1965 Topps Football Magic Rub-Offs

Topps' insert for their 1965 Football card packs was a set of 36 AFL and college team emblem decals which were called Magic Rub-Offs as seen on this 1965 Topps Football wrapper:

The emblems could be transferred by rubbing the back of the rub-off with a coin. The image on the decal is reversed so that it would be correct once it was applied to a surface.


Here is a look at the AFL logos with the images reversed so that you can see how the logo would look once it was applied:








Unfortunately I haven't yet been able to find a picture of the Bills decal.

The remainder of the set consisted of college teams such as these examples:






In addition to being featured prominently on the wrapper (which had more space than ususal because the 1965 cards were the oversized "tall-boys" as this 1965 Namath rookie demonstrates)


the magic rub-offs are also promoted on the box:



In taking a look at the top of the wax box, I have to call out Topps for false advertising. The player displayed on the box is clearly a New York Giant based on the color of the jersey and the number on the helmet


which looks exactly like this:


Topps only had the license to produce AFL cards in 1965 as Philadelphia Gum had the NFL license that year, but the artwork on the Topps box clearly depicted an NFL team. Whoops!

1964 Topps Football Pennant Stickers

In 1964, Topps included a sticker insert in their packs of 1964 Football cards featuring team pennants:


Since Topps only had a license to produce AFL cards (Philadelphia Gum had the rights to the NFL from 1964 - 1967), the only professional teams in the set are AFL teams. In addition to the 8 AFL teams in existence at the time, the insert set also included 16 college team pennants for a total of 24 team pennant stickers.

Here is a look at the AFL teams:







There is a Raiders sticker as well, but I haven't yet been able to find a picture.

The AFL "logos" on these pennants are somewhat generic rather than being exact reproductions of their respective official logos.

The college pennants also relect this generic look




The stickers measure 2 1/8" x 4 1/2", which is why all of the stickers show a crease since they had to be folded in order to fit in the pack.

It is interesting to note that after Topps had promoted the team sticker inserts in previous years on the wrappers (1960 and 1961), there was no mention of these inserts on the wrapper


or the wax box in 1964

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.