1946 Sears Browns Football Cards

The Cleveland Browns were one of the eight original members of the All America Football Conference (AAFC). In 1946, the AAFC's first year, Cleveland's Sears stores and WGAR radio station sponsored a set of eight Browns cards. The cards are slightly bigger than standard sports cards, at about four inches tall. Three of the eight players in the set--Otto Graham, Dante Lavelli, and Frank Gatski--went on to Hall of Fame careers. Though these were the players' first cards, they are not considered rookie cards, because they were a minor set, distributed regionally. You can see many more such pre-rookie cards on my pre-rookie card page.

Hall of Famers Marion Motley, Lou Groza, and Bill Willis were also members of the 1946 Browns team. The Browns dominated the AAFC, winning the championship all four years of its existence. The Browns also won the NFL championship in 1950, the year that the AAFC folded and three of its teams (Cleveland, Baltimore, and San Francisco) joined the NFL.