I took my cards everywhere with me as a 9 year old. It didn’t matter if it was school, church, or at the neighborhood wiffle ball game, I had a handful of cards with me.

Sometime that summer I was looking through my cards while visiting my grandparents, and my grandpa started asking about what I was looking at. I told him it was my baseball cards. He smiled, and he then uttered a sentence which had me doing back flips. “Let’s go on up and take a look in the attic. I think there’s a box of these somewhere up there.”

Whaaaat! Was this for real? My dad mentioned that he had a few cards as a kid, but never gave me any indication that they might still be tucked away in a shoebox, somewhere in my grandparents attic! We did some digging, and with every creak of the board, and every box we moved, my anticipation continued to build. Eventually we found the box, and inside was a couple hundred 1960s football cards. I was ecstatic! The stash included around 100 cards from the 1969 set, and that is the focus of this post.

The Breakdown

1969 Topps football was released as a 263 card set over the course of two series. It turns out, that there are several interesting things to note about this set:

This was the last set before the merger of the NFL and AFL.

This was also the last time Topps was able to use official team logos until they returned in the early 80s.

The price of wax packs doubled from .05 to .10.

The player photo is layered over a solid color background in both series, but there was a subtle difference in the design of each. The background in Series 1 went all the way to the edge of the card, but in Series 2, a thin white border was introduced around the edge of the card. This makes it quick to identify the slightly more scarce second series when flipping through a collection.

The set is loaded with Hall of Famers and even includes several key rookie cards. Bart Starr, Gale Sayers, Dick Butkus, Johnny Unitas, and Bob Griese were a few of the notable names in the checklist. Larry Csonka is probably the biggest rookie, but the Brian Piccolo card is the most impactful.

Even though he was a member of the Bears for several seasons, he didn’t get a Topps football card until 1969. It serves both as his first and last Topps card. He died from cancer in 1970 at the age of 26, and subsequently was the subject of the movie “Brian’s Song” which told his story. This card, along with Gale Sayers, were two of the cards in my childhood treasure trove.

Wrapping It Up

I recently unearthed another bundle of 1969 Topps in a collection, and that prompted me to start the process of building out the entire set. I’m already starting with the Sayers, Piccolo, Csonka, and Butkus, so several of the more expensive cards are already taken care of. The set is relatively small, and therefore it remains quite affordable. Complete sets are available on eBay for $300-$500 depending on condition, but much more if you want high grade cards. The full bleed color in series one, along with the black backs creates some condition issues. Personally, I don’t mind my vintage to be G/VG so condition is less of a concern for me.

Have you used a handful of vintage cards from your youth as a starter set to build out as an adult? Did you have any of these colorful pieces of cardboard fun?

This is actually the second set from the 60’s I’ve worked on. I covered the first with this write up on the 1963 Fleer set.

Let me know what you think in the comments below!