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How come the 49ers used two different number fonts in 1996?


phutmasterflex

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11 hours ago, BRice16 said:

 

No, they never had Wilson logos on them. Wilson was just the manufacturer, they put the Reebok logos on all the on-field products the 49ers wore. 

 

 

Maybe not that season, but their jerseys had Wilson logos the season before. So I would assume the Wilson-produced jerseys originally had Wilson branding, but it was taken off and covered with Reebok logos.

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57 minutes ago, TheOldRoman said:

 

Maybe not that season, but their jerseys had Wilson logos the season before. So I would assume the Wilson-produced jerseys originally had Wilson branding, but it was taken off and covered with Reebok logos.

 

Both scenarios are plausible.

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6 hours ago, sc49erfan15 said:

I've posted about this before (years ago, so it's not like an "ahem, this has been covered before" topic) and I can't find it anyway, so...

 

I always heard the reason for this switch was a legibility issue. The very thick numbers and drop shadow combined to make numbers like 8s and 6s illegible (especially from each other) from a distance. This is the same reason the Jacksonville Jaguars switched fonts after the 1997 preseason (interestingly, the number font the Jaguars were originally switching from is the same "thick" font as the early 1996 49ers font, just without a drop shadow. The Jaguars wore it from 1995-96; in 1995 on Wilson/Staff jerseys and in 1996 on Nike).

 

I can't find any sources to back this legibility claim up, but this is always what I heard. Take it for what it's worth, but I remember this vividly.

 

My source on the manufacturer/contractor change is a person that worked at Wilson at the time. The custom font was a chnage Reebok made when they took over, but couldn't get implemented until the ACO set came through. 

 

 

1 hour ago, TheOldRoman said:

 

Maybe not that season, but their jerseys had Wilson logos the season before. So I would assume the Wilson-produced jerseys originally had Wilson branding, but it was taken off and covered with Reebok logos.

 

It's possible, since the Wilson logo was a patch (Would have been the W/S patch) and the Reebok vector was a direct sew, but I haven't seen evidence of that on gamers from that era. There was a guy on the old Next Level Talk forum that had 4 or 5 of the 50th anniversary gamers, I think all of them from before the change. I know that Wilson did the embroidery of the Reebok logo in their factory before they were shipped to the 49ers, so no one would have ever seen them with the Wilson logo, other than samples for the team. 

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2 hours ago, TheOldRoman said:

Speaking of Next Level Talk, has a message board taken its place? I was on Jersey Talk (or something like that), then followed the mass to NLT when that shut down, but then I forgot about that site and it was gone when I visited again.

 

I don't know, but man I miss that place. The buy/sell/trade forum was awesome, but I LOVED seeing people's new pickups. 

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Very interesting info, BRice. Never knew any of that.

 

I vaguely recognize both of you from NLT and/or JerseyCentral - there was another Jersey-Central site and now projerseytalk.com, but I don't frequent it as much as NLT and the first iteration of JC. I no longer buy jerseys with any real frequency, but man do I miss NLT/JC and the jersey communities of 2006-10 or so.

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