1951 Bowman Football

[vintagebaseballcardguy]

Originally Posted by S_GERACE

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.