1958 Fuzzy Thurston custom card -- fail!

Fuzzy Thurston, who starred with the Green Bay Packers during the Lombardi
Dynasty, got his NFL start with the champion 1958 Colts. In this reproductrion
of a brewery premium  photo, he's #64 just to the right of center in the third row.

Well, doody!

It was only a couple of years ago that I learned that 1960s Packer lineman Fuzzy Thurston had actually begun his NFL career as part of the World's Champion 1958 Baltimore Colts.

Since Thurston only appeared on two mainstream football cards, 1962 and 1963 Topps, and a 1962 Post cereal card, I thought it would be neat to create a custom card of Thurston as a Colt in the 1958 Topps format.

I scoured all the usual resources for a picture of Thurston as a Colt and came up empty until I discovered he was included in a team photo premium issued in 1959 by the Colts' radio-TV sponsor National Bohemian beer.

Originals of that premium picture are rare and costly. I thought I'd found a solution when I saw an 8 x 10 reproduction offered on eBay. I bought the repro and stuck it in my "futures" file.

When enlarged to "card size" the image of Thurston
scanned from the reproduced premium photo is not
sharp enough to be used on a custom card.

When I recently completed by first 1958-style football custom (Dave Hanner, presented in my blog on Jan. 18), I decided the time was now to work on the '58 Thurston.

I dug out the photo, scanned it . . . and was greatly disappointed when the quality of the image proved totally unacceptable. Thurston's image on the team photo is about 3/4" square. Because my photo was a picture of a picture, when enlarged to about 2", the player scan was, well, fuzzy.

Perhaps some day I'll have access to one of the original National Bohemian premiums, which are larger (though I don't know the actual size) and may yield a more usable scan.

I did find a nice college photo of Thurston with Valparaiso, so I guess I'll work on a 1955 All-American card. Watch this space for the result.

And, I have a couple of other subjects planned for 1958-style customs.