Hot Hot Hot!

In the summer of 1959, it was quite fashionable for the younger set to take a plain white T shirt and adorn it with an iron on patch.  Indeed, in the days before logo'd shirts ubiquitous, having your mom take her iron to create a fresh new look was practically the only way to show your devotion to a team or breakfast cereal.

Topps, which was still hawking premiums in their nickel packs of cards at this point, had long sold felt emblems, letter and numbers, decals and other sundry for a relative pittance and a handful of Bazooka wrappers to the denizens of kiddieland.   In 1959 Hot Iron Transfers of your favorite MLB team were the enticement, as thee scans (mostly)  from Columbia City Collectibles show:

That's actually the front of an envelope, which held a folded transfer.  Before we look at those, here is a fuzzy scan of the envelope's back:

Before they outsourced their premium fulfillment operations in the 1960's, Topps filled such orders with a small team of dedicated personnel in Bush Terminal.  The decals are typical of the time in that Topps created their own version of each team's logo, although these are closer to the real ones than many of their other attempts:

You can see the fold mark running across the decal.  Here it is, mirrored:

Here's a couple more:

1958-60 was a real sweet spot for baseball themed Bazooka premiums.  More to come (eventually)!