1962 Topps Football Cards

Because the cards' black borders readily show wear, the 1962 Topps football card set is a challenge to complete in high grade. There are 176 cards in the set, and they were released in a single series. The cards were printed on a 264-card sheet, so half of the cards--88 of them--were repeated on the sheet. The remaining 88 cards were thus short-printed. I believe the price guides have misidentified the short prints, however. See my 1962 Topps virtual uncut sheet for an explanation.

Many of the black-and-white inset photos on the 1962 Topps cards picture a player other than the one whose name is on the card. Topps altered the jersey number on some of the images to match the number of the player, but they later gave away the deception by reusing the original images on 1969 Topps Mini-Card albums. For details, see my blog article, Recycled Images on 1969 Topps Mini-Card Albums.

As you can see on the wrapper, 1962 Topps Bucks were inserts in packs of 1962 Topps cards.

Rookie cards of Pro Football Hall of Famers in the 1962 Topps set: Mike Ditka, Fran Tarkenton. Rookie cards of Heisman Trophy winners in the 1962 Topps set: Ernie Davis.