1961 Topps Magic Rub-Offs

Topps entered the baseball insert market with this little set, packaged in first series wax packs in 1961. In what can only be seen as a response to Leaf and Fleer's incursion into the baseball card market, the brain trust at Topps started working overtime to design inserts, premium offers and supplemental issues. This is a typical Topps move and many of the innovations they spawned over the years were the direct result of either real or perceived forays into their markets by other manufacturers. For this set, 18 players with unusual nicknames were caricatured on pieces of waxed paper. An additional 18 rub offs contain team pennants, including the two newest entries into the American League, the Washington Senators and Los Angeles Angels and those erstwhile former Senators, the Minnesota Twins.. The dimensions of 2 1/16" x 3 1/16" are not always uniform, but there doesn't seem to be a really big chance that these inserts have ever been reproduced by other parties. You can find these rub offs at just about any big show and they don't really present any problems in obtaining superstars, since the two big names are Banks and Berra.

1    Detroit Tigers
2    New York Yankees
3    Minnesota Twins
4    Washington Senators
5    Boston Red Sox
6    Los Angeles Angels
7    Kansas City A's
8    Baltimore Orioles
9    Chicago White Sox
10   Cleveland Indians
11   Pittsburgh Pirates
12   San Francisco Giants
13   Los Angeles Dodgers
14   Philadelphia Phillies
15   Cincinnati Redlegs
16   St. Louis Cardinals
17   Chicago Cubs
18   Milwaukee Braves
19   John Romano
20   Ray Moore
21   Ernie Banks
22   Charlie Maxwell
23   Yogi Berra
24   Henry "Dutch" Dotterer
25   Jim Brosnan
26   Billy Martin
27   Jackie Brandt
28   Duke Mass (sic, Maas)
29   Pete Runnels
30   Joe Gordon MG
31   Sam Jones
32   Walt Moryn
33   Harvey Haddix
34   Frank Howard
35   Turk Lown
36   Frank Herrera