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# Tallboys: The 6 Years Topps Made Cards That Don't Fit Anything
- URL: https://www.grumpybuck.com/tallboys-the-6-years-topps-made-cards-that-dont-fit-anything/
- Published: 2026-08-30T18:21:24.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-30T18:21:24.000Z
- Author: Brad Riddell
- Tags: Sports History

Every card collector knows the feeling: you buy a box of sleeves, a binder, some toploaders — and they fit every card you own. Except 4 sets. For a brief stretch of the 1960s and early 70s, Topps made cards nearly 5 inches tall, and the hobby has been improvising storage for them ever since.

They're called tallboys — 2-1/2 by 4-11/16 inches, an inch and a quarter taller than a standard card — and the short list of sets that use the format contains some of the most valuable cardboard ever printed: Joe Namath's rookie. Lew Alcindor's rookie. Pistol Pete's rookie.

## Where the Format Came From

![Where it started: 1964-65 Topps hockey — Bobby Hull, the first tallboy](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6a/b0/6ab0eb2f-edcf-411e-aaff-39e6be3d4e39/content/images/2026/08/tb-hull-1964.jpg)

Where it started: 1964-65 Topps hockey — Bobby Hull, the first tallboy

The first tallboy wasn't football or basketball — it was hockey. The 1964-65 Topps hockey set stretched the frame for the first time, 110 cards with Bobby Hull as the headliner. But the format found its real purpose the next year, in a turf war.

From 1964 to 1967, Topps didn't have the NFL. Philadelphia Gum held those rights, leaving Topps with the upstart AFL. So for 1965, Topps made its underdog league impossible to miss on the shelf: 176 cards, huge photos, huge fonts, packs that towered over Philadelphia's standard-size NFL product. If you can't have the bigger league, be the bigger card.

## The Accidental Masterpiece: 1965 Topps Football

![The one that pays for the house: 1965 Topps #122, Joe Namath](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6a/b0/6ab0eb2f-edcf-411e-aaff-39e6be3d4e39/content/images/2026/08/tb-namath-card.jpg)

The one that pays for the house: 1965 Topps #122, Joe Namath

![1965 Topps: Jerry Mays of the Chiefs — AFL only, not an NFL player in the set](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6a/b0/6ab0eb2f-edcf-411e-aaff-39e6be3d4e39/content/images/2026/08/tb-mays-1965.jpg)

1965 Topps: Jerry Mays of the Chiefs — AFL only, not an NFL player in the set

That AFL-only set became the most valuable football issue of its era, for one reason: card #122, Joe Namath, the rookie card that exists only because the format war put the AFL's new savior in a Topps pack. It's also a short print — 132 of the set's 176 cards are SPs thanks to the sheet layout, including every key rookie (Namath, Fred Biletnikoff, Willie Brown, Ben Davidson).

High-grade Namaths are nearly mythical: no PSA 10 exists, only a handful of 9s, and one of those sold for $264,000\. The rest of the checklist is an AFL hall of fame — Jack Kemp, George Blanda, Len Dawson, Don Maynard, Lance Alworth. And one telling absence: no Fran Tarkenton, no Johnny Unitas, no NFL stars at all. They were locked in Philadelphia Gum's standard-size sets.

## Basketball Goes Tall

![The 1969-70 Lew Alcindor rookie, #25 — note the logo-free jersey](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6a/b0/6ab0eb2f-edcf-411e-aaff-39e6be3d4e39/content/images/2026/08/tb-alcindor-1969.jpg)

The 1969-70 Lew Alcindor rookie, #25 — note the logo-free jersey

When Topps returned to basketball in 1969 — its first hoops set since 1957-58 — it revived the tallboy for 2 seasons, and both are all-timers.

The 1969-70 set (99 cards, sold with a fold-out "Topps Ruler" insert) is basically a hall-of-fame induction ceremony: first cards of John Havlicek, Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, Earl Monroe, Elvin Hayes, Connie Hawkins and Bill Bradley, with Wilt Chamberlain at #1 and the Lew Alcindor rookie at #25 — a card that has sold for $240,000 in PSA 10\. Fun detail: nearly every player is photographed in warmups or with his jersey reversed, because Topps didn't have rights to team logos.

The 1970-71 set went bigger (175 cards) and delivered the format's last icon: Pete Maravich's rookie, #123\. A perfect copy sold for $552,000 in 2023 — then reportedly changed hands privately for $730,000\. Pat Riley's rookie is in there too.

![The last tallboy icon: Pete Maravich's 1970-71 rookie, #123](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6a/b0/6ab0eb2f-edcf-411e-aaff-39e6be3d4e39/content/images/2026/08/tb-maravich-1970.jpg)

The last tallboy icon: Pete Maravich's 1970-71 rookie, #123

## The World They Came From

Hold a tallboy and you're holding a specific moment in American sports — the last innocent one. The format lived from 1964 to 1971, and think about what happened inside that window: the first Super Bowl (January 1967 — right in the middle of the tallboy years), the AFL-NFL merger, Monday Night Football's debut in 1970 — the same season as the last tallboy set. The cards went into packs in one version of American sports and came out in another.

![Sports Illustrated said it out loud in 1965: ](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6a/b0/6ab0eb2f-edcf-411e-aaff-39e6be3d4e39/content/images/2026/08/tb-si-showbiz.jpg)

Sports Illustrated said it out loud in 1965: "Football Goes Show Biz" — with the tallboy set's cover boy under the Broadway lights

The games themselves were changing rooms. Basketball was walking out of smoky gyms and into palaces — the Forum opened in 1967, the current Madison Square Garden in 1968 — and the Alcindor and Maravich tallboys caught the very last of the old light.

![Alcindor over the Bulls — haze in the rafters, the old arenas' last years](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6a/b0/6ab0eb2f-edcf-411e-aaff-39e6be3d4e39/content/images/2026/08/tb-alcindor-action.jpg)

Alcindor over the Bulls — haze in the rafters, the old arenas' last years

Radio was giving way to color television. Teams that had ridden trains between cities for half a century were now stepping onto jets. And the athletes on these cards were the first generation to become television stars while they played — Namath got a Sports Illustrated cover about show business before he ever threw a professional pass.

![Namath and the Jets — the franchise that dragged pro football into prime time](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6a/b0/6ab0eb2f-edcf-411e-aaff-39e6be3d4e39/content/images/2026/08/tb-namath-action.jpg)

Namath and the Jets — the franchise that dragged pro football into prime time

That's the quiet magic of the format. Standard-size cards exist on both sides of the divide. But every tallboy ever printed comes from the 6 years when sports crossed over — from pastime to product, from Sunday afternoon to Monday night. The oversized frame turned out to be the right size for the moment.

![Maravich in the Hawks huddle — the era in living color](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6a/b0/6ab0eb2f-edcf-411e-aaff-39e6be3d4e39/content/images/2026/08/tb-maravich-huddle.jpg)

Maravich in the Hawks huddle — the era in living color

## Why the Format Died

Nobody at Topps ever published an official reason, but the pattern speaks: football went back to standard size in 1966 after one tall year, and basketball followed in 1971-72\. What's documented is everything that made tallboys a pain — they don't fit standard sleeves, toploaders, binders or storage boxes (specialty "tallboy holders" are still sold today just for these sets), the long sheets miscut easily, and decades of wrong-sized storage chewed up corners and edges. That's exactly why high-grade copies are so scarce — and so expensive.

## The Verdict

Four sets. Six years. Three of the most valuable rookie cards in the hobby. The tallboy era was a marketing gimmick born of a licensing war — and it accidentally produced the best-looking shelf of cardboard Topps ever printed. Just don't try to put them in a binder.