Joe Namath commemorative refractor run

Are you ready for some football? Yep, it's pigskin season again. I pretty much checked out of football fandom when my Chargers ditched San Diego, but still have a soft spot for the old days of the sport. As a refractor enthusiast, a hobby focus of mine in recent years has been refractor reprints, where "old days" and "modern times" collide.

Refractor reprints are usually found in an insert set of rookie reprints, or occasionally "best year" type reprints, and every once in a while Topps would "commemorate" a retired great's career by reprinting all the main Topps cards from that player. By my count, they've bestowed the honor of a refractor reprint run just a dozen times across sports:

1996 + 1997 - Mickey Mantle
1996 - Joe Namath
1997 - Willie Mays
1998 - Roberto Clemente
1999 - Nolan Ryan
2000 - Hank Aaron
2000 - Johnny Unitas
2000-01 - Magic Johnson
2000-01 + 2001-02 - Mario Lemieux
2001 - Walter Payton
2001-02 - Kareem Abdul Jabbar
2002-03 - Patrick Roy

I've been working on completing all of those, which is kinda nuts. I'm doing ok/well/done with most, except the hockey (I just have one representative from each) and the Mantles (there are a lot because they also reprinted most of his subset cards and Bowman cards).

So expect me to get a victory post out of it when I complete one of these runs. First up is Joe Namath.

 There's the shiny rookie reprint. This one might be a bit scuffed, but the price was right.

 Here's the late 60s into the early 70s. Not of lot of variety in the photo selection.

Namath didn't really have a long career. Only 10 cards in total here. By comparison, Johnny Unitas has 18 cards in his reprint set, and that's with no subset cards included. But yeah, the refractor reprints look good and are affordable at a couple/few bucks a pop. Unlike most other mid 90s refractors from Topps, I haven't noticed much "hulking" blotchiness with these. (Mantle, Mays, and Clemente refractor runs are not so lucky.)

I've also got Joe Namath's refractor in the Topps All-Time Fan Favorites set-- slowly working on the football ref set (~22% complete) after stalling out with baseball (still 3 elusive needs left). Not a true reprint, it reimagines his 1969 Topps card with an action photo and squeezes in some extra border.

While I'm at it, here's my modest PC for Joe Namath. It's a passive pursuit, but I'm happy to add to it when I can. Namath's days as a stud QB were before my time, but he's always been a known legend, popping up in commercials and even a quick spot on the golden age of The Simpsons. 1972 Topps is the one vintage card of his I've got, plus a (paper) rookie reprint and a few modern cards that've fallen in my lap. 

I've got another refractin' rookie reprint of his within my complete set of 2001 Topps Archives Reserve football, though my in-progress master set still needs the Namath auto. Maybe I'll pony up for that someday or maybe not.

Welp, the Blogger reading list feed has been messed up for a couple days now, so who knows if this post will get many views, but hey, I'm glad you found it and gave it a read. Until next time!