1967 Fleer Baseball Emblems Cards & Cloth Patches

Since I first wrote about the 1967 Fleer Baseball Emblems Cards & Cloth Patches almost 10 years ago, I have slowly been making progress on finding images for this extremely rare set.  That process was helped greatly when John recently contacted me looking for some Emblem cards to complete his set, and was kind enough to share the cards in his collection:

 

 

John has done a great job in tracking down these rare cards, and is now only looking for the Senators and the Giants to complete the set. Even though there were 20 MLB teams at the time, there are only 19 team emblem cards and team cloth patches as the Houston Astros did not have an Emblem Card or Cloth Patch for either the 1967 or 1968 sets, as there were licensing issues that impacted not only Fleer, but Topps as well.

The main things that distinguish the 1967 team Emblem cards from the 1968 cards are 1) the fact that the card has the 1966 won - loss record on it (the 1968 card does not have a W/L record), 2) it says "SAVE ALL 19 CARDS" in Red (while the 1968 card has this printed in Black), and 3) the 1968 card contains a "Baseball Fact" while the 1967 card does not:

 

From the scans that John sent, it appears that the only team with a different logo in the 1967 set is the Reds, as they are the "Redlegs" with a head shot of Mr. Red on the 1967 card, and are the "Reds" with a full body shot of Mr. Red in 1968:

The other team with a significant change is the A's, who are in Kansas City in 1967, but in Oakland in 1968, although the logo remains the same.

For a more detailed look at the 1968 set, please see my review of the set here.

As for the Cloth Patches, the 1967 patches are almost impossible to find.  In the nearly 10 years since I first wrote about these, I've only been able to find pictures of 8 of the 19 teams.

The 1967 Cloth Patches are nearly identical to the 1968's except for the fact that the 1968's include the directions "PEEL OFF HERE" and dotted lines around the logos while the 1967's do not.

Here is a comparison showing the differences on the cloth patches between 1967 and 1968:

In addition to the Orioles, I've only been able to find pictures of the following 1967 cloth patches:

 

 

 

 

In addition to one large team sticker with 3 cloth patches (sometimes referred to as tallboys), packs also contained a smaller sticker that included 3 patches of the names of teams (sometimes referred to as trio patches):

I have no idea of how many variations of these there may be, or if there is a way to distinguish the 1967 patches from the 1968 patches (other than the fact that any patches with the A's would either say Kansas City in 1967 or Oakland in 1968).

The packs for 1967 look similar to the 1968 packs, with the main difference being the title "Baseball Emblems" is red in 1967, and black with a different font in 1968:

In each pack, there was one large team Cloth Patch sticker (consisting of 3 patches), and one of the smaller trio stickers (with 3 team names), which make up the 6 cloth patches in each pack.  In addition to the patches, there was also one team Emblem card in each pack, which was included to give the pack some stability, but it is not mentioned on the pack (as were none of the other various cards inserted with cloth patches over the years for some reason).

Finally, here is a look at the box the packs came in:

Many thanks to John for sharing his collection of team emblem cards, and for giving me a great reason to update my review of this set.

Orioles All Orange Uniform Finally Appears on a Topps Card!

46 years after the Orioles first wore them, Topps has finally created a card showing the all orange uniform that was worn briefly in 1971 and 1972:

The 2017 Topps Stadium Club card of Brooks Robinson shows him in the all orange uniform.  Here is a look at the uncropped photo:

 

Here are the other photos that were taken that day: 

 

 

 

Its great to finally see the all orange uniform make an appearance on a Topps card.  

Topps - great work showing this rarely seen uniform.  If you are reading this, please consider using this photo for one of your next Brooks Robinson cards so that we can also have a card showing the 1968 - 1969 Orioles vests:

 

New Photos of the 1971-1972 Orioles All Orange Uniforms

A couple of new pictures have turned up showing the rarely seen all orange alternative uniforms the Orioles briefly wore  in 1971 and 1972.

First we have Brooks Robinson

whose sporting goods company supplied the uniforms:




And we have 2 shots of Merv Rettenmund:

I believe these shots are from the April 22, 1972 game in Cleveland.  Hopefully a few more color pictures will surface from this game.  We have shots of almost the entire lineup from this game, but unfortunately most of the shots are in B&W.  

You Can Judge a Book by its Cover

Judging by the awesome cover of this 1962 Sporting News publication,

I would have to agree that this book is "dope". 

Greatest Single 45 Picture Sleeve of All Time

I came across this Spanish 45 picture sleeve for the Rolling Stones, and loved how they have pictured the band as actual stones, complete with their names, and Mick asking the rest of the band "have you seen your mother, baby, standing in the shadow?":

Perhaps the Spanish record label was not fond of the Stones in drag, so they decided on a safer cover than this:

After all, the Spanish record company thought this was a better cover for Sticky Fingers

 than the iconic Andy Warhol cover:

More Rarely Seen 1968 - 1969 Baltimore Orioles Vests

I've recently come across some more pictures of the Orioles in their rarely seen vests which they wore occasionally during the 1968 and 1969 seasons.

The first set of pictures are from May 21, 1969 when the Orioles played the Twins at Memorial Stadium:

We can see from the scoreboard that the Orioles won 4-3 as Davey Johnson, Boog Powell, Pete Richert, and Andy Etchebarren are walking off the field.

Here is a shot of Davey Johnson running to first as Harmon Killebrew is waiting for the throw:

 And here is Paul Blair trying to lay down a bunt:

The second set of pictures was taken a few days later when the Orioles played the A's on May 24, 1969, in which both teams were wearing vests:

We have a nice shot of the back of Brooks Robinson's jersey as Dick Green is about to be tagged out at 3rd.

We get to see Earl Weaver wearing the vest while discussing a call with the ump:

While I've posted this picture of Mike Cuellar before, it is from the same game which the Orioles went on to win 2 to 1 as seen on the scoreboard as he is wrapping up his complete game (which only took 1 hour and 49 minutes!):

All of these pictures were taken by the great photographer Neil Leifer and can be found on Getty Images.

Finally, here are 2 other pictures for which I don't have a date, but which show Davey Johnson:

If you are interested in seeing other pictures of the Orioles wearing the vests, please see my previous post.

How I would love to see the Orioles bring back this look for one of their alternate jerseys next season.

1971 Topps Greatest Moments Confusion

I just came across an auction that ended on ebay for what was listed as a 1971 Topps Greatest Moments card I had never seen before:  a Baseball Coin Rub Game card:

I have never read anything about the Greatest Moments cards coming with a Coin Rub Game card, but this sure looks like it would have come with this set.  Here is the picture from the auction, which included the Sal Bando card as well:

The cards are the same size with black borders.  The winning bid for this auction was $1,275, so that should give an idea of how rare this card is.

Here is a look at the back.   

It does have a similar color scheme as the back of the Greatest Moments cards, but does have a different card stock:

Information on how this set was distributed is very limited. Fortunately a wrapper has surfaced, and recently sold at auction for $3,287.

However, the wrapper does not mention a game card

 nor does the box:

However, in searching for images of Topps coin rub cards, I came across this picture:

 

This picture comes from an post from The Topps Archives about the Topps Action Emblems from 1973 - 1974.  The wrapper for this test set does mention a baseball rub off game card in each pack, and the size of the wrapper does seem to match the size of the game card:

So with a little research, it turns out that the game card actually was part of the Action Emblems test, not the Greatest Moments set.  I just hope the winning bidder realized that they were buying a test card from the Action Emblems test, and didn't think they were picking up a previously unknown Greatest Moments card.

2016 Topps Baseball Wacky Packages Promo Stickers

I was just looking at ebay to see the 2016 Topps Baseball cards that have just been released, and discovered that Topps is including promo stickers for an upcoming Wacky Packages set devoted completely to baseball.

Here is a look at the 6 promo stickers available in 2016 Topps Baseball packs:

According to the back, the Baseball Wacky Packages series will be going on sale in March:

Here is a look at the Cubs sticker which is not one of the promos

And here is a link to the flyer.


What a great idea combining two of my favorite collectibles - Wackys and Baseball.  I can't wait for these to come out next month!

1966 Coke NFL Eagles Promotion Poster

Saw this poster yesterday at an antiques shop. Its a poster for the promotion Coke did with the NFL back in 1966.

One of the prizes from the promotion was a team poster with Dave Boss artwork, which is shown on this poster.   In return for collecting a full set of bottle caps, you could earn a couple of different prizes.  Here is a look at the Coke Saver Sheet for the Chicago Bears:

Here is a closer look at the prizes:

 
And here are the details on claiming your prize:

Interesting that you could hand draw substitutes for the caps you couldn't find with the help of a sheet from your local Coca-Cola Bottler, and also interesting that you could redeem the prize at Sears.  

Just as they did with Major League Baseball, there were a few other promotions that Coke did with the NFL for other sets of prizes that I will cover in future posts.