1989 Fleer Glossy...PSA 10's

olb31

Ken griffey Jr sold for $5500

Randy Johnson sold for $160

Nolan ryan sold for $200 and $100

Bo Jackson sold for $117 and $100

Does this make any sense at all? Randy sales for 35 times less than the griffey and essentially the same as nolan ryan? What gives?

Randy was a pretty darn good pitcher. I would assume a top 10 - 15 pitcher since 1920? maybe higher. And this is his Rookie card. A good case can be made that Randy was as good as Griffey (based on positions).

dallasactuary

Randy was very much better than Griffey; a case hardly needs to be made. Two things: Griffey is much more popular, and Griffey doesn't have the PED cloud. Still, $5,500 is absurd. I wouldn't dream of buying any card from 1989 as an investment, but that Griffey card will be available for a whole lot less than $5,500 in the future.

NGS428

The Griffey card has a pop of 118, so quite low for his rookie year. The 1989 Topps Traded Tiffany has a pop of 337, which sells for about $2.6k.

Granted they did print 2x as many of the Fleer glossy (30k vs 15k).

Supply and demand as usual. Let’s see where this one ends..
https://www.ebay.com/itm/385633396833?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=ppxv2bK5S4e&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=6QcuQCLzR1e&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

RonSportscards

Popularity and collectability of hitters vs. pitchers not named Nolan Ryan.
118, 6% of Jr submitted are 10's.
131, 21% of RJ black out ad are 10's.
There are 4? varieties of Randy Johnsons and Marlboro ads, so $$$$ investors are not interested in the more common ones.

You can see the trend.

JoeBanzai

Randy is way undervalued here.
Griffey is the hobby darling, everybody wants his cards.
Same with Ryan, his cards are worth much more than they "should" be.
Bo Jackson was a tremendous athlete, but he really wasn't a great baseball player except for 1 year and of course his career was very short.

DBesse27

I’m sale-ing awaayyyy…..

BBBrkrr

@JoeBanzai said:
Randy is way undervalued here.
Griffey is the hobby darling, everybody wants his cards.
Same with Ryan, his cards are worth much more than they "should" be.
Bo Jackson was a tremendous athlete, but he really wasn't a great baseball player except for 1 year and of course his career was very short.

As someone who was a teen during the Bo years I still don't get why his cards are as valuable as they are. People just love the guy and everything he almost was. He's similar to Mattingly in the love folks have for him even though there were better players. On these two guys I follow the crowd though.

JoeBanzai

@BBBrkrr said:

@JoeBanzai said:
Randy is way undervalued here.
Griffey is the hobby darling, everybody wants his cards.
Same with Ryan, his cards are worth much more than they "should" be.
Bo Jackson was a tremendous athlete, but he really wasn't a great baseball player except for 1 year and of course his career was very short.

As someone who was a teen during the Bo years I still don't get why his cards are as valuable as they are. People just love the guy and everything he almost was. He's similar to Mattingly in the love folks have for him even though there were better players. On these two guys I follow the crowd though.

Thankfully people loved Bo, I went nuts a couple of years ago and bought a bunch of 1987 Topps unopened product.
Didn't get any PSA 10 Barry Bonds cards, but got 3 Bo's in a 10. Those 3 cards were the difference between a nice little profit and breaking even.

daltex

@RonSportscards said:
Popularity and collectability of hitters vs. pitchers not named Nolan Ryan.
118, 6% of Jr submitted are 10's.
131, 21% of RJ black out ad are 10's.
There are 4? varieties of Randy Johnsons and Marlboro ads, so $$$$ investors are not interested in the more common ones.

You can see the trend.

It's really bizarre that a) Fleer had three different varieties in what amounts to a factory set and b) that PSA graded 415 of them without knowing this.

Griffey has the reflection of the Upper Deck card, but as with the '52 Mantle, Griffey and Mantle were both great players, but their cards are priced far beyond their on field abilities.

olb31

Randy's most valuable 1989 cards are as follows

1) Topps tiffany
2) opc
3) Topps tiffany traded
4) fleer marlboro ad on scoreboard
5) Score Hottest
6) Fleer Glossy

olb31

I have been watching baseball since 1974. Nolan roger and randy where the most dominant (KO's type pitchers) I've seen.

Browns1981

Randy’s popular card was the Marlboro Fleer, which was always completely blacked out in the glossy set (as far as I know).

daltex

@Browns1981 said:
Randy’s popular card was the Marlboro Fleer, which was always completely blacked out in the glossy set (as far as I know).

That would seem likely, as surely they'd have that "corrected" before they started to make Glossy sets, but PSA claims to have graded 15 with the sign, and another 13 with the sign partially obscured.

olb31

i noticed that too, but i have never seen one.

junkwaxgems

@RonSportscards said:
Popularity and collectability of hitters vs. pitchers not named Nolan Ryan.
118, 6% of Jr submitted are 10's.
131, 21% of RJ black out ad are 10's.
There are 4? varieties of Randy Johnsons and Marlboro ads, so $$$$ investors are not interested in the more common ones.

You can see the trend.

FYI - This info is a PSA mistake, there are no other versions on the glossy Randy than the blacked out version.

RonSportscards

@daltex said:

That would seem likely, as surely they'd have that "corrected" before they started to make Glossy sets, but PSA claims to have graded 15 with the sign, and another 13 with the sign partially obscured.

@junkwaxgems said:

FYI - This info is a PSA mistake, there are no other versions on the glossy Randy than the blacked out version.

I can't confirm, but according to this guy, there are at least 12 variations, with Beckett recognizing 5. He also claims the glossy cards include all variations.

https://cardlines.com/1989-fleer-randy-johnson-variations-error/

Regardless, the big money is going toward the rare versions.

azvike

Topps Tiffany (Expo's uniform) is the grail.

junkwaxgems

@RonSportscards said:

@daltex said:

That would seem likely, as surely they'd have that "corrected" before they started to make Glossy sets, but PSA claims to have graded 15 with the sign, and another 13 with the sign partially obscured.

@junkwaxgems said:

FYI - This info is a PSA mistake, there are no other versions on the glossy Randy than the blacked out version.

I can't confirm, but according to this guy, there are at least 12 variations, with Beckett recognizing 5. He also claims the glossy cards include all variations.

https://cardlines.com/1989-fleer-randy-johnson-variations-error/

Regardless, the big money is going toward the rare versions.

Can confirm with 100% certainty that the glossy cards do not come in ANY version aside from full black out.

RonSportscards

@junkwaxgems said:

@RonSportscards said:

@daltex said:

That would seem likely, as surely they'd have that "corrected" before they started to make Glossy sets, but PSA claims to have graded 15 with the sign, and another 13 with the sign partially obscured.

@junkwaxgems said:

FYI - This info is a PSA mistake, there are no other versions on the glossy Randy than the blacked out version.

I can't confirm, but according to this guy, there are at least 12 variations, with Beckett recognizing 5. He also claims the glossy cards include all variations.

https://cardlines.com/1989-fleer-randy-johnson-variations-error/

Regardless, the big money is going toward the rare versions.

Can confirm with 100% certainty that the glossy cards do not come in ANY version aside from full black out.

100% certainty?
Final answer?

woodstock2

@RonSportscards said:

@junkwaxgems said:

@RonSportscards said:

@daltex said:

That would seem likely, as surely they'd have that "corrected" before they started to make Glossy sets, but PSA claims to have graded 15 with the sign, and another 13 with the sign partially obscured.

@junkwaxgems said:

FYI - This info is a PSA mistake, there are no other versions on the glossy Randy than the blacked out version.

I can't confirm, but according to this guy, there are at least 12 variations, with Beckett recognizing 5. He also claims the glossy cards include all variations.

https://cardlines.com/1989-fleer-randy-johnson-variations-error/

Regardless, the big money is going toward the rare versions.

Can confirm with 100% certainty that the glossy cards do not come in ANY version aside from full black out.

100% certainty?
Final answer?

You need to take a look at the back to see if it the glossy version. The backs of the glossy cards have blue ink. @junkwaxgems is right. The glossy cards do not come in ANY version aside from full black out. I have pictures of the backs of most these incorrectly labeled glossy cards somewhere. Can't find this exact one but here are two of the others.

ReggieCleveland

Plus, all Glossy cards have the two black dots up between the Y in Randy and the J in Johnson. If yours doesn't have those it's not a Glossy version.

I have seen a few error versions with white dots but those are extremely rare and probably occurred right at the transition over to the corrected plates.

Arthur

ndleo

PSA makes the same mistake on Tiffany Traded cards since the backs are the same. I had to escalate an issue with a 84 TTR Tiffany Gooden to get resolved.

Estil

Fun Fact: The 1989 Fleer Tiffany set is featured in Home Alone when Kevin tries to climb up Buzz's shelves and ends up tearing them down! Why they would pick such a super limited edition set for a movie prop when the regular set would've worked just as well is beyond me...

JoeBanzai

Picked up a set.

Thanks olb31 for posting about it!

👍

NGS428

@NGS428 said:
The Griffey card has a pop of 118, so quite low for his rookie year. The 1989 Topps Traded Tiffany has a pop of 337, which sells for about $2.6k.

Granted they did print 2x as many of the Fleer glossy (30k vs 15k).

Supply and demand as usual. Let’s see where this one ends..
https://www.ebay.com/itm/385633396833?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=ppxv2bK5S4e&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=6QcuQCLzR1e&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Well, $3,805 for the one I posted above. So quite a bit off from the $5,500.

junkwaxgems

@RonSportscards said:

@junkwaxgems said:

@RonSportscards said:

@daltex said:

That would seem likely, as surely they'd have that "corrected" before they started to make Glossy sets, but PSA claims to have graded 15 with the sign, and another 13 with the sign partially obscured.

@junkwaxgems said:

FYI - This info is a PSA mistake, there are no other versions on the glossy Randy than the blacked out version.

I can't confirm, but according to this guy, there are at least 12 variations, with Beckett recognizing 5. He also claims the glossy cards include all variations.

https://cardlines.com/1989-fleer-randy-johnson-variations-error/

Regardless, the big money is going toward the rare versions.

Can confirm with 100% certainty that the glossy cards do not come in ANY version aside from full black out.

100% certainty?
Final answer?

Yeah, final answer. Those are mislabeled by PSA. None of those are glossy versions.

olb31

@NGS428 said:

@NGS428 said:
The Griffey card has a pop of 118, so quite low for his rookie year. The 1989 Topps Traded Tiffany has a pop of 337, which sells for about $2.6k.

Granted they did print 2x as many of the Fleer glossy (30k vs 15k).

Supply and demand as usual. Let’s see where this one ends..
https://www.ebay.com/itm/385633396833?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=ppxv2bK5S4e&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=6QcuQCLzR1e&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Well, $3,805 for the one I posted above. So quite a bit off from the $5,500.

psa lists it at 6100, the last one that sold before the one you mentioned was 5500. even at 3800 thats much mor4e than 150 for randy.

ndleo

Ending that auction on a long weekend Sunday probably wasn’t a good idea.