Error on 2005 Donruss Fran Tarkenton Pro Bowl Jersey Card?

[RKO18]

Thank you guys a lot for helping me with all of this research.

Now I'm really not sure what to make of it. If he only played in the 1971 Pro Bowl, why not just say "1971" instead of "1976"? Heck, Tarkenton was selected to 9 Pro Bowls, why single 1976 out?

I have yet to see another classic Pro Bowl jersey insert in that series. The others are all from the 21st century, Culpepper in 2001, Brady in 2002, and Jamal Lewis in 2004 have been what I've seen so far, even using Beckett's website to look it up.

I'd imagine that the inclusion of a HOF'er's jersey into this set would be even more rare. How on earth could they not get this right? If I can find out that Tarkenton didn't play in the Pro Bowl of 1976, there is no reason why Donruss should have not been able to figure this out.

Now... What should I make of this card? The material seems to be an exact match to what Tarkenton wore in the 1971 Pro Bowl. Of course, I would have no way of knowing that it was real which brings me to my final thought...

What do you guys think is actually in this card?

A real Tarkenton Pro Bowl jersey? An issued jersey? A Pro Bowl jersey from the wrong year?

[both-teams-played-hard]

A quick guess would say that they used knits in 1970 and mesh in 1976 (don't know for sure). What type of material is the swatch?

[Rob L]

Thank you guys a lot for helping me with all of this research.

Now I'm really not sure what to make of it. If he only played in the 1971 Pro Bowl, why not just say "1971" instead of "1976"? Heck, Tarkenton was selected to 9 Pro Bowls, why single 1976 out?

I have yet to see another classic Pro Bowl jersey insert in that series. The others are all from the 21st century, Culpepper in 2001, Brady in 2002, and Jamal Lewis in 2004 have been what I've seen so far, even using Beckett's website to look it up.

I'd imagine that the inclusion of a HOF'er's jersey into this set would be even more rare. How on earth could they not get this right? If I can find out that Tarkenton didn't play in the Pro Bowl of 1976, there is no reason why Donruss should have not been able to figure this out.

Now... What should I make of this card? The material seems to be an exact match to what Tarkenton wore in the 1971 Pro Bowl. Of course, I would have no way of knowing that it was real which brings me to my final thought...

What do you guys think is actually in this card?

A real Tarkenton Pro Bowl jersey? An issued jersey? A Pro Bowl jersey from the wrong year?

How about a Tarkenton issued jersey. Could also be another jersey from that game that is then attributed to Tarkenton.

[RKO18]

This might be a silly thought but...

Is there any chance that this is actually a piece of Tarkenton's 1971 Pro Bowl jersey (considering the picture of Fran is indeed from the 71 Pro Bowl) but the card was mis-printed to say "1976" instead of "1971"?

I also went to Beckett's website and did a search and found a picture of the generic non-jersey Tarkenton Pro Bowl card and it also said 1976. Perhaps Donruss simply mis-printed the year on all the cards?

[suave1477]

This might be a silly thought but...

Is there any chance that this is actually a piece of Tarkenton's 1971 Pro Bowl jersey (considering the picture of Fran is indeed from the 71 Pro Bowl) but the card was mis-printed to say "1976" instead of "1971"?

I also went to Beckett's website and did a search and found a picture of the generic non-jersey Tarkenton Pro Bowl card and it also said 1976. Perhaps Donruss simply mis-printed the year on all the cards?

Anything is possible but then I think Beckett would have listed those as error cards. For something like that I would think it would be best to contact Donruss and try to get a hold of someone there to find out if that was a possible error card.

[Eric]

The swatches that appear on cards aren't necessarily from the year represented on the card

Here is a Bucs jersey on a Chargers card of Keenan McCardell

[RKO18]

The swatches that appear on cards aren't necessarily from the year represented on the card

Here is a Bucs jersey on a Chargers card of Keenan McCardell

Attachment 23894

I've seen that happen before. If a player is traded, they include the jersey from his former team. With this Tarkenton card however, there can be no mistake that the material looks only like the Pro Bowl jersey he wore in 1971. There is no purple so it's certainly not a Vikings jersey, and when he played for the giants, there was no red in the jerseys at all.

I'll have a better idea when I can read the back of the card, that should give us some better answers.

[David]

Of note, ordinarily if a player is injured or begs off beforehand, he doesn't even attend the Pro Bowl. He doesn't even fly to Hawaii. It's not like a regular season game, where the player will stand on the sideline if injured.

[skinsfan0521]

I'm actually just getting into the whole game used memorabilia thing, I've been collecting cards for years. I just wanted to follow up on what a couple people said earlier about jerseys from different years/teams...

It is a VERY common thing to put jerseys in the card that weren't worn from a particular season or were worn by the player on a previous team. Also, just because it says "1976" on the front of the card, does NOT mean that the jersey was used during the 1976 season, it's just saying that for the "Pro Bowl Squad" subset purposes.

As you've said, it's really going to be important what the card says on the back, but from my experience they are usually very non-descript and give no real details about anything important. Most of the time it just says something like "this jersey was worn by player x in an official nfl pro bowl game".

So, I'd be very interested to find out what happens with this, so keep this thread updated. Like I said before, I'm really into cards and this whole memorabilia thing (at least full size pieces lol) is all new to me, so it's very interesting.

[sylbry]

http://www.freewebs.com/jdworley/05gridirongearpb.htm