Giga Trade Part 2 - The Fleer Edition

Let's look at Fleer over the years, shall we? All these cards, and more, are part of a trade with Ted of Crinkly Wrappers.

So we start at the beginning. '81 Fleer. Not bad, figuring what we get ten years later. And the '84 design is really nice - clean and crisp. What is it about '84 designs that attracts me to them?

1991 was a bad year for Fleer. Mainly, the yellow. Way too much. And there was nothing to this design, just like Donruss '88/'89. Compare that to the insanity of four years later - 1995 Fleer was insane. Not a bad design, especially for a '90s card, but way too much going on for a flagship issue. And if you compare it to 1994 or 1996 (see below), it's completely different.

The 1996 issue returned cards to their basics, and probably ushered in the era of throwback sets like Retro, Heritage, and of course Tradition. Fleer would use the Tradition name from basically this point forward for its base brand, using traditional card stock designed with a classic feel meant for autographs. The 2006 Fleer card shown has a low-gloss finish as well.

The 2000 Tradition set looked a lot like a certain 1950s Topps set, and the 2002 set looks like a certain 1930s Goudey set.

This 2006 Tradition card features gloss and a more modern-throwback design, instead of copying prior releases.

Ultra was the first premium issue from Fleer, though the '91 set didn't live up to its name. The '92 and '93 (shown) issues look similar and actually was a premium set.

By 1999, Ultra started a tradition of a foil-highlighted script of the player's name on the front, along with additional information, on the lower portion of the card on an otherwise design-free card, focusing on the imagery. The technology-inspired design of 2003 is an exception.

Donruss was the king of the relic and parallel - or could have been called the King of Gimmicks. Fleer had their hand in gimmicks, too, of a sort - they created several different one-off sets such as those shown here, and since 1992 have created a mountain of insert sets, some good and some bad. In the '90s, they brought us Circa, with the '98 Thunder version, and Metal Universe, which featured crazy foil backgrounds behind player images.

Skybox releases were mid-premium brands, and the simple design here would work with some of Ultra's high-quality photography. The color-on-black and white isn't too bad on this set. And the Authentix set featured a ticket stub design that I find attractive.

Inscribed was another theme set, but the design looks like something more portrait-like than autograph-focused. However, the nice picture in the middle is probably perfect for autographs, and the simple elegant design is nice. Platinum was a set run that seems to have never found a home - one year it copied the '86 Fleer design, another featured a starburst logo with curving player details (to the right).

We all know the company Fleer died in 2005 and was bought by Upper Deck, where it was resurrected for two more years as Fleer, Tradition, and Ultra releases.

That concludes a look at the Fleer cards Ted sent me as part of a massive selection. The next installment will poke around Score and some of the oddballish stuff he included. Stay tuned!

Giga Trade Part 1 - The Donruss Edition

I just finished posting about my 129 card trade with Dominic, which given that most of the cards were inserts, seems pretty big to me. But my trade with Ted of Crinkly Wrappers has that beat, big time. No, really. He sent me a nearly-full 500-count box of cards. I think it's a 500-count box. Anyway, the deal started with him offering some '09 Upper Deck and '11 Topps, which are the two sets I'm focused on the most right now. He also noticed my quest for one card from every set, and sent me one card from every set he had extras from - which was a ton of cards. A 500-count box full.  I'm going to spend the next several days giving you a glimpse into the past 30+ years of baseball cards.

All this came for the exchange of this. I probably got the better deal - I certainly didn't expect what he sent!

First, a little bad news to Ted - I think I only needed one of the cards for my sampler collection. But I still like these cards. In fact, I have a use for them, because there is another sampler project I was considering undertaking, and these cards actually put a massive dent in that project.

For each brand, I've selected a few cards to discuss - the best and worst designs represented, really. So here we go!

So, we start with Donruss. The '84 design is better than the '81-'83 designs. It's fairly simple, but I like the elegant swoops holding the team name. It doesn't help that this is one of the rarest sets of the '80s. And dude, that's Don Sutton. Mr. Talks-a-lot himself!

For years, I never paid enough attention to the '87 design to realize those were gray baseballs. To this day, the card design reminds me of a small car tire rolling over every card. The '89 set marked my entrance into collecting. I actually don't mind the design, even though it gets tired after seeing 1000s of the cards.

I really liked the 1990 Donruss design. Overproduction at its best, but I like the artsy style of the paint splashes along the border. The 2003 card to the right is a big improvement, but we're talking 13 years of innovation. I think the design would work as an Opening Day type of set, or an insert, but otherwise the borders take up a bit too much of the card.

2005 was the end of Donruss in baseball. They featured a simple design - all the basics in a box on the bottom with plenty of room for the card. Not much design work involved, but overall I think Donruss never really tried to do anything innovative or spectacular.

Leaf was limited in its 1990 release, but it wasn't until 1993 that it actually reached the quality of Stadium Club, Ultra, and of course Upper Deck. I liked the marble design, and I've been a fan of Eckersley since I started collecting. Ted included an insert - this Gold Leaf Rookies card of A-Gon.

Studio was Donruss's attempt at, well, a studio approach to photography. Over the years, you can see a shift back and forth from that concept. The '91 set, a weekly feature on Baseball Card Bust, features some groundbreaking photography, even though it can be quite scary. The 1993 card to the right features up-close images but in less of a portrait format. The stitched logo backgrounds are nice.

The '95 set went nuts. The entire set was produced to look like credit cards, even featuring a black line mimicking the magnetic strip on the back. Again, you see that game photography was used. By 2004, Studio returned to portraits, as you can see on this Delgado card. I like the use of the city skyline in the background. I noticed another Studio set used this imagery on the back of the cards. And you can see the same imagery was used in the 2005 set, just with a hazy backgroud. By the way, last year I visited Toronto and went up in the CN Tower. A rain shower passed by as I was up there and I got a couple really nice pictures.

If there's one thing Donruss did with baseball sets in the 2000s, it was produce a lot of them, and they were mostly focused on relics and autographs. The Leaf Certified Cuts issue was named because the big sell was cut autographs. Donruss Champions was designed with plenty of room for relic pieces. This could have been why Donruss lost its license - less focus on the card and too much focus on the hits. That left base cards like the two shown here with way too much empty space.

Absolute Memorabilia was a little different, at least in this 2002 card. The base cards weren't designed for relics first, and the design isn't bad. Of course, the whole point of Absolute Memorabilia was memorabilia cards, but it's one of my favorites in that category. It's too busy for a regular issue, but it works for a specialty set as this. To the right you can see a Leaf Century Collection, which featured stamps embedded on some of the cards. Again, for its focus, it's a decent design.

That concludes the Donruss section of the post. I didn't show you everything - there are Triple Play cards, other sets you probably forgot about, and tons more cards from Donruss, Leaf, and Studio. Next, we work the alphabetical manufacturer order with Fleer.

I had Nachos for dinner!

One more quick post for today, as I try to clear some stuff out of the way. Chris of Nachos Grande once again had a trade stack I jumped on, including these fine subjects:

There's a nice selection of players there. Gotta love the 'stache on Barry. That is Barry, right? I've seen him looking so much like Peter Griffin (what with the thick neck and all) over the past few years I don't really recognize him in his skinny days. And I'm going to add to the commentary by saying, hey, he did pretty well as a skinny dude. Didn't he win a couple MVP awards and hit a couple hundred homeruns with Pittsburgh before he ballooned in size? And this is like the sixth mini Chris sent to me. But those cards aren't why I pulled the trigger on his trade stack. This one is:

Oddball greatness! If he had started with this card as the trade stack I would have still made the trade. These are the cards I have a hard time finding, or if I do they cost way too much to order individually on eBay. So I don't really look for them, I just grab them when I see them.

Thanks a ton, Chris! I have now broken the 17% threshold on the sampler collection. That's 5436 of 31899 cards! If I ever reach 50% I'll be really surprised, given the difficulty in securing these oddballs. And yes, I really did have nachos for dinner.