1968 Topps Test Team Photos

1968 Topps "Test" Team Photo cards were inserts in packs of 1968 Topps Team Patches. Topps apparently test marketed the patches (hence the word "test" in the name) but did not sell them widely, so both the cards and patches are scarce.

There are 25 cards in the team photo set, one for each of the 26 NFL and AFL teams except Cincinnati. 1968 was the year that the Bengals joined the AFL, and Topps apparently didn't yet have photo of the team. I have not studied the cards carefully, but I suspect that the other teams' photos are all from 1967 or earlier. I verified this for the Cleveland Browns card: the same image appears under 1967 on the Browns web site.

The team photo cards are the same size as the "tall boy" 1965 Topps football cards. This is a bit odd, since the patches--the main product in the packs--are the same size as regular cards. The backs of the cards list all of the team personnel on the front--a nice feature. Unfortunately, most of the cards I have seen have had a wax stain running vertically across the middle of the back. There is a picture of one of the card backs in my blog article about the set.