The Dallas Cowboys won their first Super Bowl in 1972. Coming off a disappointing loss the previous year to the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl V, they had something to prove.
The Cowboys dominated the entire game on both sides of the ball. Setting the tone early was a first quarter sack of Miami Dolphins QB Bob Griese. Not just your ordinary sack however, Bob Lilly chased down the scrambling QB and finally took him down for a record 29 yard loss.
This play was captured on film and later produced what is now a very hard-to-find collectible. The Chiquita Produce Company, new to the NFL as far as merchandise goes, produced a set of two-sided slides in 1972. The set is comprised of 13 slides and featured color action shots of 26 NFL players, one from each team. The yellow viewer and a set of slides could be obtained by sending 35-cents along with five team logo stickers from Chiquita bananas, and a receipt showing worth of produce purchases.
Chiquita only produced two types of collectibles for the NFL. The 1970 Team Logo Stickers, and the 1972 NFL Slides. The team logo stickers were labels found on bananas at your local produce store. There was one sticker for each of the 26 teams in the NFL. A complete booklet was available for 25-cents by mail-in offer. A rather difficult item to find these days in the world of collectibles, the complete set can be valued as high as 0, and individual stickers average between and .
The NFL Slides contained statistical and biographical information of the featured players. The complete set of slides is valued at 0 while the individual slides vary greatly due to the players featured. Here is a complete checklist for the 1972 NFL Slides (listed in pairs); 1 Joe Green & 2 Bob Lilly, 3 Bill Bergey & 4 Gary Collins, 5 Walt Sweeney & 6 Bubba Smith, 7 Larry Wilson & 8 Fred Carr, 9 Mac Percival & 10 John Brodie, 11 Lem Barney & 12 Ron Yary, 13 Curt Knight & 14 Alvin Haymond, 15 Floyd Little & 16 Gerry Philbin, 17 Jim Mitchell & 18 Paul Costa, 19 Jake Kupp & 20 Ben Hawkins, 21 Johnny Robinson & 22 George Webster, 23 Mercury Morris & 24 Willie Brown, 25 Ron Johnson & 26 Jon Morris.
As rare as the slides are, I would imagine the viewers are even harder to come by. That being the case, and the interest in displaying a key piece to my collection, I set out to get a clear image from the slide. The slides are very small (1/2" x 7/16") compared to a typical 35mm slide, adding to the difficulty of my project. Using my scanner and a home-made device called a backlight box, I made my first scan. Scanning at 1200dpi and with several adjustments to brightness and contrast I was able to get a decent image to start with. Scanning with that high of a resolution was necessary to capture the tiny photo, but it also captured all the defects the slide accumulated over the years. Now all that was needed was a little touch-up here and there and my job was done.
