1989 Fleer Randy Johnson #381 Marlboro Errors - 30 Years Later

[Hatorade]

Originally Posted by bnorth

Why would you put the clearest version in the blue group? That scan shows less red than I have seen in other scans of the 2 known clearest versions. To me it would be the the lightest red tint.

I also have one of the blue box cards. Pretty sure I have posted a pic of it.

That's a great question Ben. I believe your blue card is the one you posted about in this thread, correct?

https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=218755

With your card you can read the lettering in Marlboro pretty well in the scan despite the amount of tinting over the ad. Your card was one of the 4 or 5 that will fall in the mid-blue level on Steve's chart. With the blue box version I referenced you are unable to view the Marlboro lettering in the scan of the card and appears very much like some other "box" versions, but unlike those other versions with the blue box card in hand, you can still read the letters in Marlboro. The blue box version is the 3rd image on post #41.

To follow up with your question, the lightest known red versions are the cards like the bottom three cards from the none column. As you mentioned, the "clear" card that I suggested be moved to top of the blue column has very little to no red tinting on the card and as the card does gain tinting over the ad its blue tinting and not red so it gets progressively bluer and not more red with additional tint. With the way Fleer produced the cards the clear versions go from clear to mid-blue to blue box and why I suggest that the top card in the none column and Kevin's card go atop the future blue column. This is also why I suggested the other cards in the none column be moved to the top of 2 future red columns. As these 2 red run of cards gain more tint they become darker red and become so much darker red they transition to the two other cards I included in post #41.

I also suggested that he add two columns to his chart for the fish versions. If you look at the 2 different albums of the versions of the fish on my Flickr page you'll notice that the cards are setup in similar fashion to what Steve is suggesting in his chart. The top cards have very little tinting and the cards at the bottom have so much tinting that they transition into "box" versions. The cards transitioning is not a coincidence, but how Fleer covered the error.

By making some changes to his chart I think we can highlight the different versions and how each version transitions in a lineage from light to darker. I don't have it 100% figured out at this point, but if I'm wrong I think it will come out pretty quick by trying to develop the chart further. If I'm right filling in the gaps will be fun and give us a better understanding of the errors.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by Hatorade

That's a great question Ben. I believe your blue card is the one you posted about in this thread, correct?

https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=218755

With your card you can read the lettering in Marlboro pretty well in the scan despite the amount of tinting over the ad. Your card was one of the 4 or 5 that will fall in the mid-blue level on Steve's chart. With the blue box version I referenced you are unable to view the Marlboro lettering in the scan of the card and appears very much like some other "box" versions, but unlike those other versions with the blue box card in hand, you can still read the letters in Marlboro. The blue box version is the 3rd image on post #41.

To follow up with your question, the lightest known red versions are the cards like the bottom three cards from the none column. As you mentioned, the "clear" card that I suggested be moved to top of the blue column has very little to no red tinting on the card and as the card does gain tinting over the ad its blue tinting and not red so it gets progressively bluer and not more red with additional tint. With the way Fleer produced the cards the clear versions go from clear to mid-blue to blue box and why I suggest that the top card in the none column and Kevin's card go atop the future blue column. This is also why I suggested the other cards in the none column be moved to the top of 2 future red columns. As these 2 red run of cards gain more tint they become darker red and become so much darker red they transition to the two other cards I included in post #41.

I also suggested that he add two columns to his chart for the fish versions. If you look at the 2 different albums of the versions of the fish on my Flickr page you'll notice that the cards are setup in similar fashion to what Steve is suggesting in his chart. The top cards have very little tinting and the cards at the bottom have so much tinting that they transition into "box" versions. The cards transitioning is not a coincidence, but how Fleer covered the error.

By making some changes to his chart I think we can highlight the different versions and how each version transitions in a lineage from light to darker. I don't have it 100% figured out at this point, but if I'm wrong I think it will come out pretty quick by trying to develop the chart further. If I'm right filling in the gaps will be fun and give us a better understanding of the errors.

No, I have the box version like the one you posted. I will try and find it but it is exactly like the box one you posted. I don't know who owns the one in the link now. I traded it and it has been sold at least once since then.

It is great what you guys are doing. Back when I was hoarding them I always wanted to take pics and make a list for all the different versions.

EDIT: Added pic it is kinda hard t see in the pic but it definitely looks like yours in hand.

[Hatorade]

Originally Posted by bnorth

No, I have the box version like the one you posted. I will try and find it but it is exactly like the box one you posted. I don't know who owns the one in the link now. I traded it and it has been sold at least once since then.

It is great what you guys are doing. Back when I was hoarding them I always wanted to take pics and make a list for all the different versions.

EDIT: Added pic it is kinda hard t see in the pic but it definitely looks like yours in hand.

The card you posted appears to me to be a negative version and not a blue box. The card you posted will have the red squiggle I mentioned in post 42 and no cards from the blue lineage have this squiggle. Would you confirm with a larger image of the front of your card?

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by Hatorade

The card you posted appears to me to be a negative version and not a blue box. The card you posted will have the red squiggle I mentioned in post 42 and no cards from the blue lineage have this squiggle. Would you confirm with a larger image of the front of your card?

I have no idea were the card is at the moment. I have a LOT of cards and they are very unorganized. That was cropped from the COMC scan from when I bought it. When I find the card I will post better pictures.

[steve5838]

Originally Posted by bnorth

No, I have the box version like the one you posted. I will try and find it but it is exactly like the box one you posted. I don't know who owns the one in the link now. I traded it and it has been sold at least once since then.

It is great what you guys are doing. Back when I was hoarding them I always wanted to take pics and make a list for all the different versions.

EDIT: Added pic it is kinda hard t see in the pic but it definitely looks like yours in hand.

Ben, I believe I own the blue one you had. I bought it from David on this board. I'm pretty sure this is the one due to the small scratch over the Marlboro man. I was lucky enough to grab a second blue one on EBay earlier this year. I know Kevin also has one of the blue ones. Outside of these and the ones on Hatorade's site I haven't seen others (but always on the lookout in case more come out of the woodwork).

I'm still hoping to add to my above sketch but have been holding off for some cards to get back from PSA grading so I can scan them. If possible I want to use the same scanner and same settings so I can better differentiate the versions (as opposed to differences in scanner or photo settings).

[Statfreak101]

Originally Posted by steve5838

Ben, I believe I own the blue one you had. I bought it from David on this board. I'm pretty sure this is the one due to the small scratch over the Marlboro man. I was lucky enough to grab a second blue one on EBay earlier this year. I know Kevin also has one of the blue ones. Outside of these and the ones on Hatorade's site I haven't seen others (but always on the lookout in case more come out of the woodwork).

I'm still hoping to add to my above sketch but have been holding off for some cards to get back from PSA grading so I can scan them. If possible I want to use the same scanner and same settings so I can better differentiate the versions (as opposed to differences in scanner or photo settings).

Good stuff.

I just pulled my first rack pack with a Johnson variation on top - black box, and it wasn't during the time period that we all though it "should" be.

What is Hatorade's site? Can you provide that? Thanks!

[jp1216]

Originally Posted by Statfreak101

What is Hatorade's site? Can you provide that? Thanks!

Post #5 of this thread

[Hatorade]

Originally Posted by jacksoncoupage

I’ve been closely following the surge in 1989 Fleer case breaking over the last several months and a few things have become very clear RE: the Randy Johnson card:
1. All correction types/methods took place by January 1st. No 1989 dated case has turned out a non-full blacked out version.
2. Several types of corrections will come from the same case. This is very interesting to me as I previously had assumed that since Fleer had used two printing facilities for this product, that was the cause for the color tints.
But now I am convinced that Fleer had multiple presses running (perhaps at both plants) and each press had a different type of correction to the plate; for example: say they had four presses going, one would have a green mask over the sign, one a red box, etc etc. This is the only way I can explain the various versions coming out of specific day dated cases.

This sounds pretty similar to my experience with opening packs. We haven’t opened a ton but I would guess around 40-50 boxes. The cases would contain multiple different versions with maybe a couple cards being the same version or very similar. I think there are some cases though where you will pull multiple cards that are the same. I can recall several times when I’ve purchased cards in lots and every card in the lot was nearly identical. The largest lot I recall purchasing was 7 of the same cards.

Originally Posted by Statfreak101

Good stuff.
I just pulled my first rack pack with a Johnson variation on top - black box, and it wasn't during the time period that we all though it "should" be.

That’s awesome! Would you mind sharing a image of that rack pack? You are the 2nd person to mention getting an error variation past the Jan 1 89 threshold. The other person is an RJ collector that reached out to me on Facebook and mentioned that he pulled an error version of the Johnson from a box that contained the correct Ripken FF card. I have opened lots of wax boxes that contained the common version of the Johnson with the error Ripken but never the other way around but it sounds like maybe a few RJ errors may have snuck into some of the 89 cases.

[steve5838]

Hi everyone. Sorry it has taken so long. Over the last couple months I’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to wrap my mind around the “best” way to extend my classification figure of the Randy Johnson Marlboro cards. I have over 70 of the 1989 Fleer Randy Johnson cards which I believe PSA could label as "Marlboro Ad on Scoreboard" (over 40 of these are graded by PSA or BGS). Of course there is a wide range of versions which could fall under this label. I want to preface this by saying that this was my attempt at classifying the different versions under this heading. That said, I am sure not everyone will agree with what I've put together and am equally sure that there could be better ways of doing this. Also, I am limited due to the size and scope of my collection (I have not actively collected the blackbox or fish versions). Just because I don’t show a particular version only means that I don’t have that version (not that it doesn’t exist). That said, for me, the resulting classification provides some order to help me better understand (and gives me a new way to think about) the versions I have in my collection (i.e., cards which PSA could potentially classify as "Marlboro Ad on Scoreboard"). Take it for what it is worth.

Here was my process. I scanned all 70+ of my cards and cropped the Marlboro sign. All scans were made on the same scanner with the same scanner settings. I used an Espon V600 scanner for all scans. Someone on the board posted a good set of instructions on using an Epson V600 scanner so I purchased this scanner last spring at the start of the lockdowns (to avoid any learning curve). I am very happy with it because I can get consistent lighting conditions on the Marlboro signs across the various versions. I then put all the cropped scans of the Marlboro sign into a PowerPoint slide and manually moved the 70+ photos around to try and put "like cards" in piles. I then arranged the piles into some natural order (at least to me) based on (1) tint, and (2) clarity - defined as being able to clearly read all letters in the word Marlboro. Of course, this definition of "clarity" impacts the order since there are versions with very clear letters but where you can't see the cowboy. The definition for tint was harder than it first appeared and it took me quite a bit of trial and error to come up with what I believe is a logical scale…

As I put “Marlboro signs” into piles the one thing that began to stand out to me was subtle differences in cards with the same clarity due to "vibrancy". Upon closer inspection I began to attribute this "vibrancy" to having more blue-ness or almost a blue glow around the sign. I had always assumed that "clarity" was on a continuous scale. Now, I feel that tint is on a continuous scale too. I became curious about what would happen if there were three PRIMARY COLORS of tint (i.e., GREEN, BLUE, and RED -- labeled g1, b1, and r1 in the figure). I know these are not the real primary colors but they seem to be predominant varieties of the tints so I went with them. For example, on the blue-red spectrum you get purple tint cards, on the green-blue spectrum you get the very dark GREEN, and on the green-red spectrum you get some of the more dulled out reds.

Anyway, I ran with this idea (because under this notion the card locations started to naturally fall into place) and here is what I came up with. I threw in some labels for my own record keeping (but did not label anything that I felt couldn’t be classified as “Marlboro Ad on Scoreboard”… of course you may disagree). A couple of final notes. Beyond the clearest version (n0), my favorite versions are b1 and br2. I never really understood what made br2 stand out to me over the similarly clear rg2 card. Now I believe it is due to the blue-ish tint that makes the letters almost vibrant in the br2 version. Some people may scoff at this but holding br2 and rg2 next to each other there is a clear difference and I know which version resonates with me (perhaps since my favorite color is blue??). Second, I put a yellow rectangle around the blue box version that Hatorade provided. This is the one version I do not have a copy of (so the picture is not from the same scanner/scanner settings). Beyond that one card these are all my cards and I was able to group every one of my 70+ cards into one of the piles shown in the figure. Third, I want to reiterate that my view of “clarity” is on a continuous scale. There could certainly be versions between g1 and gb2; however, for me simply knowing I have a card that is g1-gb2 is sufficient to know where it places in my mental framework of the versions.

I hope this helps move forward the discussion and interest in my favorite card.

Steve

[jp1216]

That's really a great layout. Thanks!

[Hatorade]

Originally Posted by steve5838

Ben, I believe I own the blue one you had. I bought it from David on this board. I'm pretty sure this is the one due to the small scratch over the Marlboro man. I was lucky enough to grab a second blue one on EBay earlier this year. I know Kevin also has one of the blue ones. Outside of these and the ones on Hatorade's site I haven't seen others (but always on the lookout in case more come out of the woodwork).

It looks like one of the above cards was graded a PSA 8 and listed on EBay recently. Other than that card, has anyone come across any blue cards?

[steve5838]

Originally Posted by Hatorade

It looks like one of the above cards was graded a PSA 8 and listed on EBay recently. Other than that card, has anyone come across any blue cards?

I was curious about that GMA 8 one that sold on eBay last week. Hard to tell exactly which version it was from the pictures but I thought it had promise.

[steve5838]

I've been trying to track down a PSA 10 of what I'd been calling the br2 version (and some call the second clearest version) for a long time in the BST section here. I was really excited to pick up a BGS 9.5 last week on EBay. Here is a picture of the card next to the clear one for comparison.

[Statfreak101]

Originally Posted by steve5838

I've been trying to track down a PSA 10 of what I'd been calling the br2 version (and some call the second clearest version) for a long time in the BST section here. I was really excited to pick up a BGS 9.5 last week on EBay. Here is a picture of the card next to the clear one for comparison.

Steve, what does the rest of the BGS one look like? Can you post a picture of the whole card? Thanks!