Saturday, May 26, 2018

1987 Buffalo Bills Uniform Anomaly—Two Different Fonts for Numerals

LOOKING BACK
By John Turney

In 1987 the Buffalo Bills introduced a new font to their jerseys—on some of them anyway. The font we became familiar with during the Bills Super Bowl run seemed to be introduced in 1987 and then fully in 1988. The most noted differences were in the "2s" and "7s".

Here is the only example I can find of the "2". It is angeled. 
 Jim Kelly's "2" is square.
These fonts are slightly different. Andre Reed (83) has the newer font.
Bruce Smith's "7" does not have a serif on the bottom and Scott Radecic's does.

Nate Odomes and  Ron Pitts have the full block "7" with the serif on the bottom










4 comments:

  1. This is simply sand knit/ champion. 86 (kellys rookie year) was the last year the Bills wore sand knit full time. 87 had the stars/starters mostly wearing champion (a port hole set to start the year but was banned which might be why sand knit was utilized as much as it was) and the scrubs had SK. Oddly, the only time Kelly wore SK this year was the above pictured game as it was a white SK jersey w a hand warmer. The blue champion hand warmer was worn, and i actually own the white champion hand warmer BUT for some reason he opted for the old style. There were a couple rare SK sightings through 1988 and then it was all Champion through 1996 with a small exception in 1992/93 as various players wore apex one- which, again had a slightly different font. Check out @yellowsub73 on IG for pics! Any questions about Bills unis, hit me up there as well! Good eye!

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  2. Actually, that's not Cornelius Bennett in those pictures. That is actually John Radecic wearing #97. When Bennett arrived with the Bills mid-season 1987, he was issued #55 and it wasn't until 1990 that he would be given his old college #97.

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