Today's title sounds like some insert set from the late '90s. Actually it looks like Upper Deck had a set called Evolution in 2001.
But I'm not looking at inserts. I'm looking at the Fleer patches and cards from the late '60s and early '70s.
Saturday I showed the three versions of the Fleer "City" patches. The Cubs logo evolved in both color and design. A look back on some other Fleer items from the same era show the same evolution process. Take a look.
I've got the quiz card, logo patch and city patch. These are the versions originally issured by Fleer. Two of the three have the small UBS and all three have a lighter shade of blue.
With the second version, the color evolved to a darker shade which matches more closely to the one actually used by the Cubs. The UBS got bigger, too.
The evolution ends as the UBS gets slid into the proper position, where the S lines up with the ends of the C.
Is it safe to say that Fleer paid attention to their product and wanted to get it right?
That's a novel concept in the baseball card industry.
I started chasing down these logo patches years ago and was shocked at how many different variations there were. I'm still trying to pick up all of the different A's and Padres variations.
ReplyDeleteI find that smaller "ubs" font interesting. There is a nice charm behind it being so incredibly off.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'll hate on the Cubs day and night, but one of the best things they did was to right justify the "ubs" part of the logo. Looks SOOOOOOOOO much better (for a crappy team :) ).