Sunday, January 6, 2008

1967 Fleer Team Logo Emblem Cards & Cloth Patches - Tallboys Part 1

After the 1962 Baseball Decal Stickers, Fleer did not issue any logo related items until 1967.

In 1967 Fleer produced what are sometimes considered "test" issues of 3 different items:

1) Team Logo Cards (sometimes called Emblem Cards)

2) Team Logo Cloth Patches (sometimes called Emblem Patches)

3) Team Name "Trio" Cloth Patches (a cloth patch with 3 small patches with team names but no logos).

The first 2 items are sometimes called "Tallboys" given that they are larger than a standard size baseball card. The Logo cards are 2.5 x 4.5 and the Cloth Patches are 2.5 x 4.2.

I have no information on how these were sold. I'm not sure if all three came together in a pack, or whether there were different packs for the various issues. Presumably the Logo Card was inserted with the Cloth Patch to give support to the pack - otherwise the pack would be very flimsy. I know for a fact that Fleer inserted some type of card with each of their cloth patch issues in the 1970's, so I assume the Logo Card and Cloth Patch came together in a pack. I assume the "Trio" patch was in the same pack as well, but I have no confirmation of this.

The Emblem Cards, Emblem Cloth Patches, and "Trio" Cloth Patches would be issued again in 1968 and would look very similar (another Fleer Variation !). I will cover the 1968 set in my next posting.

The main things that distinguish the 1967 Emblem Card from the 1968 card 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) and 2) it says "SAVE ALL 19 CARDS" in Red (while the 1968 card has this printed in Black).

Here are the 2 Team Logo / Emblem cards that I have seen:

The Team Logo / Emblem Cloth Patches look like this, with the only way to tell the 1967's apart from the 1968's is that the 1967's do not have "Peel Off Here" on the sticker whereas the 1968's do carry this instruction:




Little did Fleer realize at the time, but with the production of this issue they would go on a 26 year run of producing baseball team logo stickers in some form or fashion. The Cloth Patches would be issued from 1967 - 1975, with glossy stickers taking over after that until 1992.

2 comments:

Jim C said...

fOR THE 1967 CARDS -- PRESUME THAT THERE WERE 20 CARDS FOR 20 TEAMS? I AM MISSING KC/OAKLAND AND HOUSTON -- WERE THESE EVER MADE AVAILABLE?

Fleerfan said...

There is a KC Athletics Emblem Card and Patch, but no patch or card for the Astros.

There apparently were issues with licensing the Astros logo in the late 60's, which is why the 1968 and part of the 1969 Topps sets didn't show any Astros logos and referred to them as Houston instead of Astros. Fleer must have had the same issues as Topps in not being able to license, so there are no Astros cards or patches for 1967 or 1968.

More info here:
http://fleersticker.blogspot.com/2008/01/you-cant-call-them-astros.html