1961 Fleer Baseball Decal Stickers

Fleer issued another decal set as an insert in their 1961 Fleer Baseball Greats set. The set expanded to 18 decals as in 1961 the Los Angeles Angels and Minnesota Twins were added to the American League that year.

At first glance, the decals appear very similar to the 1960 series as for the most part the logos are the same. However there are a few major differences:

The fronts of the 1961 set have a white border around the logo instead of the blue border found on the 1960 set. Here's an example of the Orioles logo from 1960 and 1961:


The backs for 1961 are white and have an ad for Dubble Bubble, while the 1960 set had blue backs with instructions for applying the decal.


Here are the American League Decals:


Here are the National League decals:



As the Washington Senators had moved to Minnesota to become the Twins, the Senators logo is different in the 1961 set for the expansion team that was put in Washington to keep baseball in the nation's capital. Otherwise, the logos are the same for both years.

Here is the wrapper:

Here is an example of what the cards look like:


In addition, as the wrapper mentions, besides the decal, there was a sticker inserted as well. Fleer issued a set of pennant stickers highlighting the World Series from 1913 through 1960.

Here are some pictures of some of those stickers:





Not bad getting 2 inserts in a pack! Fleer was really trying to get the kids to buy their cards of retired players rather than the Topps cards all the kids wanted with current players. Fleer would issue a 3rd set of decals in 1962 which I will cover next time.