So, a couple of weeks ago I made a post featuring Patrick Moore and the Buzzball World Championship Trophy and participation name tags that he donated to the Museum.
Last week I won an eBay auction for some other very interesting items that are important to telling the history of electric football.
Now I am probably the only person alive who would even remotely be interested in an auction listing like this. The listing was for “VINTAGE 1966 KODACHROME Slides GOTHAM ELECTRIC FOOTBALL Family”.
The game looks to be a Gotham Big Bowl NFL Electric Football that was sold by Sears in 1966 and apparently after attempting to assemble the stadium it was decided to disregard the stadium construction and get down to playing the game. I imagine this happened a lot by the fact that so few of these stadiums survive today.
Another interesting thing that I noticed is that there appears to be a football game being broadcast on the TV in the background. After some further research, Christmas Day, 1966 did in fact fall on a Sunday. I bought these from a seller in Hinckley, IL. Don’t know if these are his personal photos or just some that he was selling.
To me these things are more important to telling the history of electric football than the stories of Tudor Games and Gotham or the other manufacturers of the game although the museum is primarily being built on the collection of game boards and teams that is owned by the museum.
However, a large part of the museum will also feature the people who play the game and the memories and stories of those people. These stories are better told through things such as photos, videos, and newspaper and magazine articles.
Every day I search the internet for these types of things but to have the originals to save for preservation is so much more important. If you have anything that you feel tells your story and your history of electric football, please consider donating these to the museum. They are priceless!!
For more information on making donations to the Museum, please visit our “Donate” page.
Thank you
The National Electric Football Game Museum 