamp

[mrmopar]

That is pretty funny. I became a Raider fan when I first started collecting cards in 1978 (not sure why, as i lived in the Seattle area) and was so happy to discover that Bubba Smith had a Raiders card! Its not a great one, but he had one.

Might as well show that 73T too.

He always makes me think of those great Miller Lite commercials!