Mark Morthier's Favorite Sport Cards (1972

Although I was never a big hockey fan, I would consider myself a NY Rangers fan, and I watched them on TV in the early to mid-1970s. I made a point to watch whenever the Rangers played the Boston Bruins. Why? Because I was mesmerized by Bobby Orr.

His level of play seemed so far above everyone else on the ice, and he made it all look so easy. I have a few hockey cards, including some Bobby Orr cards. Some years ago, a co-worker of mine (also a collector) offered me a very favorable trade package for my Bobby Orr cards, but I just couldn’t part with them.

1972 TOPPS HOCKEY CARDS

For whatever reason, Topps had pretty much stopped including inserts in their wax packs, but I kept collecting regardless. While Topps was the largest producer of sports cards, other companies were always coming up with something out of the ordinary. The Fleer Card Company produced team logo stickers throughout the 1970s, and I could never get enough of them.

FLEER STICKER LOGOS FROM THE 1970s

In 1974, 75, and 76, Wonder Bread partnered with Topps and inserted one football card into each loaf of bread. The 1974 set had 30 cards, the 75 set had 24, and the 1976 set had 24.

1974 & 1975 WONDER BREAD FOOTBALL CARDS

In 1975, Sugar Daddy Candy produced these comical miniature cards and inserted them into their candy sticks.

1975 SUGAR DADDY CANDY STICK CARDS

In 1976, Popsicle inserted NFL team cards into their boxes. These cards were thin plastic and slightly smaller than standard cards. A card was made for each of the 28 teams, with the team’s helmet on the left and a team photo on the right.

The NY Giants had two cards, one with GIANTS on the helmet and the other with NY on the helmet. The only card in the set that has any value is the title card, which says “Pro Quarterback, Pro Football’s Leading Magazine.” I have some of those magazines, and in my opinion, it was the best football magazine.

1976 NFL POPSICLE TEAM CARDS

PRO QUARTERBACK MAGAZINES

1976 was also a good year to add to my small basketball card collection. Like the 1971 basketball card, these were larger than the standard size.

1976 BASKETBALL CARDS

From 1977 to 1979, there seemed to be fewer unique items, and my enthusiasm for card collecting waned a bit. Unbeknownst to me, Fleer had updated their World Series Cards to include the years 1971 to 1980. I didn’t discover this until many years later, and I was able to purchase them on eBay.

FLEER WORLD SERIES CARDS

In 1980, Marketcom produced 5½ × 8½ NFL mini posters. A nice feature of these posters was that they were made of cardboard, not paper. The set contained 50 cards. Marketcom released another 50-card set in 1981 and a 48-card set in 1982. Of the three years, the 1982 set is the most valuable simply because fewer were produced.

1980, 81, AND 83 MARKETCOM MINI-POSTERS

In 1981, Shell Oil Company released a set of 96 11 x 14 NFL posters, with each major city featuring players from the local team. At the time, I lived only seven miles from Giants Stadium, so I would have received one of the six Giants players featured in this set.

But I also lived only 30 miles from Shea Stadium, where the Jets played, so it’s possible I could have received one of the six Jets players from the set. I was nineteen in 1981 and drove a car (a 1970 Rambler Hornet), but, in all honesty, I don’t remember ever receiving one of these posters from a Shell Station. It may not have been well-advertised, but my research shows you received one if you filled the tank, and that topping it off didn’t count as a fill-up.

You had to spend a certain amount, and at only 19 years old, I rarely, if ever, had enough money to fill up the tank. Ten years later, I was visiting relatives in Tucson, Arizona, and noticed a sports memorabilia store while driving through town. I stopped in to peruse the merchandise and found a set of six Dallas Cowboys Shell posters, which are now proudly displayed in my office.

The artwork on these posters is quite impressive, sketched in a charcoal-style pencil. Several different artists were commissioned for these drawings, including Nick Galloway and Robert Tanenbawn.

1981 SHELL POSTERS

I didn’t do much collecting in the 1980s. I wasn’t a kid anymore, and I had other interests. But in 1989, artist Gary Thomas was commissioned by the Pro Football Hall of Fame to produce 4×6 cards featuring Hall of Fame members.

The first series included 30 cards. Series two came out in 1990 and also had 30 cards. 1991, 1992, and 1993 each had 30 cards, and 1994 had 25. With all 175 members of the Hall of Fame now having a card, cards were added each year based on the number of new inductees selected. The final series was made in 2016.

No reason was ever given for its discontinuation, but one can only speculate that the artist, Gary Thomas, may have been in declining health, as he was 80 in 2016 and died in 2022 at 86. These will always be among my favorite cards, and although I am not a big autograph collector, I do have some of my Goal Line Art Cards signed.

GOAL LINE ART CARDS BY GARY THOMAS

Mark Morthier is the host of Yesterday’s Sports, a podcast dedicated to reliving memorable sports moments from his childhood days and beyond. He grew up in New Jersey just across from New York City, so many of his episodes revolve around the great sport’s teams of the 70s for the New York area.

He is also an author of No Nonsense, Old School Weight Training (Second Edition): A Guide for People with Limited Time and Running Wild: (Growing Up in the 1970s)