The Dallas Cowboys Team Issue Photo Guide. This is a free download with the purchase of Volume 5.

Update 4.1 to the Team Issued Photo Guide is now available. Approximately 60 photos (mostly 1960-67) have been added. As a result of the additional photos, there are a couple new sets, and some re-organizing of current photos.

Team Issued Photos available for sale: Dallas Cowboys Team Issued Photos

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Over the years, the basic design of these black-and-white pictures didn’t change much.  Players are pictured in full uniform without a helmet, some with a football in hand, (or in air in some cases) in a posed action shot with the feel of a classic football card from the ‘40s or ‘50s.  The player’s name and team is found on the bottom border, which in most cases, is a bit wider to accommodate the text.  They can be found printed on a variety of different types of stock that include thin or thick paper with a dull or matte finish, and glossy photo paper.

Unlike football cards where only a select few were chosen to be photographed, team issued photos were usually taken of all the players, as the very rare 1970 Texas Stadium promotional poster suggests by the use of team issued photos for all 45 players on the roster.  Most of which have been identified as being part of a standard set, but not all.  The team controlled these photos and they were typically used to fulfill fan requests or released to the media for publications that ran stories about a particular player. Each season did not produce a standard set of photos.  There are only a few years that the team created a set that was made available for fans to buy.  Team issued photos were commonly used in game programs throughout the 1960's & ‘70s, making those publications a great resource to help identify and date the photos.  The 1964 Dallas Cowboys media guide was the first to included small head-shot photos throughout the player section.  Since 1969, it became standard procedure to include photos of all the players.  Some of those pictures have been found in the form of 5 x 7 glossies.  It is very likely that the same photos were used from year to year for some players.  Star players may have been photographed more often, but even those guys had photos used over a period of several years.

8x10’s can be found that are simply larger prints of a photo used in a set with a smaller format.  As an example, almost all of the photos used for the 1965 set can be found as 8x10’s.  Because of that, each 8x10 photo is not shown here, and as a result, you may have 8x10's in your collection that you won't find listed here.  Only unique poses of players that can’t be found in other sets are included.  In summary, a large majority of 8x10’s that can be found are simply large reproductions of photos from other sets.

This is a photo taken at an early training camp photo session. Jim Laughead (on the right kneeling with a hat on) of Laughead Studios is the photographer that was hired to take the Cowboys first team issued photos. Laughead was a prominent photographer in Texas who also shot for SMU and other area teams. I believe Laughead continued this service into the 70's. He also took several of the photos that Topps used for their football cards.

Photo contributions for this section by Steve Coleman, Buchanan Easley, Brian Foye and Michael Wedel.

Please contact me if you would like to contribute images to this section, or have any photos available to sell or trade.