2003 Fleer Rookies and Greats - Boyhood Idols Jersey Relic

Year: 2003

Manufacturer: Fleer

Set: Rookies and Greats

Card Number: BI-RY

Card Type: Insert Relic

Insert Set: Boyhood Idols Game-Used Relics

Relic Type: Jersey

Card Attributes: Serial Numbered, Piece of Authentic

Serial Number: 261/615

I miss the days of collecting in my youth.  Not that 2003 was still my youth, I mean I miss having Fleer and Donruss as real companies competing against each other and trying to one up each other and all the other competitors.  2003 would mark the start of the downward spiral that eventually would lead to the companies demise and in two year's would just be a brand of Upper Deck.  2003 also marked end of Fleer putting out a flagship set, unless you count Fleer Tradition.  But in those final years Fleer gave it a good go and put out some of the nicest trading cards in it's history.  But Rookies and Greats isn't really one of those sets.  It's still a nice looking set. The base set was small, only 75 cards, and there weren't too many inserts to be had and only one base parallel.  

Robin was featured in a couple of the insert relic sets.  The Boyhood Idols insert also had a relic autograph parallel, but Robin is doesn't have a card in that set.  This was a pretty choice card back in 2003 with the swatch being two colors, I'm sure I paid a premium for this card.  It's also got an odd print run of 615.  Why?  Fleer that's why.  As a matter of fact a lot of the inserts in this set have odd numbering.  

2005 Fleer National Pastime

Year: 2005

Manufacture: Fleer

Set: National Pastime

Card Number: 74

Card Type: Base

Card Attributes: Serial Numbered

Serial Number: 489/699

COMC Black Friday Haul part 7.

One of my goals during the COMC Black Friday sale is to hunt for hole fillers.  Throughout the year I'm picking up deals like more like a sniper.  One here, one there, whenever they come up.  I also start to build my watch list, cards I want but I want to see if the price comes down, or if I'm going on a larger shopping spree like on Black Friday have a list of cards ready to purchase, and hopefully get them at a discount.  During the sale I usually will do a quick sweep of my want list, buy what I want and then go hunting.  This gets a bit more involved, checking what I already have and seeing if I can find cards I don't.  I'm always surprised how many base cards get by me, but I'm always happy to add them for a decent price when I find them on COMC.  This 2005 Fleer National Pastime card is one of those cards.This base card is serial numbered and while 699 copies may seem like a lot today, even back in the mid-2000's a base card numbered to only 699 copies was insane for a product, especially since most of the checklist was not short printed.  Ahem, but I digress.  This was obviously a hits driven product with 10 pack hobby boxes promising two hits and there were some fun hits.  Robin also has featured pretty heavily in the buyback offerings that could be found in the product.  According to Baseballcardpedia this was Fleer's last big fancy release before declaring bankruptcy. 

2003 Fleer Showcase

Year: 2003

Card Manufacturer: Fleer

Card Set: Showcase

Card Number: 98

Card Type: Base

With Robin retiring in 1993, he unfortunately (or was it fortunate?) missed the rise of the insert and parallel craze of the late 90's and early 2000's, at least as an active player.  Once the HOF and tribute sets started coming out Robin got thrust right into the mix.  I may be one of the few that really enjoys a lot of the parallel sets.  For me as a player collector I know I'll never own the majority of the high end cards produced for Robin, but with all the inserts and parallels, and parallels of the inserts, I'll always have stuff to try and chase and to me that's a lot of the fun of collecting.  

The 2003 Fleer Showcase set is one of those great early mid 2000s sets that has a great checklist featuring stars of the day and HOFers and retired players.  Plus this set has some really cool insert and relic sets.  I'm a sucker for gimmicks.  This set does have a couple base parallels, one very attainable and the other not so much.  I really like the overall simple design and I like the photo used for Robin's card.  

2005 Fleer Cooperstown Tribute

Year: 2005

Manufacturer: Fleer

Set: Tradition

Card Type: Insert

Insert Set: Cooperstown Tribute

Card Number: 4CT

Card Attributes: Serial Numbered

Serial Number: 1100/1999

Nothing like a shiny foilboard card to get the day off right.  I'm a big fan of Cooperstown tribute sets and cards.  The scan really doesn't do the card justice on just how shiny it is.

These Cooperstown Tribute cards were inserted into the Fleer Tradition set.  Tradition had become Fleers flagship set for the most part and the base set was suppose to be 750 cards, but Fleer's bankruptcy meant only Series 1 was release.  It's very possible that the 10 card Tribute set would have been much larger, but at least we got Robin included before the Fleer brand got sold to Upper Deck.  The cards are serial numbered to the year of induction, so Robin's is out of 1999.  There is an unnumbered gold parallel which was the retail insert for this set and there are two relic parallels to chase.

2002 Fleer Authentix - Ballpark Classics

Year: 2002

Manufacturer: Fleer

Set: Authentix 

Card Number: 7BC

Card Type: Insert

Insert Set: Ballpark Classics

You know what you don't see much anymore?  Cards with suffixes.  Plenty of inserts with prefixes, but not many suffixes.  That was a Fleer's MO for a long time.  Most of the base inserts would have a suffix and  if that insert had a relic or autograph parallel it would usually have a prefix.   At end of Fleers lifespan as a standalone company things started getting a little wacky.  Ahem, but this post is about the next card to be featured from my COMC Black Friday haul.  

Like most of my purchases and pick ups last year from COMC it was more about filling in holes than picking up flashy low numbered card like I did the year before.  This is another card that slipped through for almost 2 decades.  According to baseballcardpedia.com the over all odds for pulling one of these inserts was 1:22 for hobby and 1:24 for retail making them about 1 per box, so not to easy to pull.  This insert also has 2 dual relic parallels, one being unnumbered and the gold version being numbered to 100.  The base insert has numbered parallels.

Overall it's not that great of an insert with Fleer using black and white or sepia tinted photos.  I suppose it was suppose to make the card look vintage or nostalgic, but really it just makes the card look drab.

1989 Fleer Glossy

Year: 1989

Manufacturer: Fleer

Set: Collector's Edition Glossy

Card Number: 200

I've got 26 new Younts, now 25, to go through that I just took possession of from COMC's Black Friday event.  Over the next couple months I'll be profiling each one, as each one is a new addition to the collection.  Next up is a card that I may very well already own.  Except I couldn't find one in the collection, it's not listed in my master excel checklist or listed on the blog, so for fifty cents I decided to make sure I added a copy to my order.  

Akin to the Topps Tiffany sets, Fleer put out these "Custom Coated Collector's Editions" from 1987 to 1989.  In this 1989 set Fleer printed the logo on the back and changed the back coloring so there was no confusing this from the base set, something the company didn't do in its 1987 and 1988 sets.  Other than that and the extreme glossiness of the front the card numbering and image are the same.

2005 Fleer Classic Clippings

Year: 2005

Manufacturer: Fleer

Set: Classic Clippings

Card Number: 2013

Card Type: Base (Legends subset)

Card Attributes: Serial Numbered

Serial Number: 078/999

I can remember lamenting to my LCS owner back in the era around 2003-2005 about just how many different products there were.  It was hard for a collector, and I'm sure equally hard for a shop owner, to decide what to buy and what to chase.  Of course now it's the exact opposite with store shelves looking downright anemic.  But that era, which I would start at the end of the 90's through about 2006-2007 really produced some great products, even if there was a ton.  There were flops of course, but with so many companies trying to outdo each other it made for some now classic sets.  

While I don't know if I'd call Fleer's Classic Clippings a classic set it does give us a few Younts to chase.  Robin is part of the Legends subset.  All the Legends cards were limited to just 999.  There area also two parallels to chase in this set, the First Edition numbered to 150 and the Final edition, which Baseballcardepdia says is numbered to 1, but I own a Final Edition version and it is not numbered at all.  He's not featured in any of the other insert sets.

1987 Fleer Limited Edition

Year: 1987

Manufacturer: Fleer

Set: Limited Edition Box Set

Card Number: 44

Card Type: Base

Another day another box set card.  The 80's were awash in these cheap sets.  I can remember seeing these at my LCS back in the 80's for a buck a piece.  But the nice thing about these sets is you got 44 cards of pretty much the hottest players of the day.  Robin is featured in quite a few of them.  Here we have 1987's Fleer Limited Edition.  You can see the full checklist here. Overall the design is pretty basic, but not unappealing.  Fleer like a lot of the other card companies put out a lot of these kinds of sets.  Sometimes on their own and other times in conjunction with a store, like K-mart or Woolsworth.  Still fun to pick out your players.  Contrary to the name this set was not limited in anyway and like most of these box sets were very overproduced.  You can still find these sets for a buck a piece if you look for them.

1992 Fleer Provision

Year:1992

Manufacturer: Fleer

Set: Flagship

Card: Base, Sub-set

Card Number: 708

Sub-set: Provisions

Donruss had Dick Perez and in 1991 Fleer entered the art card market with Terry Smith's Provisions.  The '91 set was an insert and Fleer crossed the insert over into their basketball and football sets as well.  I remember the '91 baseball inserts were super easy to find because they had black borders and stood out like a sore thumb in the packs when you pressed the wax paper to the side of the pack.  Yep I was a teenage pack searcher.  

In 1992, Fleer numbered the Provision set into the main checklist. In 1993 the art would get reused in the Barry Colla Diamond Marks Bookmarks - Art card inserts.  

The Provision cards are still some of my favorites from the junk wax era.  And I'm glad Robin got included in the second set.  Plus Fleer added a very nice write up on the back.

1983 Fleer

Year: 1983

Manufacturer: Fleer

Set: Flagship Baseball

Card Type: Base

Card Number: 51

Back to simpler times.  Fans were still getting use to having choices again.  I was never a fan of Fleer.  Aside from their 1981 set the 80's were all so bland to me.  The early 90's were even worse.  It wouldn't be until 1996 when one of the graphic designers who apparently was on acid put out a set that was so crazy it was good, well that subjective.  

And while most of the 80s Fleer sets aren't flashy and are pretty forgettable they have nice simplistic streamline look that works and the 1983 set is no different.  It's funny the write up on the back talks more about Robin's brother Larry than him, but at least there was some effort put into it.  The photo looks to be from the 1982 All-Star Game in Montreal.  The Man of Steal is in the background and it looks like that might be George Brett's arm.  The Brewers sent quite a few players to that game the same year they went all the way to the World Series.  Rollie Fingers, Cecil Cooper, and Ben Oglivie also made the trip.  And from the photo it looks like Robin was having a good time.

2005 Fleer Cooperstown Tribute Jersey Relic card

Year: 2005

Manufacturer: Fleer

Card Set: Tradition

Card Type: Insert Relic

Insert Set: Cooperstown Tribute Jersey

Card Number: CT/RY

Card Attributes: Relic

Relic Type: Jersey

Nothing like a plain gray swatch to celebrate the end of the regular baseball season.  The Brew Crew came so close to making it to the playoffs.  2005 would start the end of Fleer and in a couple years the company as collectors knew it would be gone.  But this was back when relics were labeled as Game-worn.  Not player touched, not player-worn, but used in an actual game.  Back when we had competition in the trading card market and companies had to try and give a damn.  (Get off my lawn you kids!!)

This set also has a patch parallel numbered to 10, the base card numbered to 1999 and a gold version of the base card unnumbered.

2003 Fleer Fall Classic Base

Year: 2003

Manufacturer: Fleer

Set: Fall Classic

Card Number: 8

Card Type: Base

Nothing like a good old base card from the early aughts. Fleer was near the end of it's life as a stand alone company, but still putting out some nice sets.  By 2003 I think Fleer had pretty much foregone the low end market all together and just started focusing on mid to high end (for the time)  Will Fall Classic wasn't a wallet breaker I think it retailed around $5 a pack, it definitely wasn't a flaghip product.  The set focused mainly on World Series winners, but thankfully there are a few other notable players that didn't win a World Series.  Boxes had three hits two memorabilia cards and either another memorabilia card or autograph.

Robin is  featured in a few of the inserts and has some relics and autographs.  He's even paired up with the other Brewer great Paul Molitor on some cool cards.

2003 Fleer Showcase Base

Year: 2003

Manufacturer: Fleer

Set: Showcase

Card Number: 98

Card Type: Base

Fleer Showcase is an interesting set, as with a lot of product put out by Fleer near the end of its life.  Hobby boxes had 3 types of packs Leather, Lumber, and Jersey.  Each 24 count box had 8 packs of each.  Only certain base cards were found in certain kinds of packs.  Robin's card, #98, was found in the Jersey packs. Almost seems that these base cards should have been serial numbered.  There are two base card parallels, Legacy numbered to 150 and Masterpiece numbered to just 1.

I think the design is suppose to mimic those old cabinet cards from a 100 years ago and it's not a bad looking card, simple.  The backs are pretty sparse.

1984 Fleer

Year: 1984

Manufacturer: Fleer

Set: Flagship Baseball

Card Number: 219

Card Type: Base

Oh Fleer, you plain Jane of baseball card sets.  Simple is probably the nicest and best way to describe Fleer sets.  However the card does feature a nice fielding live action shot of Robin. And of course we get the nice multicolored stats on the back, with a little room left over for a nice Did you Know? section.  It is kind of odd that all the personal stats were placed way down on the bottom instead of up by the player name.

1983 Fleer Stamps Unopened Package

Year: 1983

Manufacturer: Fleer

Set: Baseball Stamps

Number: Group 1 of 4

Attributes: Unopened Package

It's hard for me to pass up a cool, cheap oddball that's still in it's original wrapper.  Of course the main draw for me was that Robin is featured on the front, but there are three other Brewers visible as well.  Add to that great players like Fernando Valenzuela, Kent Tekulve, Mike Schmidt, and some guy named George Brett and it's a great find.  And there are an additional 56 players and/or team stamps not visible.

There are a couple areas in my collection I think I'm going to focus on more in the coming year and one of them is memorabilia and cards still in their original packaging, like this and cello packs and rack packs.

I also really like that the original price tag from Boscov's Department store is still on it.  Boscov's is a family owned chain based in the Northeast and New England area and they're still in business.  It's neat to see what these were going for back in 1983.

2003 Fleer Doubleheader with Ozzie Smith

Year: 2003

Manufacturer: Fleer

Set: Double Header

Card Number 269-270 w Ozzie Smith

Card Type: Base

Card Attributes: Bifold

I'm an oddball lover.  If you read this blog regularly or my main blog Collector's Crack you that.  This oddball comes for the 2003 Fleer Double Headers set.  The first 180 cards are normal, smaller but just regular cards, the last 120 cards are flip cards.  After Topps' success with it's vintage 206 brand the other companies were looking to cash in.  Fleer decided to take an old Topps design, the 1955 Topps Double Header, which was a knock off of the 1911 Mecca Double Folders.  And while Topps used cartoons for it's cards instead of photos the idea is the same.  

We only get Robin's upper torso on the card.  Fleer did a decent job of lining up his body with Smith's on the bottom of the card, but it still looks a little off.

Open it up and we have a very tall photo featuring the Wizard.  The pairing isn't arbiraty. These two stars faced each other in the 1982 World Series and I really do enjoy it when the share cardboard together even if the Brewers would end up on the losing side.

To complicate things more Fleer decided to keep the double card numbering like the 1955 Topps set.

2003 Fleer Hardball - Round Numbers insert

Year: 2003 

Card Manufacturer: Fleer

Card Set: Hardball

Card Type: Insert

Insert Set: Round Numbers

Card Number 14RN

Card Attributes: Serial Numbered, Round

Serial Number: 0469/1000

An interesting set from 2003.  Like I mentioned in earlier posts 2003 is close to the pinnacle, if not the pinnacle, of set production ever.  You had multiple companies putting out a couple new products every week.  But with all the competition and just overwhelming number of card sets we did get some neat concepts and innovations. 

Fleer Hardball was an all round card set.  Kind of like the old Allen and Ginter round cards from the late 1800's.  The base set was a decent size of 280 cards and there were multiple inserts, relics, and even autographed cards in this set.

Robin is featured in the Round Numbers insert set which featured all retired players and I think they were all HOFers too.  Cards are serial numbered to 1000.  There were a couple of the subjects that also had a relic version of this card, but Robin isn't one of them.

A very neat oddball in the collection.

2003 Fleer Rookies and Greats - Through the Years dual relic with Scott Podsednik

Year: 2003

Card Manufacturer: Fleer

Card Set: Rookies and Greats

Card Number: TY-RY/SP

Card Type: Insert Relic

Insert Set:  Through the Years

Card Attributes: Relics, Serial Numbered

Relic Type: Jersey and Bat

Serial Number: 050/360

Wow that's quite a header.  I didn't open a ton of cards in 2003.  That was mainly due to my lifestyle at the time and where and how I was working.  That also happens to be close to the pinnacle of product production for sports cards.  I'm not talking about the billions of cards produced in the junk wax era, I'm talking about the fact that in 2003 there were over 100 different baseball products produced alone.  Think about that.  That's at least 2 new products a week, sometimes more of just baseball.  Now factor in that most card companies had multiple licenses if not all 4 and the shelves were packed with products.  The nice thing was most of those products were affordable, but there were just so many.  

Anyways the one thing we got out of the 2000's was dawn of the guaranteed hit! Autographed and relic cards had been around since the 90's.  And they were and are great for the hobby and they were a big hit with collectors.  With anything that's popular you can bet that the companies take notice and will run it into the ground.

What does that have to do with this card?  Nothing.  Other than it's from a set I never rip a single pack of.  Robin has three cards in this set, all relics.  Besides this great dual relic with Scott Podsednik, he has a patch version of this card and a relic card in the Boyhood Idols set. 

Over all the card isn't all that exciting in the layout, but I do enjoy the multiple relic cards that feature players from my team exclusively.  Scott only played for the Brewers two years 2003 and 2004 before moving on to the White Sox where he would help them win the World Series in 2005 and then married a Playboy Playmate.

1990 Fleer

Year: 1990

Manufacturer: Fleer

Set: Baseball (Flagship)

Card Type: Base

Card Number: 340

If I had to pick the most boring set of the 90's it would probably be 1990 Fleer.  It's so simple and sleek that it just kind of lulls you to sleep.  It's quite a contrast from 1990 Topps which was really colorful and Donruss which looked like a pile of vomit.   I bought a lot of this in 1990.  I still have a monster box full of commons buried in my parents basement somewhere. 

An interesting shot of Robin bunting.  Not much room on the back for anything else but 17 years worth of stats.  And even for it's blandness it's printed on brilliant white stock and I've seen examples of this card autographed and it looks pretty good.

1993 Fleer

Year: 1993

Manufacturer: Fleer

Set: Fleer Baseball (Flagship)

Card Number: 260

Card Type: Base

Oh Fleer... The 1993 set isn't much to right home to mom about.  I think the gray borders were suppose to look like silver and give the set a touch of class.  As it is it just looks like a plain one color border.  It's a nice candid picture of Robin sitting in the dugout.  What's he doing there?  Signing autographs, telling the rookie to get out of his way, pointing at the squirrel running across the field? 

Who knows?

It's kind of sad the back of the card is more interesting than the front though.  If you had any question what Robin's last name was.. well here you go.  I do like the action shot on the back and the horizontal layout.  I'm not a big fan of the card number being in the bottom right hand corner, simply because I'm a collator and that makes collating your set in a box difficult.  It's also interesting how Fleer decided to display the stats.  Fleer only put 12 years of stats on the back and then divided those states by 5 years, 4 years, and then the 3 most recent years.  Why?  I'm sure only the graphic designer knows.

This would be Robin's last year in baseball before he retired, but Fleer would issue a 1994 card for him as well.