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!