Collector has 60 years of 49ers mementos Super Bowl XLVII Dedicated 49ers fan attended every home game for 52 years

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More than 20 years before an advertising writer fabricated a similar scene involving Mean Joe Green and a bottle of Coke, 12-year-old Martin Jacobs spotted his hero Hugh McElhenny outside Kezar Stadium in San Francisco.

"I saw him getting into a pink Cadillac," Jacobs says, remembering the 1955 encounter. "I said, 'Can I have a souvenir?' He said, 'I've got my torn jersey.' "

With that exchange, Jacobs was on his way to becoming the greatest private collector of 49ers memorabilia in San Francisco, with more than 2,500 items. Included are programs and ticket stubs from almost every game the team has played - many bought or scavenged during Jacobs' uninterrupted 49ers home-game attendance streak from 1952 to 2004.

Along the way, Jacobs, 69, gained rare game-worn jerseys from Joe Perry and Bob St. Clair, and lost two marriages. He says his first wife declared, "You like Joe Montana more than me." He says the second wife wanted to move to Arizona - Jacobs lost a coin flip to resolve the matter, but couldn't bring himself to leave.

"I didn't want to move away from my 49ers," he says. "She said I was crazy. Maybe I am."

The San Francisco native tells his story at his Sunset District home, in a memorabilia-filled office that was once his childhood bedroom. Back then it was painted red and silver, the 49ers' original colors. Now the paint is secondary to all the 49ers-related posters and articles on the wall.

Jacobs' hardwiring can be traced to a mother who collected celebrity autographs and a father who told him, "Your hobby should be your job."

"My dad always said, 'Do what you love to do,' " he says. "For me it was football."

Martin Jacobs, an avid memorabilia collector, with some of his 49ers items on Thursday, January 24, 2013. Jacobs has been collecting 49ers memorabilia since he was a kid watching games at Kezar Stadium. Now, the retired San Francisco resident has what might be the biggest 49ers memorabilia collection in the world and keeps some of it in his San Francisco, Calif., home. less Martin Jacobs, an avid memorabilia collector, with some of his 49ers items on Thursday, January 24, 2013. Jacobs has been collecting 49ers memorabilia since he was a kid watching games at Kezar Stadium. Now, ... more Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 18 Caption Close Collector has 60 years of 49ers mementos 1 / 18 Back to Gallery

Jacobs was 9 years old in 1952, when his father took him to his first Kezar Stadium game. He was bored and begged to go home, until he picked up a pair of binoculars and saw McElhenny dashing up the field - making speedy cutbacks into the end zone.

Harry Truman was president at the time, and Patti Page's "(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window" was on the charts. Jacobs wouldn't miss another 49ers home game until George W. Bush was in office and MP3s were replacing CDs.

An unfair advantage

Sitting in Kezar's kid-friendly Christopher Milk section, young Jacobs learned to gain advantages over other autograph seekers. His uncle was a security guard, in charge of keeping kids off the field in the final moments of the games.

"When he saw me in the fourth quarter with a minute left, he would turn his back and I would run on the field," Jacobs says, describing an alternate football universe where a kid could ask star players for autographs with time left on the clock.

Jacobs combed the Kezar bleachers after games, scavenging programs, seat cushions and on a good day a piece of game-worn clothing or discarded pads. And when he was done with that, he'd sit in the stands and soak it in a little longer.

"I'm just not like other people," Jacobs says. "Other fans would leave, until the stadium was near-empty. There would be all those hot dog wrappers around, and the seagulls. And I would just stay."

As an adult, Jacobs founded a chain of Sports Stop Center collectible stores, selling 49ers and San Francisco Giants gear and other memorabilia. He sold rock and other counterculture posters in the Haight district from 1967 to 1970. Jacobs pulls one of his more popular creations out of a tube - a 6-foot yellow poster featuring a giant marijuana cigarette.

"I think at the Monterey Pop Festival they sold 1,800" of the posters, he says.

Still hustling

Jacobs still seems to be in a constant state of hustle, despite a recent bout with sciatic pain. He hasn't had 49ers season tickets since 1978, but was able to keep his consecutive game streak going by playing chicken with the scalpers; Jacobs claims he never paid more than $50 for a ticket.

The streak almost ended at Super Bowl XIX, played at Stanford Stadium, in 1985. In true Martin Jacobs fashion, he decided to sell a few T-shirts before the game - with an unauthorized image of a 49er catching a Miami Dolphin with a fishing pole. When the cops busted him, he talked his way out of jail.

"I said, 'Take all my stuff. I just want to see the game.' "

Jacobs retired from retail in 1992 but continues to dabble in the market, always seeking game-used 49ers gear from the 1950s. His white whale is the 49ers' 1946 AAFC press guide. The bulk of his cache is double-bolted miles away in storage lockers - two of his five children are locksmiths - but he brings a few 1950s jerseys out for the media. He calls McElhenny a friend now ("To Marty, My #1 fan," a wall-hanging reads), and that player's game-worn jersey is still his prized possession.

"You can see - there are probably 30 sewn repairs on this thing," he says. "They used one jersey for the season back in those days. And they didn't keep them. They were a rag. They threw them away."

Game-worn jerseys from players like Perry and McElhenny are worth five figures now - there are only a few outside the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

'Wide open' days

Jacobs will be cheering the 49ers when they play the Ravens on Super Bowl Sunday. But he prefers the earlier era, even though his beloved 49ers of the 1950s fell short of a championship. He misses being able to see the players' faces through their mask-free helmets. He misses the dope smokers on Hippie Hill, interacting without incident with the working-class families walking to Kezar Stadium.

And he misses seeing McElhenny run out of the tunnel, overworked and underpaid and still loving the game. Not thinking twice about tossing his sweat- and blood-soaked jersey to a young fan.

"I love watching the 49ers today, but you can't compare it to then," Jacobs says. "It was so wide open."