Vintage 1994 NCAA College Football Penn State Nittany Lions 🏈 Temporary Tattoos

Remember Penn State's 1994 Season? 🏈 Vintage NCAA Nittany Lions Temporary Tattoos

Size: 5 1/2" x 4 1/2"

🏈 In 1994 Penn State went 12-0, beat Oregon in the Rose Bowl, and still finished second in the polls. This unopened pack of Nittany Lions temporary tattoos carries that same year on its front, printed under a pair of drawings of the most guarded statue in State College: the Nittany Lion Shrine.

🦁 What is in the package

A Tag Express temporary tattoo pack for the Pennsylvania State University, in a clear hard plastic case with a punched hang tab. The front card carries a red COLLEGIATE LICENSED PRODUCT seal, a flag-waving MADE IN USA, and four promises: Applies in seconds · Lasts for days · Easy to remove · Safe non-toxic. Under a red ribbon banner reading TEMPORARY TATTOOS, CONTAINS: 3 ASSORTED TRANSFERS are two navy drawings of the crouching Lion Shrine, paws folded over its rock, and below them the lion-head logo in a navy oval over the PennState wordmark. The foot of the card reads Licensed To and Manufactured By Highgate Products, Inc. 1994.

The back of the card is an instruction sheet from another era: clean the skin, cut out the transfer, peel the protective sheet, press it on tacky side down, wet the back with a sponge or cloth, wait 30 seconds, slide off the paper and rinse. It "Lasts 3-5 days," you can "Swim & shower with them," and it comes off with rubbing alcohol, baby oil or adhesive tape. The ingredient list names P.V.A. copolymer, FD&C Blue No. 1, FD&C Yellow No. 5 & 6, FD&C Red No. 40, D&C cosmetic black oxide and white titanium dioxide, with a tip in small print: for a more realistic look, wash lightly with soap and water. The line at the bottom reads MANUFACTURED FOR TAG EXPRESS, DULUTH, GA 30136, MADE IN U.S.A. By Highgate Products, Inc. The photographed back still wears a $3.29 store price sticker.

Package size: 5 1/2" x 4 1/2" ~.

🗿 The statue on the card

The lion drawn twice on this pack is the Nittany Lion Shrine, a gift of Penn State's Class of 1940. Sculptor Heinz Warneke and stonecutter Joseph Garatti carved it from a 13-ton block of Indiana limestone, and Warneke worked on it from June 1942 until October 3, finishing in less than four months. It was dedicated on October 24, 1942, during Homecoming, on a rise between Rec Hall and the old New Beaver Field.

It has needed protecting ever since. In 1966 six Syracuse University students doused the lion in orange paint from a fire extinguisher, and guarding the shrine through Homecoming weekend became a campus tradition that Lion Ambassadors and ROTC volunteers still keep today. For generations of Penn Staters, a photo with the shrine is the photo.

⚾ A mascot invented on a baseball trip

Penn State did not have a lion until 1904, when third baseman Harrison "Joe" Mason was touring Princeton's campus with his teammates before a game. A Princeton player bragged about the ferocity of the Princeton Tiger, and Mason answered on the spot: "Well, up at Penn State we have Mount Nittany right on our campus, where rules the Nittany Mountain Lion, who has never been beaten in a fair fight." The bluff stuck. Nearly four decades later Mason, a 1907 graduate, stood up at the shrine's dedication and told the story of the mascot he had made up that day.

🏆 1994: the champions that never were

The year on this package is the year of the team Penn State fans still argue about. Joe Paterno's 1994 Nittany Lions went 12-0 behind quarterback Kerry Collins and running back Ki-Jana Carter, put five players on All-America teams, and scored more than 40 points a game. They beat Oregon 38-20 in the Rose Bowl on January 2, 1995, and finished No. 2 anyway, behind an equally unbeaten Nebraska that claimed the national championship. The two teams never met: the Big Ten's contract sent Penn State to Pasadena while Nebraska played in the Orange Bowl.

That snub had a legacy. The old bowl tie-ins that kept two perfect teams apart were exactly what the Bowl Championship Series was built to fix, and in 1998 the Big Ten, the Pac-10 and the Rose Bowl finally joined it. The 1994 team helped push college football toward deciding its champion on the field.

🏟️ Happy Valley's house

Beaver Stadium is the second-largest stadium in the country, seating 106,572 against Michigan Stadium's 107,601, and Penn State's renovation could push it past Michigan for the top spot. On a White Out night the whole bowl is packed in white, and on game days it becomes one of the biggest gatherings in Pennsylvania.

📜 When college logos became big business

The "Collegiate Licensed Product" seal on this pack belongs to the era when colleges were only starting to police their own marks. The Collegiate Licensing Company was founded in 1981 by Bill Battle, the former Tennessee coach, after he signed Alabama's Bear Bryant to a licensing deal and found the University of Alabama had no licensing program at all. Alabama became his first school client, and by 1983 he had signed eight more and moved the company from Selma, Alabama, to Atlanta. Tag Express worked from Duluth, Georgia, in the same Atlanta orbit, turning school logos into dime-a-dozen game-day items like this one.

✔️ Condition, in his words

Package is 5 1/2" x 4 1/2"~ I have never opened one as I don't want to ruin one to give more specifics or pictures as they are limited. One of them has some glue from the box it was in on the package; that will be the last one I sell. Tag Express products are top notch though always from what I have found.

Are the Nittany Lions going to win it all??? This could be another championship year! My pictures seriously don't do it justice. Go Penn State!!!

❓ Questions People Ask

What year are these Penn State tattoos from?
The package is marked Highgate Products, Inc. 1994.

How many tattoos are inside?
The card says it contains 3 assorted transfers. The pack is unopened.

What is the lion drawn on the package?
The Nittany Lion Shrine, the limestone statue carved by Heinz Warneke and Joseph Garatti and dedicated at Penn State in 1942.

Can you still apply them?
They are unopened original stock from 1994 and are sold as a collectible; the application steps are printed on the back.

Who made them?
Highgate Products, Inc. made them in the U.S.A. for Tag Express of Duluth, Georgia.

Why didn't the 1994 Penn State team win the national title?
Both Penn State and Nebraska finished unbeaten, bowl contracts kept them from playing each other, and the polls voted Nebraska No. 1.