1961 Topps Football Flocked Stickers

Just as they had done in 1960, Topps once again included team sticker inserts in their packs of 1961 Football cards. This time instead of being metallic, the stickers were cloth, and are referred to as "flocked" stickers because of the texture of the stickers:


The stickers were prominently featured on the wrapper:


Each sticker contained a team logo and a small initial which could be separated from the team sticker. There are 48 different team stickers, but a total of 60 different stickers because 12 teams can be found with 2 different initials.

The NFL teams lead off the set with #s 1 - 15:
















There are no initial variations for the NFL teams.

The AFL teams come next (# 16 - 24), and all of the AFL teams do have initial variations:









Here is an example of an initial variation:



Its interesting to note that the AFL stickers featured team logos, while the NFL stickers used generic images.

The final group of stickers (#25 - #48) featured college teams, with 3 teams having initial variations:










Unlike in 1960 when both Topps and Fleer included team sticker/decal inserts in their packs, in 1961 Topps was the only company that inserted team stickers as Fleer decided to include a "Secret Magic Message" instead as seen on this wrapper:


The magic messages are trivia cards that had to be wet to reveal the answer, so needless to say, not a lot of these survived.