Cards That Never Were #22

1964 Fleer - Maury Wills

Wait. There wasn't a Fleer set in 1964. If that's what you said to yourself, you are absolutely right. Until 1966, Fleer held the contract rights to many players, which meant that unless Fleer put out a set or a regional set came out, you weren't going to see that player on a Topps card. In fact, with the exception of an obvious cameo in a World Series card, Maury didn't have a Topps card issued until 1967, with the Pirates. Until then, Maury Wills fans would have to settle with a 1963 Fleer card and a smattering of food and team releases.

How do you create a design for a baseball card set that never existed? You draw inspiration from other designs that came out from the company. There is only room for speculation when it comes to a design for a possible 1964 Fleer set. Unlike 1956 Bowman, I haven't heard of any prototypes that came out for 1964 Fleer.

This particular design came from Fleer's 1963 football set. The same basic layout is used for the Maury Wills card, only the colors have changed. I went with a muted yellow color because yellow is a color that Fleer seems to always come back to. I would theorize that Fleer would have used this color to differentiate this set from the football set. The lettering color was chosen as an homage to the original football set's main color.