A University of Southern California 1952 card of football star Frank Gifford, the New York Giants’ No. 1 draft pick, is shown Jan. 8, 2014, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The cards are part of a pop-up exhibition at the Met celebrating football’s history through the ages with vintage trading cards. The 150 cards, including a series from 1894, are part of approximately 600 cards from the museum’s vast collection of sport trade cards donated to the Met by the late hobby pioneer Jefferson Burdick. The exhibit runs Jan. 24 through Feb. 10. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
January 13, 2014 - 10:57 PM
NEW YORK, N.Y. - New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art is presenting an exhibition of vintage football trading cards. It opens Jan. 24 and runs through Feb. 10.
The 150 cards, beginning with a series from 1894, are part of some 600 football cards from the museum's collection of 300,000 trading cards. They were donated to the Met by the late card collector Jefferson Burdick.
All predate the founding of the national football league in 1920 and the first Super Bowl in 1967.
The cards — which feature football greats, lesser-known collegiate players, owners and teams — were inserted into such products as candy, gum and tobacco.
The rarest card in the exhibition is of John Dunlop from Harvard. He's the only player in the series whose name and school affiliation were inexplicably omitted.
News from © The Associated Press, 2014