Wax, Ink and Common Borders

Wax

The adhesive that shows up on the backs of 1962 Post cereal football cards is a byproduct of the wax liner bag being affixed to the inside of the box. The common term for the adhesive is "wax," as it often resembles a paraffin-like substance. This is especially true for cards near the top of seven card boxes and Alpha-Bits ¾ oz. cards. Other boxes such as 12 oz. Grape Nuts Flakes and Top 3 10 oz. have the look of contact cement sprayed down each side of the inside back panel, fading in intensity from top to bottom. Oat Flakes 10 oz. boxes have adhesive in the top center and 8 oz. Post Toasties have the same mark plus adhesive down the sides a la GNF12 and Top 3.

Knowledge of which cards have adhesive on the back can often help to identify the product from which the card came. Norman Snead #198 has two cards—16 oz. Bran Flakes and Sugar Coated Corn Flakes 10 oz.—that are cropped nearly the same and the coloring on the cards, while different, can be difficult. The absolute sure way to tell is to look at the back for adhesive at the top. The SCCF10 has adhesive and the BF16 does not. So if you can get a back scan or the seller provides the information in the description or will answer your question, you're in business.

Each product has an image of an inside back panel under the Cereal/Boxes tab to illustrate which cards on a panel will be affected by the adhesive. Whether adhesive is present or not is included in the information for each card in the Master Set card by card breakdown.

	1962 Post Cereal Football Product Adhesive List
Product	Wax Location Affecting Cards
Alpha-Bits ¾ oz.	Honeycomb pattern/solid horizontal strip across bottom and small amount right side halfway up
Alpha-Bits 13 oz.	Upper right card at top
Alpha-Bits 8 oz.	None
Bran Flakes 16 oz.	Upper right card at top, sometimes cards around positions 5, 6 & 7
Bran Flakes 11 oz.	None
Crispy Critters 13 oz.	Upper right card at top
Crispy Critters 8 oz.	None
Grape Nuts 16 oz.	None
Grape Nuts 11 oz.	None
Grape Nuts Flakes 16 oz.	Upper right card at top
Grape Nuts Flakes 12 oz.	Outside edges of most cards
Oat Flakes 10 oz.	Top card behind upper left corner
Post Tens	None
Post Toasties 18 oz.	Upper right card at top
Post Toasties 12 oz. Top Flap	Possibly a very thin strip on the top of the first card (upper left)
Post Toasties 12 oz. Flip-Out Spout	None
Post Toasties 8 oz.	Top card behind upper left corner, often across bottom of cards on left side of panel and outside edge of cards on the right
Raisin Bran 14 oz.	None
Raisin Bran 10 oz.	None
Rice Krinkles 10 oz.	Random pattern can affect any or all of the cards
Sugar Crisp 14 oz.	Upper right card at top
Sugar Crisp 9 oz.	None
Sugar Coated Corn Flakes 10 oz.	Upper right card at top
Top 3 10 oz.	Outside edges of most cards

 

Ink Intensity

Cards of the same player from different products naturally have different coloring due to the fact that their rotogravure cylinders were created at different times. Two panels created by separate rotogravure cylinders, even when made from the same basic photograph as were Grape Nuts 12 oz. and Top 3 10 oz. panels, will not be colored identically. In the case of GNF12 and Top 3, it appears that Post set the cyan and magenta ink supplies to the exact shade they desired to highlight the front of the box and the back header. This would make the two products be printed slightly different colors. For the most part, situations like this resulted in reasonable consistency over the span of the print run. But there are cards that have obviously run low on cyan, yellow, magenta or black resulting in multiple color variations that are easy to spot. When magenta runs low, colors change:

Grape Nuts Flakes 16 oz. #12 Bart Starr

This illustrates what can happen when ink runs low on Grape Nuts Flakes 12 oz. and Top 3 10 oz. cards. While there are general color consistencies that allow collectors to tell GNF12 and Top 3 cards apart, low ink can affect the appearance enough to confuse identification.

These cards of #32 Maxie Baughan are both from 14 oz. Sugar Crisp panels. The coloring is quite different. Both color variations are fairly common. Whether this is the result of two separate sets of rotogravure cylinders due to mechanical failure or is an ink intensity byproduct isn't known.

Sugar Crisp 14 oz. #32 Maxie Baughan

Common Borders

There are four products that were printed such that each of the cards shared a border with the card beside it. The Alpha-Bits 8 oz. panels shown above are examples of common border cards. Cutting these cards was difficult without cutting into the adjacent card. The products that featured common border panels were Alpha-Bits 8 oz., Crispy Critters 8 oz., Bran Flakes 11 oz. and Sugar Crisp 9 oz. There were six cards in the set that were printed only on common border panels.

1962 Post Cereal Football Common Border Cards
Card		Player	Product 1	Product 2	Product 3
68		John Morrow	Alpha-Bits 8 oz.	Crispy Critters 8 oz.
80		Dee Mackey	Alpha-Bits 8 oz.	Bran Flakes 11 oz.	Crispy Critters 8 oz.
87		Bill Pellington	Alpha-Bits 8 oz.	Bran Flakes 11 oz.	Crispy Critters 8 oz.
99		Jerry Mertens	Bran Flakes 11 oz.	Sugar Crisp 9 oz.
162		Zeke Bratkowski	Bran Flakes 11 oz.	Sugar Crisp 9 oz.
195		John Paluck	Alpha-Bits 8 oz.	Bran Flakes 11 oz.	Crispy Critters 8 oz.