1950 Scott's Potato Chips Minneapolis Lakers

The scarce 1950 Scott's Potato Chips Minneapolis Lakers is arguably the greatest regional basketball set ever released. The Lakers won the 1949-50 NBA championship and the Potato Products Corporation, a regional Upper Midwest brand based in East Grand Forks, MN, honored this accomplishment by including one card in its boxes of potato chips and cheese potato chips. Each card contains  the Scott’s logo on the card front.

The 13-card set marks one of the first cards with facsimile autographs and cartoon imagery. It contains 6 hall of famers including George Mikan in the same pose as his 1948 Bowman rookie card. Other HOFers in the set are Jim Pollard, Slater Martin, Vern Mikkelsen and coach John Kundla. The set also contains the first card of Bud Grant, a NFL hall of fame coach for the Minnesota Vikings. In total, there are thirteen 2-inch by 4 1/8-inch cards in the set (although there is also a Minnesota season pass card with similar artwork). The cartoon image on the season pass was drawn by the same artist, Alfred "Al" Papas, and around the same time. The autographs are facsimile and represent one of the first instances of this feature being used on a basketball card.

As explained below, pops are very low for these cards. There are only a total of 140 PSA-graded cards in the registry as of July 2026.

Why Is This Set So Scarce?

Like most vintage basketball, many of these cards were not valued highly back in the day, not stored safely and often thrown out.  

However, this set is particularly scarce for another, unique reason. As the back of the cards state, collectors 15 or younger could present 5 cards plus .25 cents tax/service fee to get a free ticket to one of 4 Lakers games. They could also send in a complete 13-card set to get an autographed team photograph. Photo at bottom of page. The cards handed at the 4  games were ripped in half at the auditorium so they couldn't be re-used. Presumably, the ones sent in for the team photograph were likewise destroyed.

Further, a reliable source adds that the Bob Doll and Arnie Ferrin cards (and possibly others) were short-printed to make it more challenging to complete the set. 

About The Artist - Al Papas

Al Papas was one of the notable sports cartoonists of the golden age of newspaper sports art. His work appeared in the Minneapolis Star and The Sporting News, and his cartoons stood out because they blended sharp caricature with real sports commentary. In an era when sports pages relied heavily on illustration, Papas’ drawings of players, managers, and owners were not just entertaining. They were a compact and effective form of journalism. Papas had a comic strip for years called Lance Lawson and drew the artwork for Hubert Humphrey’s campaign for Governor.  Papas was raised in International Falls, Minnesota, played football at the University of Minnesota, and started drawing professionally in 1931.  While Papas got paid for the artwork, he also was given some sets of his Scott's cards which his passed down to this 4 children.

Al Papas was known as “Axe” during his high-school football career and starred as a freshman at the University of Minnesota. A broken leg against Iowa ended his playing career and prevented him from participating in Minnesota’s 1934 national championship season.

His son, Al Papas Jr., later carried on the family’s artistic tradition and wrote Gophers Illustrated: The Incredible Complete History of Minnesota Football. This article sets forth more info about the set and the Papas family history.

The backs of the cards explain that children under 15 who presented 5 of the cards along with .25 cents could attend a game for free, and those with a complete set could also get a team photo.