My appreciation for vintage continues to grow. When you combine oddball food issues with vintage, I fall in love. Armour did just that in 1955, 1959, and 1960. Today, I will share some info about the 1960 coins which is inspired by the contents of a recent collection I purchased!

Cracking Open the Package

Twenty major league players make up the checklist for the 1960 set. That doesn’t seem too bad, right?

Not so fast.

There are a two things that are consistent across the three years of Armour Baseball Coin releases: Variations and Colors. The tradition continues in 1960 with a couple variations and a whole host of color options to choose from. One version of the Hank Aaron coin lists his team as “Braves” while the more rare variation has it as “Milwaukee Braves”. Frank Malzone has a similar team variation, and the spacing of L.A. on the Drysdale coin adds another twist. Approximately 20 different colors of plastic were used for the coins, but not all players had all the colors, and they were not all produced with the same frequency. Some were very common, and some were extremely rare “test issues”.

Dr. Phil Garrou has a blog dedicated to these coins and wrote three great articles for Sports Collectors Daily. Here are links to the 1955 post, the 1959, and the 1960. I highly recommend reading them if you want to do a deep dive into these little plastic pieces of magic.

My Personal Experience

My own interest in these came from a recent collection I purchased. The original advertisement to the right was included along with a handful of coins! As I said before, I’m a sucker for food issue oddballs and seeing the original artwork for this ad was the icing on the cake, or maye the mustard on the bun in this case.

The poster is in great shape, but it appears at some point, a collector affixed three original coins to the poster. A blue Hank Aaron, a blue Nellie Fox, and red Frank Robinson coin are safely secured inside the frame.

Not only did customers get a coin inside, but they had a chance to win a trip to the All-Star game among 2,300 additional prizes. The colors and artwork on this piece really stand out. Two more coins from the set were included in the collection as well. They are both of Chicago Cub great Ernie Banks!

I’m going to include pictures of them showing the front and back at the end of the post. When I come across stuff like this, questions always come to mind. Why the four year break between 1955 and 1959. Why stop after 1960? Why only 20 players, and why 20 different colors (even more with the older sets)?

1960 Armour Baseball Coins Checklist

National League

Ernie Banks

Ken Boyer

Ed Matthews

Don Drysdale

Willie Mays

Vada Pinson

Gene Conley

Dick Stuart

Del Crandell

Hank Aaron

American league

Nellie Fox

Al Kaline

Bud Daley

Mickey Mantle

Frank Malzone

Bob Allison

Gus Triandos

Rocky Colavito

Whitey Ford

Early Wynn