Saturday, September 6, 2014

Two Way Player

Far less well known than the 1960 Baseball Tattoo issue, Topps also issued a football counterpart in 1960 that does not even make the pages of some major price guides.  It's been discussed here before but the length of the set was a mystery, although surmised to be 96. The way we knew this is thanks to some stellar work by Jon over at the (almost-but-hopefully-not-dormant) Fleer Sticker Project blog in detailing two 32 subject uncut sheets and the existence of poses not on those sheets. But a full checklist of all 96 subjects has never been published (until today).

Working with Friend o'the Archive Mike Blaisdell, every one of the little buggers has been now confirmed.

First though, here is a much better scan of the wrapper exterior than I have ever had before, thanks to Mike:


Mike also has a great sell sheet for the set.  Check this out:


Here are the two uncut sheets from the Fleer Sticker Project, I usually link to scans others have posted first (and if you look near the top of this post you can click through to that site) but I've mirrored the two sheets Jon posted over there to make them easier to decipher. 




Once I did that I thought it would be a good idea to start putting together a checklist based on his scans and tattoos that exist but are not on the known sheets.I got it down to four or maybe six missing subjects but it's a little tricky with the generic subjects. Mike's yeoman work on the unknown scans did the trick though.

All subjects below are identified as they would look after applied to the skin (i.e. not reversed) and verified by a scan seen by either Mike (a trustworthy lad) or yours truly.  An (H) indicates a horizontally oriented tattoo within the generic subjects, of which there are eight.  As it turns out there are 13 NFL player portraits (one player from each team), 13 NFL team logos, 47 college logos and 23 generic subjects.

NFL PLAYER TATTOOS
Walt Anderson (actually Bill Anderson)
Chuck Bednarik
Jimmy Brown
Rick Casares
Howard Cassady
Bobby Joe Conrad
Frank Gifford
Paul Hornung
Bobby Layne
Ray Mathews
Y.A. Tittle
Johnny Unitas
Bill Wade 

NFL TEAM LOGOS
Baltimore Colts
Chicago Bears
Cleveland Browns
Dallas Cowboys
Detroit Lions
Green Bay Packers 
Los Angeles Rams
New York Giants
Philadelphia Eagles
Pittsburgh Steelers
St. Louis Cardinals
San Francisco 49'ers
Washington Redskins

COLLEGE TEAM LOGOS
Air Force Academy
Army
Baylor 
Boston College Eagles
California
Columbia
Dartmouth 
Duke
Illinois 
Indiana 
Iowa Hawkeyes
Kentucky 
L.S.U.
Maryland
Michigan
Michigan State 
Minnesota Golden Gophers
Mississippi Rebels
Navy
Nebraska 
Northwestern
Notre Dame
Oklahoma 
Oregon Ducks
Oregon State
Penn Quakers
Penn State
Pittsburgh Panthers
Princeton
Purdue Boilermakers
Rice Owls
Rutgers Scarlet Knights
South Carolina Gamecocks
So. Cal
S.M.U. Mustangs
Stanford
Syracuse
Temple
Tennessee
Texas
T.C.U.
U.C.L.A.
Virginia Cavaliers
Washington Huskies
Washington State Cougars
Wisconsin Badgers
Wyoming

GENERIC SUBJECTS
Blocker on one knee facing right, yellow helmet, red shirt, green pants (H)
Lateral, both players red helmet, yellow uniform (H)
Player arguing with Referee, player is tall and in green uniform, ref has red shirt & green pants
Player leaping with hands up, green shirt, #41, yellow pants
Player on one knee, all yellow uniform, #52
Player portrait, #25, TOUGH! in red letters
Punter, #16, in follow through, Defender nearby, punter red shirt, yellow pants and helmet, Defender white uniform #22
Punter or Receiver, yellow shirt #11, red pants
Quarterback about to throw, red helmet, green shirt, #15, yellow pants
Quarterback about to throw, red helmet, green shirt, red pants, #45
Quarterback about to throw, yellow uniform, red helmet, #62
Receiver about to catch ball, yellow helmet, green shirt, red pants
Receiver and Defender going for ball, player on left blue shirt, #40, green pants, player on right red shirt, #15
Referee running with whistle in mouth, yellow striped shirt, red pants and hat
Runner with ball, red helmet, red shirt, green pants
Runner with no ball, green shirt,#8, green pants & helmet, red square on bottom half
Runner with no ball, green uniform, yellow helmet, white square on bottom half
Tackler in yellow uniform with red helmet bringing down receiver with green uniform & red helmet (H)
Tackler grabbing receiver's shirt, tackler yellow helmet & pants, green shirt, receiver green helmet & pants, yellow shirt, red rectangle on bottom half (H)
Tackler in green shirt, red pants, yellow helmet causing receiver in red shirt, white pants & green helmet to fumble (H)
Tackler missing Receiver with ball, tackler red uniform, receiver yellow uniform (H)
Three Players Running,  green, yellow & red (H)
Two Players diving for loose ball, lowest player has yellow shirt & red pants, highest player has red shirt (H)

I also had an O-Pee-Chee version listed on my master checklist but am now convinced it's the same as the US one; in true Topps fashion the wrapper also lists information for Canadian sale.
          


1 comment:

Fleerfan said...

Great detective work on confirming the total number of subjects for this set. Glad the scans from the Topps Vault were helpful in completing the checklist.