Today’s card of the day is a Boston Patriots 1960 Fleer AFL Team Decal. The decal (actually a sticker–more on that below) pictures Pat Patriot, the logo that appeared on Patriots helmets from 1961 to 1993. The man who created Pat Patriot, former Boston Globe cartoonist Phil Bissell, passed away last week at the age of 97.
1960 Fleer AFL Team Decals and 1960 Fleer College Decals were inserts in packs of 1960 Fleer football cards. I believe they were the first-ever inserts in football card packs, an innovation from Fleer in their first football card offering. Topps, who had been in the football card market for several years, quickly followed suit and added metallic NFL and college stickers to their 1960 football card packs.
Though Fleer called its inserts “decals” (see the 1960 Fleer football card wrapper), I believe they are technically just stickers. According to an article at logotech.com, decals have three parts: backing paper, transfer paper, and the decal itself. To apply a decal, one first removes the backing paper, then presses on the transfer paper to stick the decal to the target surface, then peels away the transfer paper. Stickers, on the other hand, have just two parts: the sticker and the backing paper. I don’t have one of the 1960 Fleer inserts on hand, but I’m pretty sure they only have the backing paper.
You can see the full set of 1960 Fleer AFL Team Decals in the Gallery.
Nice as a tribute to Phil Bissell. Love the old Fleer logo cards/stickers.
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