Live, Love, Laugh(lin)...
 

Recently I started becoming obsessed with many things Laughlin. It all began inside the awesome '365 Days of Roberto Clemente' thread when I realized what an enigma the 1971 Fleer World Series 'update' set is. Apparently, the cards were (probably) all released during the summer of 1978 only through Good Humor ice cream trucks (net54 members laughlinfan and fleerfan are the go-to guys regarding the subject) as a supplement to the 1971 set.

After purchasing card #69 (featuring the majestic #21), which celebrates the Bucs' triumph in the '71 Series, I decided to try to put together a full set of these extension cards in high grade. The problem is, they are frickin' hard to find (read as expensive)!!!! Take a look at ebay. It's nearly impossible to locate PSA 9s (to be clear, I want to get 9s, but the card itself has to 'be' a 9, as I'm not just chasing the number) for most of these cards listed anywhere. There aren't even any 9s of the beautifully blue 1973 card (featuring my Mets getting their ass kicked...or getting kicked by an ass??) listed on the auction prices realized site. None. Well, over time and using CC rewards points whenever possible, I picked one up here and there. Today, the last piece of the puzzle finally arrived - card #75, saluting the Yanks' victory over the Dodgers in 1977. The funny thing is, when looking at that card, why in heck isn't it totally Reggied-out???? I mean, come on!!!! (Artistically, though, they did a pretty cool job with his notable absence. A lefty batter with the dark, nighttime sky looming really evokes the magical atmosphere of Game 6!!) It's my guess that these update cards ran into some legal issues with regard to the images used?? Four of the seven cards have no discernible players from the Series pictured on them. Of the other three, Clemente appears on the first one (he's the only player actually named), in my mind it could be a nebulous Catfish Hunter on the second, and Yaz coupled with perhaps a Bench/Rose amalgam appears on the 1975 card...but that's it. Too bad.

So here is the full seven card set in all of its glory. The two PSA 9 OC cards ***Edited to add: Both have been replaced by straight 9's!!*** don't look too bad at all (and came at a lower price) and the PSA 8 is really the best anyone can do...


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Cool stuff!!!!!!!

On a side note, I have some doubles (PSA 8, PSA 9, PSA 9 OC) of a few of the cards, if anyone is interested.


So, if you got some Laughlin love, post 'em!!!!

I like those, Darren, and truthfully, until you posted, I had never seen them before.

pm sent.

Mike

Fleer was always so colorful back in the day! These look great!!

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

Great cards Darren! It’s weird, but I have collected Clemente for a long time and only added that card in the last couple of years. I always thought I had purchased it years ago, but when I went to look for it....doh!!! Gets a little pricey for RC in high grade.

I remember buying these from the Good Humor truck in my neighborhood in Baltimore. I have never seen a wrapper and I can’t remember how they where packaged. Is there two different types of backs ? Blue ink or Black ink ?
Thanks Scott

With the update versions, there are just black backs. They are officially part of the 1971 set, which also has the black backs. The 1970 Fleer World Series set, though, has the blue backs.

As with most Fleer issues from this era, The Fleer Sticker blog is a great resource.

Great cards Darren, mine are ungraded and not nearly as nice

https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrE...W7TEBN9J3eeUQ-

Has anyone seen a wrapper ? Could they have been in clear cello?

In some years Fleer dumped older left over stuff in with new stuff but I am not aware of the extension cards showing up in packs. I have a collecting friend who used to open and inventory Fleer packs from the 60s and 70s and he never found one in a pack.

Laughlin, SCFC, TCMA, SSPC, 1977 Jim Rowe, Broder...all such fun from the Topps monopoly era.

Here is an ad from Laughlin that appeared in the March 15, 1979 issue of Sports Collectors Digest, and explains that the 1971-1977 cards were done for a promotion with Good Humor. The original set of 68 cards was reprinted and the additional 7 cards were created to bring the set up to date for the summer of 1978. Bob wasn't lying when he said these were a "good investment"!

http://fleersticker.blogspot.com/201...s-mystery.html

Whoops!!
I neglected to include fleerfan in the OP. His handle has now been rightly added.

Another observation that seems to support the fact these cards are pretty rare (or perhaps, more specifically, were printed in but a single run) is the consistent misalignment of the colors on most, if not all, of the seven cards.

For instance, here are a few examples that you will find, dare I say it, on all versions of the card:

1. On the 1974 card, the giant 'A' always has a ghost of a white or white/blue border around much of it due to misalignment. There is also a stray yellow splotch on one of the serif-like shapes.

2. On the 1975 card, both caps have the bleeds, as well as Yaz' left elbow blue sleeve, virtually all of the red on the Reds' player, and some other misalignments, like the lower right corner area.

3. On the 1977 card, there is extra skin on the bat near the player's hands, and the blue across the entire card is simply a misaligned mess.

I've looked at a sh_t ton of these cards on-line and I don't believe it's possible to find even one without the anomalies (although logically they are in no way actual anomalies) I just noted. To me, this says that they either rushed to print these out, leaving their QC lacking, or they just did a single print run and never went back to adjust and fix all of the problems in said run, like all printers (should) do.

Thanks!

Congratulations on completing the 1971-1977 "update" set! Those are some beautiful cards.

As for why the 1977 card isn't "Reggie-ed" out, my guess is that since Reggie would have been under contract to Topps, Fleer didn't want to risk any legal issues depicting an active player. In Clemente's case, he would no longer have been under contract to Topps. This is also why the 1970 Fleer World Series set had to remove active players and required new artwork from Laughlin's original 1967 B&W set.

For some great insight into the way Fleer approached things based on a 1971 interview with Laughlin, please see my post on the Topps Greatest Moments set, which foiled Fleer's plans for a Laughlin "Great Feats of Baseball" set which Laughlin ultimately released on his own in 1972.

http://fleersticker.blogspot.com/201...ments-set.html

Those are beauties, Darren! Congratulations! As Darren knows, I've been a fan of Bob Laughlin's work for many years, and have always enjoyed sharing and talking about Bob and his cards and issues. (Try me! :) ) If Darren doesn't mind, maybe I can share some info in this thread that I have picked up over the years. I am also thankful for some of the great info Fleerfan has posted on his blogspot over the years - a great resource as well!

Speaking to the issue at hand, the 1978 Fleer/Good Humor set, they are tough to find, especially in top end shape. I had a good run for a few of the early years of eBay grabbing these when they would show up in small lots - my Laughlin searches missed very few listings for the first many years of eBay, and I would estimate that a small lot of these 1978 cards would only show up maybe once or twice a year and I was happy to pick up some of these (and almost ALWAYS from NY, NJ, or PA). About 10-15 years ago, I was exchanging emails with a Fleer issue expert, and he didn't believe that these cards even existed - sent him scans to prove they did! In the past 10 years, they have become much more sought after (especially the Clemente, which is maybe my all time favorite card), and the scarcity is better understood, so they are being listed individually at some pretty good prices. I would love to see a pack of these, but I also have never seen one. Pretty cool that someone here (quitcrab!) remembers getting them from Good Humor trucks. I have some of these 1978 cards that show wax from the packs - I have little doubt they were issued in some sort of pack. Since no wrapper has ever been uncovered, for a while I thought maybe they just reused the Fleer wrappers from 1970 or 1971, but they both had a 10c price on the wrapper, which probably wouldn't have been a logical price point in 1978. The mystery remains!

Darren, the rest of the 1978 set is equally tough. You should keep going! :) Looking at the backs, you can easily distinguish 1971s from 1978s from the card stock, although I don't think PSA grades them distinctly. If I had to guess, I would say the 1978s were maybe printed in about 2-3% of the quantity of the nationally released 1971 set. Just an educated guess though!

Happy collecting!

Grabbed a few cards out of a mixed box of 1978s and 1971s I had kicking around. Just wanted to show a couple of things. The 1971s (left) are printed on a gray card stock, and the 1978s (right) are an off white or cream stock. I also pulled a few 1978s out that show the wax residue you see on some 1978s that (I'm pretty certain) are evidence of some type of wax packaging. Have some more fun things from the 1978 set somewhere - will post when I stumble across them!

Hey Marty,
So without unnecessarily restating the obvious conclusion from your post, it seems the entire 1971 set was reprinted for the summer of 1978 to be distributed along with the new update cards?? God, that sucks. Ha ha. If I decide to chase the set, now I'm going to have to find two different versions of everything.

--elm

Thanks for the laugh, elm! :) "Reprint" has such a negative connotation - I prefer re-issue, and in very small numbers. If it makes you feel better about it, let's just consider it a scarce cream back parallel set issued 7 years later! On the plus side, almost no one knows the difference, so if you find the first 68 cards from the 78 set, you can probably get them for the price of the much more plentiful 71s!

Bob wanted to issue a full new set in 1978 with all new artwork, including the additional cards, in commemoration of the 10 year anniversary of his first set, but somehow we ended up with just 7 new cards. Another unsolved mystery!

Clemente
 

Just arrived today. I collected the World Series cards in 1971, and didn’t know these update cards existed.
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Suh-weet!!!!!!!

Great thread, thanks Darren for posting all those update cards together, great seeing them. I just really love the artwork and the colors on those Laughlin World Series cards.

Great thread. We should all have a few Fleer cards in our collections... I have few and always enjoyed them!

Ricky Y

I always thought the players on the 1975 cards were Fisk and Bench, with of course some artistic license to make them both lefty hitters to avoid any allegation that they were using active players in the set!

Dug out my uncut sheet from the 1978 issue - both versions of the 1974, 1975 and 1977 WS cards on the sheet share the same registration issues that Elm discussed. I agree - it was probably a single print run with 1 sheet image, and all are the same. If I get ambitious (and lucky), I might be able to share what these cards should have looked like if the QC guy had brought his glasses to work that day!

That's fascinating. I was under the impression that the update cards were available via Good Humor trucks in 1978 by their lonesome...but since the entire set was reprinted and released together, that means you didn't automatically receive one of the new additions when you grabbed up the most awesome thing on the planet, ice cream, that summer? An argument could be made that it makes the cherished update cards even tougher to come by, since kids didn't undoubtedly walk away with one of the 1971-1977 beauties every time they ran to the truck. Nope, they had the very same chance of getting a, say, 1911, 1938 or 1953 card as they did a 1971 Clemente. Very interesting indeed.

What I have had to give up on the people side of socializing has allowed me to have some happy reunions with some of my collectibles that I haven't dug out and looked at in years! This is the original paste up panel that was used by Fleer for the back of the 7 new cards. More to come!

Fleer
 

Now thats a very cool piece !

The black transparency proof sheet (against a cardboard background) of the reverse for the new 1971-1977 cards. Card front stuff next!

I would love to know what wrapper these got sold in. I don't discount the ice cream truck connection but can't really find anything contemporary on it other than the Laughlin ad. Perhaps they were handed out at some type of GH promotional event and never saw packs?

Hey Dave!

Would love to get the wrapper mystery solved. From the ad it appears that Bob sold mint sets made from the leftovers, but in my many years of collecting, I have never seen anyone sell a complete mint 75 card set. They must be out there somewhere. Over the past 20 years or so, I have probably been able to get about 10 assorted small lots of the 1978 cards, and they always were assorted lots, with some of the cards showing telltale wax pack residue. I have a shipping box with about 60 or 70 of the cards from the last time I got a lot of these - I will check to see about how many had wax residue. Maybe I can estimate how many were in a pack!

Interesting, I've always thought the 70's was a fairly well-documented era due to the expansion of hobby press but the more you look at things, the more it's obvious it is not! Has there been a geographic focus to where they come from?

I agree - 1978 is certainly not the dark ages for collecting - seems we know a ton of stuff about even obscure issues from the late 70s on. We never had Good Humor trucks or ice cream treats in my neck of the woods where I grew up (Western NY). I am under the assumption that these were centered in the tri-state area (NY,NJ,PA), and it seems like for many years, whenever I picked up a few of these, they would invariably be from one of those states. And just to add to the confusion, I just looked up on the Good Humor website and found this nugget -

"1976

Good Humor sold its fleet of vehicles in 1976 to focus on selling in grocery stores. Some of the trucks were purchased by ice cream distributors and others were sold to individuals. The trucks sold for $1,000 - $3,000 each."

Of course that would be two years before these were issued. Baffling.

Good Humor had the smaller trucks where the freezer doors were in 2 or 3 spots on the body and the driver had to reach in and fish around for your ice cream treat. Then went to more of a step van style with a wide open window area at some point that was much more like a store on wheels. We had both but mostly the latter in the 70's but Colonial Maid was the big operation by me (Nassau County, Long Island) and I always bought Topps packs and confections from them in the early 70's and they usually had a pretty good selection of baseball and non-sports. Football too later in the year, can't recall Hockey or Basketball on Colonial Maid though. It's weird though that this can't be tracked.

UPDATE-After I posted this I found a Wikipedia citation (and another one elsewhere from a different source) that said the fleet was sold in '78 (Jones, Geoffrey (2005). Renewing Unilever:Transformation and Tradition.) Maybe they sold the trucks and the promotion was cancelled?

FURTHER UPDATE 9/21/79 Baltimore Sun article seems more on point than prior citations. Half the fleet sold n'78, NY Metro area trucks vanished, etc. Interesting read for those of us of a certain age no matter how you feel about the WS cards:

Good info, Dave! Seems like this set may have come along at just right time to become a victim of a changing business model, which might help explain the low circulation. From Bob's ad, he mentions a limited promotion - makes it sound like it wasn't just a case where they were sold through the trucks. Would seem like if it was a promotion where folks had to buy something to get a pack, collectors would remember it. Heaven knows I have vivid memories of every cereal, bread, pastry, pop-tart, pop-sicle, banana, wiffle ball, Sugar Daddy, lunch bag, ice cream sundae, gas station, and restaurant I had to eat or patronize to pull in some kind of sports treasure in the 70s! :)

Progressive transparency proof sheet set of 4 (CMYB) of the fronts for the new cards for 1978 (with a nice sharp image of the 1977 proof!)

from the scanner!

+

No coloring outside of the lines in those proofs. The registration is spot on. I wonder what happened between that stage and the actual printing of the cards.

Last cool items related to the 1978 set! Been fun talking about one of my favorite issues - thanks Elm for starting this thread! This is the original paste up board done for the fronts of the 7 new cards. Second photo shows the color guide overlays that Bob put together for the Fleer printers. I have to thank my friend Chris for allowing me to add this Fleer factory stuff to my collection several years ago. I think he liked them too, but knew that this stuff was right in my wheelhouse! Took some time to negotiate them, but we were both happy in the end! :)

Happy collecting!

Killer stuff-wow!

I took a not too intense spin through several 1979 TTS issues but did not see any reference or ads for the update set.

Ummm...Marty...how are we mere mortals supposed to compete with you?? Any one of us are more than happy just to find one of the update cards at a decent price, and you're throwing around proofs and mockups and what not??? Holy freakin' cow!!!!!! :D

I posted this card in a new (with a tongue-in-cheek title) May pickups thread, but, strangely enough, someone decided to start a different May pickups thread for some reason. Bizarre. Oh well, so I guess I'll put it here instead (followed by a couple of other key 1967 Laughlin World Series cards that I was able to grab) to ease this thread forward a little bit. Card #61 Mantle with the address on back...


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The paper stock is so thin on these guys that it amazes me they've survived in relatively decent shape for over a half a century.

I attended games in the 64 and 67 Series

What an educational thread. It appears there is a significant difference from the releases.

If anyone has doubles, I'm interested in any WS that features the Tigers.

From The Trader Speak June 1970:

Trader Speaks July 1971, still at it:

Nicely centered 67 Mantle, Elm! That's a beauty! And thanks for posting that Trader Speaks ad, Dave! Bob had gotten some of his artwork published in the Sporting News in 65-67 (including one cover!) and was really kicking into his baseball phase of his work by 1967. He had done illustrations for some comic books and magazines in the 50s and 60s, and started dabbling in baseball cartoon artwork, combining his two passions. He started his set in 1967 and was intending to do 63 cards - 1903 -1966. Skipping over the 1904 No Series year, he printed them in sheets of 9 each, so 7 sheets of 9. As you can see by the back of Elm's nice Bob Gibson above, he decided to do a little extension and added in the 1967 card as well, and changed the layout of the bottom of that card to be "No. 64 ... Write for the entire set of 64" All of the other cards still referenced a set of 63. He produced 250-300 sets in total of his 1967 set, distinguished by the second line on the bottom including his address. Of those, he left some in uncut sheets of 9 which you see from time to time. Fun fact - when Bob printed them up, maybe intending to produce 500-600 sets, he realized the card stock was too thin for cards, so he glued 2 sheets together to make them thicker (taking us down to 250-300 sets). You will sometimes see cards for sale "with glue on the back" or "with glue on the front" - these are of course half cards, as over the years, the glue has dried out and some have separated. A set of 1967s just went a week or two ago on the 'Bay where a good run of the first several cards were half cards. Was still a nice looking set! :)

Happy collecting!

That's weird, Marty. When you've referred to Mr. Laughlin 'thickening up' (my term) the cards in the past, I didn't realize you meant he actually glued one card right on top of another card. Wow! Mind blown. I have some with the glue on back, but I assumed it was a result of affixing the cards to an album page...even though the thin stock would've precluded anyone from successfully removing them from said album without heavy damage. This set grows more and more interesting by the day.

Do you (or anyone else reading this) have a #61 Mantle card with the address on back that you could post here? The larger the better. I'm doing some (perhaps fruitless) research, and the only example of the card w/address I can find on-line is the one I posted here.

March 1972 Trader Speaks, what a deal-framed and matted to boot!