The Amazing Football Cards of Dallas' Worst Team Ever
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Let's face it, Cowboys fans, it's been a rough few decades since that last Super Bowl victory! Despite six 12+ win seasons since 1995, America's Team has little in the way of hardware. Still, however rough their seasons have been, none compare one bit to the first year NFL football came to the Big D, in the form of the Dallas Texans, back in 1952. Just how bad was Dallas that year? Following an 0-9 start, the team simply left town, never to return.
Still, that hapless Texans squad did have two things going for it. Recycling much of the suddenly defunct Brooklyn Yanks, which included multiple Black players, the Texans were an integrated franchise from day one, a first for the American South in any professional sport. In fact, the Texans even had a hand in integrating professional baseball in Texas, though that's a story for another day. More to the point of collectibles, however, the 1952 Dallas Texans had a stunningly beautiful set of football cards.
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The announcement of a Dallas NFL franchise came early enough for the trading cards folks at Bowman, fresh off their baseball set, to include Dallas Texans cards on their 1952 football checklists. And that's "checklists," plural, since Bowman issued two sets that year, one in a large card format and one in a smaller card format.
Each of the sets included thirteen Dallas cards, twelve players and a coach, and featured what may be the nicest football card artwork ever.
Depending on one's tastes, it may be that the team set's "art winner" belongs to Art Weiner, whose card combines a landscape image format with a rich purple hue. Interestingly, Weiner is the only Texan in the set to wear a helmet.
Three cards in the team set (Gino Marchetti, James Hammond, Jim Lansford) are unique in that they carry the Dallas Texans team designation on the back of the card but use the player's college team on the front. The result is that they may not appear to collectors, at first glance, as being Dallas Texans cards.
As far as vintage football sets go, the 1952 Bowman Dallas Texans are about as affordable as they come, even as the set contains two Hall of Famers, Gino Marchetti and Art Donovan. While collectors can most definitely pay a premium for either Hall of Famer, a little patience will yield either one in the VG-EX range for right around $100, if not a little less. That's not bad at all when the return is a visually stunning team set that not only depicts a historic season but also a historically bad season. After all, what Cowboy fan couldn't use a reminder that no matter how badly the 2025 team fares, Dallas has seen way worse!
Jason A. Schwartz is a collectibles expert whose work can be found regularly at SABR Baseball Cards, Hobby News Daily, and 1939Bruins.com. His collection of Hank Aaron baseball cards and memorabilia is currently on exhibit at the Atlanta History Center, and his collectibles-themed artwork is on display at the Honus Wagner Museum and PNC Park.