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This website is devoted to those football memorabilia collectors like myself who treasure the vintage time of football cards and memorabilia. It is a website where collectors may purchase those hard to find items for their collections in confidence. Football cards and football memorabilia are fun and a great hobby. Have a theme or focus in your collection, it will give a greater sense of satisfaction in your collecting.

If you have any questions about a particular item you're looking for please contact me via email.

Bob Swick’s Football Memorabilia Collecting

I love collecting football cards and football memorabilia. I can still remember back in 1965 opening up my first packs of Philadelphia Football cards. Five cards in a pack for five cents, plus a stick of hard sugary pink bubble gum. To a seven-year-old kid, it was a deal that I could not refuse. And what cards were they! I can still remember my first pack had a Pittsburgh Steelers Clarence Peaks card along with a Green Bay Packers Bart Starr card. I looked at those cards over and over again. I studied and memorized the stats that were on the back of those cards. I also bought the tall boy 1965 Topps packs that had great full and long shots of my favorite American Football League players. What players and what a time for football cards. It was great!

Through the 1960’s I kept buying packs of cards here and there. Reading about the game and the players also spellbound me. I eagerly awaited reading the daily papers especially on Sundays and Mondays to get a full report on the game and the statistics that went around with the heroics of the playing field. I also kept a scrapbook, clipping out articles and scores from the paper. I discovered my first sports magazines in 1967, ultimately subscribing to Sports Illustrated and having the first issue delivered to my home that featured two of the then expansion team New Orleans Saints players on the front cover. I also picked up other magazines that featured football players and articles in them, especially Sport and Street and Smith’s. I also read with great vigor any football books that were found in my local library.

Years came and went and I rediscovered my first football cards back in 1983. The rage at that time was the developing baseball card mania. Since I had the football cards, I decided to see what else I needed to try to make some sets. Information at that time was difficult to find, so I started to accumulate any football cards that I could find. This was easier said than done.

I would go to the few shops that actually existed at that time and ask for football cards. With the exception of one there were none to be found. At the shop that had cards, he said I was crazy to put money into football cards; the cards would be worthless in the future. I went to the few shows that were in the area and on occasion would purchase an odd sized box of football cards. These boxes could contain anything from 1960 Fleer cards to the current years Topps and Fleer In Action offerings. I had a lot of fun going through these boxes.

In 1988, I decided upon a run of football cards. I knew football cards were printed in 1948 with the Bowman set of 108. I then dug deeper and with the help of my trusty big Beckett checklist book started to formulate a plan. I wanted to collect every football card set that was ever printed (and I do believe that it was possible in 1988), but common sense took over and I knew I should create a more specific and focused run. The run consisted of 1948 to 1955 Bowman (the 52 small set only), 1951 Topps Magic, 1960 to 1963 Fleer, 1964 to 1967 Philadelphia, 1976 to 1988 Fleer In Action and 1955 to the current year in Topps sets. If you add the numbers up to the 2006 Topps set it is 83 sets and 23,234 cards. From 1989 up, there is no way that I have the room or money to collect all the sets, so I am collecting just Packers cards from the other non Topps sets. I do have a complete run of the Packers Police sets from 1983 to 2007. I also have a secondary run of Topps insert sets from 1960 to 1988 and many other miscellaneous sets including Police/Safety sets, all pre 1988. I also collect many other pieces of football memorabilia including ticket stubs, team photos, programs, yearbooks and media guides to name a few.

Football cards are fun and a great hobby. Do not be afraid to have a theme or focus in your collection, it will give a greater sense of satisfaction in your collecting. Until next time good luck with your collections.

Bob Swick has been collecting football cards since 1965. He also collects programs, yearbooks, media guides, ticket stubs, pocket schedules, and team photos of the Green Bay Packers, of which he is a shareholder. He is a Contributing Writer to Gridiron Greats magazine. He is also a member of The Professional Football Researchers Association.