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Coca Cola was no stranger to football when the company issued its sets of trading cards in 1981.
Coke produced bottle caps with player pictures on the inside throughout much of the 1960s. But the football card issue was something different.
For reasons yet unknown, Coke did not produce cards for all of the teams then in the league.
Only seven teams were chosen for the set, each containing 11 players plus a "header card" that sat on top of each cello pack issued with the purchase of Coke products.
Printed by Topps, the famous card maker, the cards came three to a pack.
While fans in Baltimore, Dallas, Houston, New York, St. Louis, San Diego and Washington were able to collect the cards with their purchases, fans in other cities never knew there was an issue.
Among the more popular players in the 77-card complete run are Tony Dorsett, Phil Simms, Dan Fouts, Kellen Winslow, Joe Theismann and the rookie year card of Art Monk. The Monk card carries a value of $4-8 depending on condition.
Many of the cards are identical to the Topps regular issue cards of the same year, except for the Coke logo that adorns the front and back. They are numbered 1-11. The backs of the header cards carried an offer for an uncut sheet of regular issue Topps cards from the 1981 issue.
In future years, supplies of the cards came out of the woodwork and it's now feasible to collect the full set by buying them one team set at a time. There are no real scarcities, but finding them now can be a challenge. The complete set of 84 cards (77 plus the headers) is valued at $60 in mint condition.
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