Mid 80's Fleer Boxed Sets

goodriddance189

these get my vote for some of the most underrated, condition sensitive cards out there. while at home from college ive been looking through my stuff trying to find stuff for grading, stuff to sell on ebay etc. i found about 10-12 fleer box sets from the mid to late 80's that i had bought back in the day for a buck apiece. figuring that i could pull some potential PSA 9's from these sets, i started looking through them. remember, there are 35-50 cards in each set, and i had 10 sets. so thats around 400 or so cards. how many potential psa 9's did i find? 2! 2 out of 400 (canseco and clemens, both 1986 Fleer Sluggers + Hurlers). thats .5% that have a chance of a straight 9. judging by these cards quality control, they look like theyre from the 60's. id say about 70-75% of all the cards were off centered signicantly (70/30 or worse). if you actually do find a well centered example, you have to worry about corner dings due to damage from the box. most of these cards have full bleed borders, so finding cards without chipping is a challenge as well.

ive heard that these sets were never worth much because they were mass produced. but they couldnt possibly be any more mass produced than wax from the same year. ask any player collector what theyre searching for, and odds are theyll say oddball issues such as these. while they may be mass produced, theyre scarce in comparison to regular sets. add to that the condition sensitivity, which i believe arises from the fact that the sets were marketed as a mass market item as opposed to a collectible, and i think these sets are really underrated

mikeschmidt

Sir:

I would respectfully disagree with you, all things considered. The boxed sets were largely mass produced to such a ridiculous extent that it is not hard today to find cases of these products. As one of the few player collectors out there who is going for all of the oddballs in PSA condition -- I can tell you that all things considered that I have had very little difficulty in finding most of those Mike Schmidt cards in PSA 9 or PSA 10 condition -- many from personal submissions.

Not to suggest that they are necessarily easy to find in top grade -- it just isn't that hard when you can purchase a 400-card lot of Fleer's Hottest Stars, for example. I would generally say that O-Pee-Chee cards from the 1980s are probably harder to find in above PSA 8 condition (though I've done that, too...), and some of the weird sets are a challenge, like the Fleer Stickers from 1988, or some of the Donruss Opening Day/All-Star/Pop-Up type sets.

If you had a run of one set -- it does seem like cases of product are either totally off-centered or pretty allright overall. Fleer is notorious for that in most of the 1980s sets they produced.

All that being said, Fleer produced a HUGE number of these sets during the 1986 - 1989 timeframe. There are some that are harder to find than others -- and sometimes the "pain in my backside" factor has led me to be content with a PSA 8 for the time being. I would defer to King Kellogg about the actual difficulty of some sets versus others -- he was a huge help to me in putting together a nice run of nearly all the Fleer boxed set Schmidt cards in 9 and 10 grade.

MS

Virtualizard

I'll have to agree with Marc on every point. I've gone into small local shops in Pittsburgh, Tampa, and West Palm Beach in the past 6 months, and every shop has these sets in abundance (usually marked at $2-5 per box). For my Schmidt set, I have had the same experiences - they are not difficult to find graded and King Kellogg has helped me a lot as well. I have sent in a few for grading myself and had relatively good luck.

Wait for the King's response, I'm sure it will be enlightening.

JEB.

goodriddance189

jeb, marc-

i didnt mean that these cards were rare by any means, but i opened 11 sealed sets (all different sets/years) and found 2 out of 400 or so worthy of a PSA 9 grade. i know they can be had for cheap, as i got mine for $1-$2 a box, but 400 seems like a large enough sample size to tell me that they're often found in bad shape

KING KELLOGG

Hello all...

goodriddance189...., you are 99% correct on what you stated...

mikeschmidt..., Marc, you are also 99% correct on what you stated...

Virtualizard..., JEB...also 99% correct...


There is a lot of this type of product out there, however, I've found that the quality varies from each edge of the spectrum. Over the last 2 years I have purchased ....maybe 3000 - 4000 of those little boxed sets. Thought I would submit a pile of cards and sit back and watch the 10's roll in.....REALITY CHECK!!! I found that large groups of sets didn't really compliment each other. I would receive...say...25 1987 Fleer League Leader sets from one source and have a completely different result from 25 identical sets from another source. Seems like I would get a pile of great Brett cards from one group and have to "toss" the Brett cards from the next group...Oh well... So I think everybody is correct on the exposure you each had. I certainly recall tossing set after set in the junk bin and then BAM!! Gems would pop up midstride.

My focus was, and still is, to try to supply oddball cards to the Registry. I persue the cards that would not otherwise be graded. I still have tons of "boxed set cards" and will submit more players when the need arises. I've got a pretty good "eye" for grading, and this gives me a chance to supply collectors, fund my own sets, and have a fun challange all at the same time.

My recommendation for chasing these "oddities" is as follows...

If you can secure enough small sets to overcome the quality controls (nill) at Fleer, by all means, get a truck load and start looking......You'll get some good ones eventually...

Ask some of the dealers who post on this board if they have any in their inventory. Most dealers will stay with mainstay vintage and modern slabs, but most dealers either have some oddballs that don't warrent any advertising dollars, or know where these cards are. Jay at Qualitycards, Greg at Cameo Cards, and Jeff at Luxurycards have all been helpful in the past.

Or you can just ask 'ole King to try to scare you up a few Gems...I always love the hunt!!!

Hope I've been able to help on this issue...


Thanks Marc and JEB for the kind words...



Larry

rbeaton

<< <i>My focus was, and still is, to try to supply oddball cards to the Registry >>

That's a great focus King Kellogg!! I'm patiently awaiting more PSA-10 oddball Palmer cards

Robert

KING KELLOGG

rbeaton...

Robert......... Jim Palmer cards just went to the top of "send in" pile...

Hope there are some 10's in there for you...


Thanks


Larry