The Struggle Is Real - 1991 Fleer

[darkhorse9]

Don't judge, but for grins and giggles I picked up three boxes of 1991 Fleer wax. Ugly cards with no redeeming social value, but I thought it might be fun to put a set together the old fashioned way. At $5 a box I over paid a bit, but, hey.

So after three boxes I still come up THREE CARDS SHORT!.

682 Mike Bell
333 Darnell Coles
4 Todd Burns

That's really no a collation problem. It's just dumb luck. I certainly don't see buying another box just for those three, and no one I know of stocks commons from junk era sets.

By chance anyone have these classic gems lying around to spare?

[ALR-bishop]

Hey Mark-- in addition to doing a Topps and Bowman run, also did a Fleer run, 1923 and then 1959 to 2007. For 1991 still looking for the variations to cards 105/125/327/610/662/666. All involve backs but are true variations

[Peter_Spaeth]

Reminds me of WAY back in the day, pre internet, I was for some unknown reason trying to put together a set of 1992 Score and no matter how many boxes and packs I opened I could not for the life of my find a Bob Zupcic to finish the set. None of the card shops had one either; being in Boston whatever they had sold quickly.

[58pinson]

Being one of many, I guess, who got back into the hobby in the late '80's and enjoyed the heck out of it I shook my head when I read your post and mumbled to myself "ah the yellow cards".

Have 413 of them hanging around, and one copy each of the three you came up short on. Centering is not the best (pretty common in those days), but other than that they're in great shape.

PM me an address to send them to and I'll get them off to you tomorrow, unless this coastal storm makes it not fit for man nor beast outside - then it would have to be Monday.

[ALR-bishop]

Nice gesture Mr Pinson

[mrmopar]

Not the worst set ever by far, not even Fleer's worst offering in my opinion. I actually like the yellow border and it has some really nice action shots. I especially like to get nice cards with signatures as well.

I was looking at some signed cards on eBay last night and I have decided that 1988 Topps is absolutely the worst set ever created, at least prior to the UV era (95 Fleer may be THE WORST looking card ever made). There may be a handful of decent individual cards in the set, but a bad crop of rookies and lots of previously popular stars that had retired by then...it's just bad.

[clydepepper]

Originally Posted by darkhorse9

Don't judge, but for grins and giggles I picked up three boxes of 1991 Fleer wax. Ugly cards with no redeeming social value, but I thought it might be fun to put a set together the old fashioned way. At $5 a box I over paid a bit, but, hey.

So after three boxes I still come up THREE CARDS SHORT!.

682 Mike Bell
333 Darnell Coles
4 Todd Burns

That's really no a collation problem. It's just dumb luck. I certainly don't see buying another box just for those three, and no one I know of stocks commons from junk era sets.

By chance anyone have these classic gems lying around to spare?

In 1992, I discovered that you could get the complete set when purchasing an Ultra box....then, I got another box...same thing.

It was a little too automatic for me...I would almost want to be in your place...needing just a few, very frustrating cards. The chase was over before it started.

But maybe that's just me.

[darkhorse9]

And, thanks to the kindness of 58Pinson, I am now the proud owner of a COMPLETE set of 1991 Fleer cards.

Check that one off the bucket list!
I love the members on this board.

[jacksoncoupage]

Originally Posted by darkhorse9

And, thanks to the kindness of 58Pinson, I am now the proud owner of a COMPLETE set of 1991 Fleer cards.

Check that one off the bucket list!
I love the members on this board.

Now you need to put together the variation set. If you break jumbo-cello boxes (hot pink, I believe), they come from a different printer and feature minor-to-major variations of every card in the wax/rack/factory issue.

[Rich Klein]

Originally Posted by ALR-bishop

Hey Mark-- in addition to doing a Topps and Bowman run, also did a Fleer run, 1923 and then 1959 to 2007. For 1991 still looking for the variations to cards 105/125/327/610/662/666. All involve backs but are true variations

Al: There is also a variation on the Rick Aguilera 602 card

Most of what we had in COMC had 5 lines in text, I saw one, which has been sold, with 4 lines of text on the back. So you can add that one unless you already have that one

[jacksoncoupage]

Originally Posted by Rich Klein

Al: There is also a variation on the Rick Aguilera 602 card

Most of what we had in COMC had 5 lines in text, I saw one, which has been sold, with 4 lines of text on the back. So you can add that one unless you already have that one

As mentioned above, every card in the set has a variation. Some, like Aguilera, Ready, Karkovice, Azocar, Guerrero are more obvious. Mike Greenwell and Kevin Miller have interesting variations in the stats extending out of the stat area. Lots of photo cropping variations (Alex Fernandez, Dave Hansen) and several that have different arrangements of stat/year groupings separated by horizontal lines.

[Rich Klein]

The BB Card hobby was so 'hot" in 1991 that for all these companies multiple printing presses were used to produce cards. Needless to say, I'm convinced that helped "cause" these fascinating variations in these sets and IIRC -- there are some interesting Score variations circa 1991 or 1992.

Rich

[darkhorse9]

And here I was all proud of myself for "finishing" my 1991 Fleer set and you guys have to go and buzzkill me.

[Zach Wheat]

Originally Posted by darkhorse9

And here I was all proud of myself for "finishing" my 1991 Fleer set and you guys have to go and buzzkill me.

you should know - never tell a collector you are finished with a set!

Z

[Rich Klein]

For you 1991 Fleer Experts, we got a note about a variation in the Edgar Martinez from this set but I could not tell the difference as it appeared to be too subtle. If anyone could help me with this one, I'll add it to the COMC Data base.,

Rich

[Rich Klein]

Doing my best David Rudd imitation here.

Maybe we did not have both versions in the COMC data base but these differences appeared to be so subtle I could not figure them out. Would love some help and I'll add them

Randy Ready
Oscar Azocar
Pedro Guerrero
Kevin Miller (or do you mean Keith Miller)
Alex Fernandez
Dave Hansen

105 Tim Naehring

We might not have scanned all possible variations in because we only deal with what we actually received but as an E & V guy, I love mysteries love these. Please feel free to either PM or EMail me or post in this thread

Rich

[Zach Wheat]

Rich,

You forgot to add a smiley face....

Z

[ALR-bishop]

Here is what I have so far, followed by what I have heard/read I still need

What I have

17 McGwire...6 or 7 lines of text on back
125 Karkovice...1 or 2 lines of text on back
113 Romine...1 or 2 lines of text on back
117 Fernandez..red line above scoreboard on front or not
301 Ryan.. divider line on back in stats above 1980 or below it ( differences
in other lines as well)
388 Booker...1981 stats on back or missing
469 Devereaux..six runs in first line of text or runs is in 2nd line
507 Gonzalez..4 or 2 rows of lights on front ( unlike others which are true variations, this is cropping difference ( DP ?)
602 Aguilera...5 or 6 lines of text on back
610 Gagne...stat divider lines on back in different places

What I think I need ( I say both because I have no idea which version I have in my very valuable sealed boxed set

105 Neahring...both 6 and 7 lines of text on back
327 Stevens... both 6 or 7 lines of text on back
662 Espinosa... both 1979/80 stats or not on back
666 Hawkins...both 1978 stats or not on back

If anyone has any on my need list they want to jettison let me know. And if any if anyone is aware of others not listed above let me know. It is an illness.

Mark was right, this is a struggle

[Rich Klein]

Originally Posted by Zach Wheat

Rich,

You forgot to add a smiley face....

Z

Taken care of

[Rich Klein]

Originally Posted by ALR-bishop

Here is what I have so far, followed by what I have heard/read I still need

What I have

17 McGwire...6 or 7 lines of text on back
125 Karkovice...1 or 2 lines of text on back
113 Romine...1 or 2 lines of text on back
117 Fernandez..red line above scoreboard on front or not
301 Ryan.. divider line on back in stats above 1980 or below it ( differences
in other lines as well)
388 Booker...1981 stats on back or missing
469 Devereaux..six runs in first line of text or runs is in 2nd line
507 Gonzalez..4 or 2 rows of lights on front ( unlike others which are true variations, this is cropping difference ( DP ?)
602 Aguilera...5 or 6 lines of text on back
610 Gagne...stat divider lines on back in different places

What I think I need ( I say both because I have no idea which version I have in my very valuable sealed boxed set

105 Neahring...both 6 and 7 lines of text on back
327 Stevens... both 6 or 7 lines of text on back
662 Espinosa... both 1979/80 stats or not on back
666 Hawkins...both 1978 stats or not on back

If anyone has any on my need list they want to jettison let me know. And if any if anyone is aware of others not listed above let me know. It is an illness.

Mark was right, this is a struggle

Added a bunch -- keep those cards and letters coming. Love adding stuff like this to COMC database

Rich

[jacksoncoupage]

Originally Posted by Rich Klein

For you 1991 Fleer Experts, we got a note about a variation in the Edgar Martinez from this set but I could not tell the difference as it appeared to be too subtle. If anyone could help me with this one, I'll add it to the COMC Data base.,

Rich

Edgar's card can be found with the text printed at a tilt or correctly, in a straight, horizontal way. See COMC Item: 1648267 for an example of the diagonal text.

Originally Posted by Rich Klein

Doing my best David Rudd imitation here.

Maybe we did not have both versions in the COMC data base but these differences appeared to be so subtle I could not figure them out. Would love some help and I'll add them

Randy Ready - extra stats on back (can't recall what the additional year is but should be the first line)
Oscar Azocar - drawing a blank, but I think it is another added stat line variation
Pedro Guerrero - can be found with a $ in front of his SB totals
Kevin Miller (or do you mean Keith Miller) - yes, my mistake!
Alex Fernandez - coca-cola sign is partially visible on one version, cut off on another
Dave Hansen - two different photo croppings. All COMC copies are just one version.

105 Tim Naehring - added line of text stating "player of the year..."

Rich

[Rich Klein]

Originally Posted by jacksoncoupage

Edgar's card can be found with the text printed at a tilt or correctly, in a straight, horizontal way. See COMC Item: 1648267 for an example of the diagonal text.

Martinez is now added
Guerrero is now added
Ready was already added

As you said no Hansen and I could find a Naehring

Could not see the coke sign on Fernandez

Could not see anything on Azocar or Miller

Keep em coming

rich

[ALR-bishop]

Here are my 2 Fernandez

[Rich Klein]

Thanks Al -- only a few Fernandez in the COMC Data Base and none of them have the coke sign

Rich

[cardinalcollector]

I have a few of these you folks may or may not know about;
very different cropping at bottom of Carpenter and Zeile

[ALR-bishop]

Dylan says ( above) that every card in the set has some variant. I think Mark needs to keep going until he has them all, struggle or not

[cardinalcollector]

Jose DeLeon: No '79 Stats and '79 Stats
John Tudor: No 79 RS, and 80 Pawtucket stats, and With stats

[cardinalcollector]

Todd Worrell: Stat Header in bold and not in bold
Checklist #719 with different amounts of white at bottom due to different size print.

[ALR-bishop]

Good ones Randy. I officially give up

[Rich Klein]

Seeing those from Randy reminded me of the detailed work I used to see from him back in my Beckett days.

All those variations are now in COMC data base.

Keep em coming! And not just 1991 Fleer!

Rich

[jacksoncoupage]

Originally Posted by Rich Klein

Seeing those from Randy reminded me of the detailed work I used to see from him back in my Beckett days.

All those variations are now in COMC data base.

Keep em coming! And not just 1991 Fleer!

Rich

Hi Rich, a few questions:

1) Are you the only one handling correction requests at COMC? I have a very long history of submitting variation info on inventory there, only to see it "completed" but no change made. A great example was the 5+ times I asked COMC to correctly identify the 1990-91 Fleer Bill Cartwright "no decimal" variation.

2) Would it be best to send you info through this site? Or via email?

3) Please check out my blog some time: junkwaxgems. A lot of time went into making a site full of free info on interesting and notable variations specific to the junk era to post-catalog entry sets (seeing as mass hobby interest died out after 1991ish).

4) Do you have a contact at COMC who could review a situation with some of my items sitting in limbo? Feel free to PM if you could help. It is a variation related issue.

Thanks!

PS, just put in a correction request for the 1990 Donruss Gregg Jefferies name variation, see item 6074172 for an example of the odd version.

[Pingboy333]

Just for fun I went to COMC and started looking for variations. The first card I chose was #138 Frank Thomas and right off the bat I noticed a difference in the placement of stats on the back. One cards stats are higher in the box, resulting in more blank space at the bottom. With two different printers and two different sets of negatives, the variations will be the rule rather than the exception.

[ALR-bishop]

Welcome to the struggle Jeff

[Pingboy333]

I'm not really a collector of printing defects or unintentional errors. These photo crops and stat placements really have me scratching my head as to how to classify them. I'm all in on the cards like Romine and Greenwell, but not so sure about Boggs and his batting helmet being a little lower in the box 😉

[Rich Klein]

Originally Posted by jacksoncoupage

Hi Rich, a few questions:

1) Are you the only one handling correction requests at COMC? I have a very long history of submitting variation info on inventory there, only to see it "completed" but no change made. A great example was the 5+ times I asked COMC to correctly identify the 1990-91 Fleer Bill Cartwright "no decimal" variation.

2) Would it be best to send you info through this site? Or via email?

3) Please check out my blog some time: junkwaxgems. A lot of time went into making a site full of free info on interesting and notable variations specific to the junk era to post-catalog entry sets (seeing as mass hobby interest died out after 1991ish).

4) Do you have a contact at COMC who could review a situation with some of my items sitting in limbo? Feel free to PM if you could help. It is a variation related issue.

Thanks!

PS, just put in a correction request for the 1990 Donruss Gregg Jefferies name variation, see item 6074172 for an example of the odd version.

Answering in the best way possible

As for issue #4
For the COMC issue -- about your cards in limbo you can reach me at RichKlein@Comc.com and I will forward the customer service issue to whom handles those.

As for the Jefferies

I saw the Jefferies note and could not describe it correctly -- I could not quite figure out the difference so give me another note with EXACTLY how you want that differentiated and I'll add that


As for the 1st question:

No, I'm not the only one making changes BUT that is an important part of my role to work on the data base and make those types of adds. Please use the correction request feature on COMC and we'll keep at it. I love adding all this material. Some of this we had separated in the DB but no more descriptions, I'm working on adding those detailed notes as I did on a Chrome Strasburg variation this morning.

Update: Cartwright is now properly ID'd -- and was when I checked the DB a few minutes ago!

As for question #2

I figured this site was a good way to get the word out ---

I also make no guarantees I will get to everything so don't get frustrated if I miss one or two -- OK Zach there is the smiley face It was good seeing you at the National BTW

And I'll try to get to your web site --please send a link to my COMC address and I'll go through that.

[ALR-bishop]

This borders on the ridiculous but on the back of Bichette # 307 the period at end of bio sometimes has a space

[LoQtus]

Each year I visit my friend in Michigan and we build another junk wax set that I don't have from boxes bought for less than $20. This was going to be one of the next ones, but now I'm not so sure.

[HasselhoffsCheeseburger]

Apparently there's a variation on the Ken Griffey Jr card. I just happened to notice that a PSA 10 sold on ebay and then I checked the pop report.

Arthur

[ALR-bishop]

Arthur-- I have 2 versions of the # 450 Gtiffey card. On one in the bio it says "would blossom and hit around 300". In the other the word "around" does not appear and there are blank spaces before 300 and after 22 before "home runs"

[HasselhoffsCheeseburger]

I can't believe I'm getting drawn into '91 Fleer. I can swing that, at least they're colorful. I don't have fond memories of '92 Donruss.

Arthur

[ALR-bishop]

It is like Goundhog Day. You wake up every morning wondering how do I get out of this

[vintagebaseballcardguy]

You hit the nail on the head, Al. Since reading your posts about 1982 Topps Blackless, I have become fixated on that subject along with other 70s and 80s items I never before considered.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[jacksoncoupage]

I've said this many times in other forums re: 1991 Fleer.

If you want to nail (nearly) every variation, buy a couple of boxes of wax (or rack) and a couple of the pink/magenta poly pack boxes. Those represent cards from each of the two printing facilities. Make the sets separately then combine/compare.

[ALR-bishop]

I am definitely keeping an eye out for pink/magenta poly packs.