Fleer Baseball Cloth Patches - San Francisco Giants

The San Francisco Giants have 4 City / Logo variations due to the changing color of the baseball in the logo. The earliest version has a white baseball as seen on the top left. The baseball then turned pink as seen on the top right:

The baseball then turned orange as seen in the bottom 2 pictures. As we've seen with other teams that had orange in their logos, these can be found with a darker and lighter shade of orange. Finally, the ball returned back to white for the last release of the patches, but as far as I can tell, there is no variation between that patch and the first version pictured on the top left of the picture above.

For the Cap / Team Name patches, you have to look very closely to see the variation between the patch on the top of the picture below, and the 2 patches below it (other than the color variations):

If you take a close look at the "S", you will notice the patch on the top has a slightly more rounded "S" whereas the 2 patches on the bottom have more pointed curves. In addition the black space is wider where the "S" & "F" interlock on the top vs the patches on the bottom. The patch on the top is the earliest version of the patch. As with the logo patches, there is a lighter / darker color of orange variation on the bottom two patches.

Fleer Baseball Cloth Patches - San Diego Padres

The Padres have 2 different City / Logo Patches which can be distinguished by the fact that the patch on the left has a brown circle around the Padre instead of yellow and the bat and the Padre's skin are yellowish orange instead of white:

The patch on the left is the earlier version.

Likewise, the Cap/Team Name patches have a similar color variation with the earlier patch having a more yellowish orange shade for the interlocking "SD" (similar to the skin color on the Padre on the logo patch above) against a darker brown background as seen on the left:

Whereas the patch on the right has a lighter shade of brown and a more yellow "SD".

Fleer Baseball Cloth Patches - Pittsburgh Pirates

The Pirates have 4 different City / Logo patch variations. The earliest patch on the top left differs slightly from the patch on the top right as the Pirate's face is a light shade of pink instead of white, and a number of items are yellow instead of white - the trim around the top of the Pirate hat, the bandanna under the Pirate hat, and the earring.

The logo then changed from a circle to a rectangular design - almost like an old weathered piece of paper. The difference between the 2 patches on the bottom are a slightly brighter yellow shade on the left, while the patch on the right has the directions printed on the border in white (and can be seen) as opposed to black (which are very hard to see) from the previous versions.

There are 3 different Cap/ Team Name patches. The earliest patch has a gold "P" against a black background with the team name in an arch. The next version of the patch retained the black background, but the "P" turned yellow, and the team name was now straight across instead of arched.


The final patch reversed the colors with a black "P" against a yellow background.

Fleer Baseball Cloth Patches - Philadelphia Phillies

Next on our list of teams to review is the Philadelphia Phillies. There are 3 City / Logo Phillies patches, with the earliest version containing the older logo with the 1960's era cap as seen on the top of the picture below:

This was followed by the new logo that was used starting in 1970. A slight color variation can be found for these patches with darker and lighter shades of burgundy.

There are 4 different Cap / Team Name patches, beginning with the patch on the top left which is the earliest patch and shows the late 1960's version of the "P" on the cap:


There is a less commonly found version of the 1970's "P" with a burgundy "P" against a white background as seen on the top right. The more common versions of the patch have a burgundy background with a white "P", with lighter and darker shades of burgundy just like we saw with the logo patches.

Fleer Baseball Cloth Patches - Oakland A's

The Oakland A's take the prize for the highest number of City / Logo Patch variations with 6. The earliest patch had a logo with a green baseball, followed by 2 patches with white baseballs.


The variation between the 2 white baseball patches is seen in the direction of the stitching on the top half of the ball. The patch on the bottom left has the stitching going from left to right while the patch on the bottom right is going in the opposite direction.

The logo then changed to a yellow baseball, and added a pair of shoes and the words "The SWINGIN' ". The patch on the top right has a slightly darker shade of green and more of a golden colored ball than the patch on the top right which has a lighter shade of green, and a lighter yellow ball:
The final patch was even a bit lighter in terms of the shades of green and yellow, but the biggest difference is that the directions on the border to "Peel Off Here" and the other information on the border is now in white instead of black so that you can actually read it.

There are 3 versions of the Cap / Team Name patch. The earliest patch is on the top left and has as an "A" which is thinner and in a slightly different script than the patch on the top right:

The final patch added " 'S ", and has a slightly lighter shade of green.

Fleer Baseball Cloth Patches - New York Yankees

The Yankees had far fewer patch variations than their cross town rivals, the Mets, who we previously reviewed.

The Yankees only have 2 different City / Logo patches, which are most easily distinguished by looking under the brim of the hat. The earlier version of the logo has blue under the brim of the hat while the later version is white.

In addition, when comparing the patch on the right to the one on the left, the bat is slightly different, the seams on the ball are thinner, and the black band around the hat with stars in the earlier patch changes to blue.

And finally, just as we saw with the Mets, the black dashes outlining the patch are solid from around 8:00 to 9:00 on the logo on the right, but not of the left. I have never come across a patch that contains the logo on the right with a dashed line all the way around the logo. All the patches with the later logo seem to have this solid line around part of the logo.

For the Cap / Team Name patch, there is just a subtle color variation. The patch on the left has a darker shade of blue than the one on the right.

Fleer Baseball Cloth Patches - New York Mets

The Mets City/Logo patch seemed to change almost every year, although sometimes in very subtle ways.

The top 2 patches in the picture below appear to be identical except for one small difference. Click on the picture to see a larger scan and see if you can spot the difference:


The patch on the top left has a solid black line around the outside of the logo instead of dashes from around what would be 8:00 to 9:00 on a clock dial while the patch on the right has dashes all the way around the logo. I believe the patch on the top left is the earliest version.

The next 2 patches in the middle of the picture have added a white outline around "Mets", a darker shade of blue for the skyline, and have white space inside the "e" and the "s", with the patch on the left a lighter share of orange and the patch on the right a darker shade of orange.

The final sticker on the bottom retains the darker orange and blue and the white outline around the name, but has blue inside the "e" and the "s".

There are a number of variations for the Cap / Team Name patches as well. The earliest patch has a lighter share of blue (just like we saw with the Logo patches above):

Just as the skyline in the logo changed to a darker shade of blue, so did the blue on the Cap / Team Name patches. The patch on the bottom left has a lighter shade of orange while the patch on the bottom right has a darker shade of orange, which is also consistent with the changes made to the logo patches.

Fleer Baseball Cloth Patches - Montreal Expos

The Expos have 2 different City / Logo Patches which can be distinguished by the fact that one has the "Peel Off Here" instructions, "Real Cloth", "Official" and the Fleer Logo in black (which can hardly be seen at all against the dark background) as seen on the patch on the left:

and another version where the information printed on the border is in white so that you can actually see it. We will see this same variation with a few more teams as we continue through the review. The patch on the left is the earlier version.

There is only one version of the Cap/Team Name patch:

Fleer Baseball Cloth Patches - Minnesota Twins

For the Twins, the City/Logo patches can be found with 3 variations which center around the colors used in the logo. The earliest Twins City / Logo patch has the players wearing blue caps and red sleeves and belts, along with a baseball with red seams as seen on the top left. The next version changed the caps, belts, sleeves and baseball seams to black as seen on the top right:

Color later returned to the logo for the final variation as the sleeves were once again red, and the baseball seams returned to red. However, the caps and belts stayed black, and the baseball and the players sleeves no longer had a black outline.

The variation for the Cap / Team Name patch is more subtle:

The patch on the left has a brighter red "C" than the patch on the right. The version with the brighter red "C" is the earlier version.

Fleer Baseball Cloth Patches - Milwaukee Brewers

Even though the team moved from Seattle to Milwaukee at the end of Spring Training in 1970, the Brewers did not have a Fleer Cloth Patch until 1971. The Seattle Pilots had 2 different sets of patches for 1969 & 1970, meaning the Brewers didn't show up in the set until 1971.

The Brewers had only 1 version of the City / Logo patch:


There are 2 versions of the Cap / Team name patch. The earlier version has no yellow outline around the team name:


While the second version does have the team name outlined in yellow:


I'd like to say Thanks to fellow Fleer collector Craig for the scan of the sticker with the yellow outline.

Fleer Baseball Cloth Patches - Los Angeles Dodgers

The Dodgers have 2 different City / Logo Patches which can be distinguished by the fact that one has a a lighter shade of blue with the team name in a horizontal position while the other has a darker shade of blue and with the team name rising at an angle:


The patch on the left is the earlier of the 2 patches.

There are at least 2 Cap / Team Name color variations:

I say "at least" because there may be another variation with a lighter shade of blue that is a closer match to the light blue in the City/Logo sticker up above on the left, although I've never come across one.

The few auctions & collections I've seen where the Cap/Team Name patch has been in a lot with other 1st issue patches including the lighter blue City/Logo Dodgers patch have been a darker blue, very similar to the Cap/Team Name patch on the left.

Perhaps Fleer used different shades of blue for the Logo vs the Cap patches the year they printed the light blue Logo patch, so there may well be no light blue Dodgers Cap/Team Name patch, but I'm not ready to give up the search yet!

If anyone has a Dodgers Cap / Team Name patch with a lighter shade of blue than what I've posted, I'd be interested to hear from you so I can set the record straight.

Fleer Baseball Cloth Patches - Kansas City Royals

The Royals had no logo change during the 7 year run of the Fleer Cloth Patches, so the only Logo patch variation is a color variation. The earliest patch had a lighter shade of blue as seen on the patch on the left:


Likewise, the Cap/Team Name patches have a similar color variation with the earlier patch having a lighter shade of blue as well as "KC" in gold instead of the familiar white:

This is the same color scheme we saw with the 1969 Trophy Plaques:


Perhaps the team was initially going to use gold for the "KC" when the team was still in its formation stages during 1968 when the artwork was provided to Fleer to be used in their upcoming 1969 sets. I don't know how else you would explain both of these issues having "KC" in gold during the team's inaugural season.

Fleer Baseball Cloth Patches - Houston Astros

The Astros have 3 different City / Logo Patches. The earliest patch has the name Astros in blue with a black outline around the letters, and with the orbiting baseballs making black circles around the Astrodome as seen on the sticker on the top. In addition, the border around the logo is red vs. the logo which is orange:


Later patches do not have a border which is a different color from the logo. In addition, the name is outlined in white as well as the orbiting baseballs are making white circles around the Astrodome. As we saw with the Orioles patches that also contain a lot of orange, there are color variations with a lighter color orange on the left and a darker shade of orange on the right.

There are 3 Cap / Team Name variations, with the earliest version having a black background for the Cap sticker, and a blue star with blue lines over the Team Name:

The subsequent patches had a blue background for the Cap patch, and orange lines over the team name. As with the Logo patches, you can see there are lighter and darker shades of orange for these 2 variations.

Fleer Baseball Cloth Patches - Detroit Tigers

Turning our attention to the Tigers, there are 2 City/Logo patch variations and 2 Cap/Team Name patches.

The Tigers City/Logo patch can be found with 2 different tigers:

The tiger on the left is more orange, and has a different shaped head from the tiger on the right. In addition, the tiger on the left has black whiskers which extend beyond the face while the tiger on the right has white whiskers which do not extend beyond the face. The patch on the left is the earlier of the two patches.

The Cap/Team Name patch was originally an all white Old English "D", which was later revised to be a red "D"with a white outline:

Fleer Baseball Cloth Patches - Cleveland Indians

Next up on our team by team review of the Fleer Baseball Cloth Patches is the Cleveland Indians. There are 3 variations of the Indians City / Logo patch. The earliest patch was issued with the Indian's feather on the right, and later the image was reversed to have the feather on the left:

The final City / Logo patch had the Indian batting against a baseball background.


There are 4 separate versions of the Cap/ Team Name patches. The earliest version is on the top left, and has a slightly different shaped "C" with a darker blue color. The next patch was the one on the top right where the "C" is a lighter shade of blue, and looks just like the "C" on the Reds cap we saw yesterday.


The next version reversed the colors where the "C" is red and the background is blue as seen on the bottom left. The final version (bottom right) changed the lettering for "Indians", and matches the lettering found on the final City / Logo with the Indian batting.

Fleer Baseball Cloth Patches - Cincinnati Reds

The Reds are tied with a few other teams for the fewest number of different Cloth Patches as they only have a total of 3 different stickers over the entire 7 year run of the series.

There are 2 variations of the Fleer Baseball Reds City / Logo patch, with the only difference being the (R) just below the logo on the patch on the right.

The patch on the left without the (R) is the earlier version of the patch.

For the Cap / Team Name patch, there is a single version:

It appears that Fleer used the above design for the Reds all 7 years as I have yet to come across any variation to this patch.

UPDATE: 09 / 12

Thanks to Ray for bringing another variation of the logo patch to my attention.  Here is a variation where there is red piping on the uniform and the "c" on the cap is white:

Ray - Thanks for this great find!

Fleer Baseball Cloth Patches - Chicago White Sox

The White Sox have 2 different City / Logo Patches which can be distinguished by the fact that one has a red circle against a white background while the other has a full red background:


If you take a closer look at the batter on the patches, you'll notice that the uniform on the patch on the right is better defined, down to the pinstripes on the uniform and even a White Sox logo on his stirrups. The patch on the left is the earlier of the two patches.

There are 3 Cap / Team Name variations, with a change in the team name going from vertical (top left) to interlocking horizontal (top right):


and then switching to red when the White Sox changed their uniforms from this:



to this:

Sticky Saturday Mystery

An Atlanta Braves mini sticker has uncovered a very interesting Fleer Sticker mystery, and brought to light a new undocumented sticker variation :


For those of you who haven't read Cardboard Junkie's Sticky Saturday post yet, jump over and read David's tale of the unexplained - then what I am about to cover will make more sense.

Some background: Fleer produced mini cards that were packaged in a boxed set that included 18 team stickers from 1986 - 1988.

The stickers can be found with the following backgrounds:


Based on the mini sets I've opened, I believe the sticker on the left with the star background to be from 1986, the sticker with the blue top and red & white stripes to be from 1987, and the sticker on the right with the green top and red & white stripes to be from 1988. The 1986 & 1987 stickers are blank backs, while the 1988 mini sticker has stadiums on the back, just like the Fleer stickers that were inserted in the regular 1988 Fleer packs.

Getting back to our story, a few weeks ago I sent David some Fleer Braves stickers, and he has been posting some of them each Saturday. A few weeks ago he posted the Braves mini sticker, and I commented that I had gone through 3 mini sets trying to collect the entire set of 26 teams (since each boxed set only contains 18 stickers you can't get all the teams with 1 set!). I mentioned I was down to just needing 1 more sticker (Rangers) from the set with the star background which I believed to be from 1986 (since the 3 boxes I had bought were the 1986 set), and David replied that he had just been thinking about buying some mini sets himself.

Then last week, David posted the stickers from a 1986 mini box he'd bought, trying to see if he could locate the Rangers sticker I was looking for. He found a Rangers sticker in the 1986 box, but it didn't have the star backgound - it had red & white stripes in the background with blue on the top. I commented that it looked like he had 1987 stickers with his 1986 cards.

With this week's post, David has posted the stickers he got from the 1987 mini box he also purchased, and sure enough the stickers that came with the 1987 set match the stickers he had gotten with the 1986 set. This seems to support the theory that David's 1986 mini box had somehow been packed with 1987 stickers.

It would appear that it would be time to say case closed - the 1986 mini set had probably been opened by someone who also had a 1987 set, and the collector at some point got the stickers between the 2 years mixed up when they put them back in the box to sell them. Innocent enough mistake since there is no date on the stickers.

But, then there is this.......


In 1986 Fleer used the trident logo for the Mariners (as seen on the yellow bordered sticker below), and in 1987 Fleer started using the M's logo (as seen on the blue bordered sticker)


So now what do we do? We've got a Fleer mini set with what appear to be 1987 stickers, but that sticker design can be found with 2 different Mariners logo variations, one of which was last used in 1986?

If we move ahead to 1988, I think we may have the answer. Take a look...

The 1988 Fleer stickers that were inserted in wax packs have both the older and newer versions of the Pirates logo. It would appear that Fleer started with the older logo, and at some point during the production process switched to the newer logo.

I'm guessing the same thing happened with the 1987 mini stickers. Early in the print run they were using the older Mariners logo, and then once they got the artwork for the newer logo or realized they were using an out of date logo, they switched.

However - this then begs the question - would the same variation exist for the regular stickers that were included in wax packs? I don't think the variation exists as I've never seen the trident logo on the 1987 stickers - but then again I didn't know about the 1988 Pirates variation until a month ago when I was going through some stickers I'd received and realized I'd gotten the older logo which I'd never seen before.

This is my guess at an explanation:

The logo for the regular stickers was correct from the start as the 1987 design with the trophies is a completely different design from 1986 and they used the correct new logo from the beginning, whereas the 1987 mini sticker set was the same layout as 1986 but just with a different background so that initially they just changed the background and didn't catch the fact that they were using the older Mariners logo and later corrected it when they realized the mistake. This would seem to be the most plausible answer.

However, this still doesn't explain why David got 1987 stickers in his 1986 box, and it doesn't explain an ebay auction showing the same thing:


Here are those same stickers showing up for a 1987 sticker set:


If anyone has the 1986 Fleer Mini set in their collection, I'd be interested to know which sticker design you have with your set. The 3 sets I have opened have the star backround. It could be they did a 2nd print run of the 1986 mini cards and started using the 1987 sticker design, or perhaps they were dumping the remaining 1986 inventory using the 1987 stickers that they were already printing up for the next year's set rather than print up more 1986 stickers.

A special thanks to David from Cardboard Junkie for busting these boxes and posting the results. Congratulations on discovering a previously unknown sticker variation!

Fleer Baseball Cloth Patches - Chicago Cubs

Fleer kept things pretty simple for the Cubs patches - just 2 City/Logo patch variations and 2 Cap/Team Name patches.

The Cubs City/Logo patch can be found with a light blue circle around the logo with a brighter shade of red and smaller letting for "UBS" as seen on the left vs. a darker blue circle, a darker shade of red, and larger letting for "UBS" as seen on the right:


The Cap/Team Name also reflects the same color differences as seen below:


In both cases, the patches with the lighter shade of blue are the earlier version of the patches.

UPDATE 4/13

Thanks to Ray from Cardboardgold4u, who let me know that he found a Cubs Fleer Cloth Patch variation that I had not previously been aware of:

At first glance, there doesn't appear to be anything different about this patch.  To see the difference, you need to look at the "UBS" inside of the large "C".   The letters are further to the left and the S is completely inside the "C", whereas most patches with the darker blue background have the letters more to the right of the "C", as seen in the picture above.

This newly discovered patch shows that for at least one year Fleer changed the color from light blue to dark blue and kept the Cubs logo the same before transitioning to the logo with the letters inside the "C" moved slightly to the right.

Thanks again to Ray for this new discovery!