First off, Mile High Card Company is pleased to announce its Fall catalog auction, which kicks off on Monday, November 17th and concludes on Wednesday, December 3rd. As MHCC traditionally does with their year-ending event, this auction has been limited to 577 total lots packed with a broad array of higher-caliber, one-of-a-kind items that include a 1911 Addie Joss Benefit Game Original Panoramic Photograph, the only known 1915 Boston Red Sox Ornate Silk Pillowcase Featuring Tris Speaker, sweet-spot signed baseballs of President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Roberto Clemente, and the finest known 1888 A35 Goodwin “Baseball Champions” Premium Round Album as well as spectacular GEM MINT PSA 10 rookie cards of 1957 Topps #24 Bill Mazeroski (1 of 1), 1965 Topps #16 Astros Rookies Joe Morgan (1 of 2), 1966 Topps #288 Dodgers Rookies Don Sutton (1 of 2), 1967 Topps #569 Rod Carew (1 of 1), 1951 Bowman #20 Tom Landry (1 of 2), 1976 Topps #148 Walter Payton and 1981 Topps #216 Joe Montana. MHCC is actively accepting consignments for our Spring auction; please call us at (303) 840-2784, write to us at mhcc@milehighcardco.com or visit us online at www.milehighcardco.com if you have any items you are interested in consigning.
Last night, the Denver Broncos dismantled the San Diego Chargers 35-21. Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning completed 25 of 35 passes for 286 yards and three touchdowns without an interception. While that performance would stand as a career day for many signal-callers, it’s routine for Manning, who has averaged 26 of 38 passing for 314 yards and three touchdowns over his 39 games in Denver. Five days ago, Manning threw for 318 yards and four touchdowns without an interception in a win over the San Francisco 49ers, supplanting Green Bay Packers legend Brett Favre as the all-time touchdown passing leader. While both quarterbacks will be remembered for being among the greatest in football history, their individual styles could not be more divergent:
Brett Favre: The Brawn
Brett Favre was a bad man! A grisly curmudgeon who mastered his craft in the heart of Dixie, the only thing stronger than the bazooka hanging from his right shoulder was the mean streak lingering in his mind. Yeah, Favre was a tough gunslinger who refused to accept losing and wanted to make you pay the price for being foolish enough to challenge him. Packing one of the strongest arms in NFL history, Farve believed a throw didn’t exist that he couldn’t make and brazenly fired laser-like passes through tight windows that no other QB could match. On those rare occasions when Farve came up short, it only fueled his desire to crush the next challenger. After 20 NFL seasons, the only loss on his resume was to undefeated father time, and he gave that battle a pretty good run for the money. Unable to accept that his best days were behind him, coming out of retirement several times, even the great Brett Farve eventually had to accept, at age 41, that the arm was no longer able to do what the head wanted. He still holds the NFL all-time record for passes attempted, passes completed and passing yards.
Peyton Manning: The Brains
Manning? No, he’s no gunslinger. Peyton Manning is a time traveler … and he lives one second ahead of his opponent. His coded non-sequiturs and comical gyrations before each snap are the product of a painful reality … he knows things! Within that bulbous noggin is a library of football experience, instantly recalled at the mere sight of a defensive formation. Where Farve used brute force to overpower the opposition, Manning instantly calculates a weakness and exploits it. Manning never threw rifle passes, and four neck surgeries have left the 38 year old signal-caller with a very average arm. But while strength is no longer his friend, he’s discovered a more powerful ally … timing. Broncos fans often cringe as his floating passes wobble like a wounded bird, yet land safely in the hands of a teammate almost 70% of the time. Executing an offense that perfectly suits his skill set and wealth of knowledge, the Canton-bound leader has raised his performance to unprecedented levels. Perhaps it’s a fitting tribute to both men that Brett Favre’s all-time TD passing record was eclipsed by such an equally iconic passer as Peyton Manning.
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Thirteen years had passed since the 36-card National Chicle set had made its debut and the football card collecting world was still without a mainstream issue, in large part due to shortages of materials from World War II. But with the defeat of fascism safely in the rear view mirror and an economy that was fiercely recovering from a decades-long depression, Bowman and Leaf stepped forward in 1948 to compete for gridiron greatness. Bowman produced a straightforward, professional assemblage with sharp black and white photography and clean graphics. Meanwhile, Leaf’s set featured unrealistically colorized pasteboards fraught with spelling errors, centering flaws, color variations and short prints. In any other industry, Leaf’s effort would have run them out of business, but collectors’ inability to resist a challenge has made the 1948 Leaf football set one of the most popular sports cards issues ever produced. Mile High Card Company is proud to offer one of the finest collections ever assembled, ranked #3 on the PSA Set Registry with a GPA of 7.444.
Designed to be a simple 98-card assemblage, the master set swells to a whopping 145 pasteboards when you consider all the variations. Correcting the obvious spelling errors is understandable, but most variations come from unexplained color changes in the background, the jersey number, the uniform color, or even the player’s name. Perhaps Leaf had difficulties with the equipment that affected their color mixing, though a more cynical theory is that Leaf intentionally created these variations to keep collectors buying their product in search of building a “complete set.” Not without precedent, Leaf’s policy of “skip-numbering” various other sets has been criticized as a way to exploit kids into spending their allowance, searching for cards that didn’t exist.
While highly-coveted for its amazing selection of Hall of Famers making their pasteboard debut, the trouble starts and ends with the first and last cards, typical for most issues but magnified by the soft cardboard and poor quality control of the ’48 Leaf series. Sid Luckman’s rookie card #1 is rarely seen in a grade higher than PSA 5 and card #98 of Al DiMarco is usually off-center, resulting in just five PSA 7 graded specimens and just one at PSA 8 with none graded higher. In fact, the large majority of the cards in the set are single-pop PSA 8s with only one out of every 200 on the PSA pop report listed at the elite status of PSA 9. With over 12,000 total submissions from the set, there has yet to be a single specimen to land a grade of GEM MINT.
This is undeniably one of the finest complete football sets ever assembled, not just for the issue but for any football card set ever produced. Virtually every card in the collection is an extreme rarity in its respective grade that few collectors have had the opportunity to see, much less own. It begins with one of the most coveted specimens in the hobby; a PSA 8 example of Sid Luckman’s rookie card #1. One of just five with none graded higher, the PSA 8 Luckman is the cornerstone of the collection, but the amazing list of elite-grade Hall of Fame rookie cards seems almost endless: #3 Bulldog Turner PSA 8, 4 Doak Walker PSA 8 (none graded higher), 6 Bobby Layne PSA 7, 16 Pete Pihos PSA 8, 19 George McAfee PSA 8, 22 Steve Van Buren PSA 8 (one graded higher), 26 Bob Waterfield PSA 8, 29 Charlie Trippi PSA 7, 34 Sammy Baugh PSA 8, 36 Bill Dudley PSA 8, 37 George Conner PSA 8 (one graded higher), 52 Leo Nomellini PSA 7, and 54 Chuck Bednarik PSA 6. Al DiMarco’s card #98 closes out the collection at PSA 7, one of five with just one graded higher. In all, over half of the set (51 of 98) is graded PSA 8 and 14 of the cards are at the highest grade ever assessed by PSA. Quite simply, this is an incredibly special collection and one of the finest complete sets Mile High Card Company has had the honor of presenting.
In the first round of the 1965 NFL draft, #12 overall, the St. Louis Cardinals selected University of Alabama quarterback Joe Namath. On the same day, the AFL held their draft with the New York Jets selecting Namath #1 overall. With both teams making a pitch to secure his services, Namath shocked the football world by choosing the New York Jets, signing a contract for a record $437,000 and giving the American Football League its first true superstar. Namath’s magnetic personality and brash confidence were a perfect match for the New York stage and it wasn’t long before Namath was to Manhattan what Mickey Mantle was to the Bronx; a personality bigger than the game he represented. His flowing hair, his cocky attitude, and his aggressive style on the gridiron cast him in the role of antagonist to the NFL’s military crew-cut wearing Unitas. Namath became a symbol of the free-wheeling, offense first approach of the AFL, while Unitas was the face of the methodical, smash-mouth style of the NFL. As fate would have it, the two icons would meet in a showdown for a championship that would eventually unite the leagues and change the course of football forever!