Got my BCEE order today, 2x 1985 Fleer wax boxes!!!

digicat

Ok. Live ripping.

I've already opened one box, so I cheated a bit. I opened half the box at work, sneaking a pack here, a pack there. How can I resist? The other half waited until this evening. Anyways....

Box 1:
Lots of slightly off center cards, probably about 60/40 l/r. Most of the stuff looks pretty nice for the raw set I'm gonna put together though.

What did I get?

Nothing worth grading. No Clemens, no Puckett, no Rypken (except for the Special). I got a Ryan and a Gwynn though. The Gwynn was oc pretty bad and had a red print-line going through it.




Next up, Box 2....

digicat

Ok. Just ripped one column of box 2. All o/c.
HoF types: Ryan (pictured), Carew, Perez, Eck, Rickey Henderson, Rose's special

This scan pretty much sums up the centering of this whole column:

digicat

Column 2. Bitter sweet. Sweet in that I got some nice cards... Gwynn, Schmidt, and more importantly, Clemens AND Puckett. However, as you can see from the scan below, this is where the bitter part comes in. All the cards had the print lines you can see at the bottom of the cards pictured. The Gwynn and Schmidt are part of the popular "Wax Back" parallel set (one per pack).

digicat

Column 3. Good stuff. An o/c Ripken (not so good) and the pictured Sandberg and Mattingly. The Mattingly's a bit off t/b, and seems to have a bit of a tilt to it though.

MajorDanby

too bad about the clemens...

digicat

Column 4.

Only 4 non commons, a Fisk, Fingers, Seaver, and Rose, all o/c and not scan worthy.

On a really odd note, I found a 1/2 inch stick (as in, from a tree or plant) at the bottom of the box. ???

So, in summary... This was a fun little distraction, but painful when I think of how much I spent on this stuff. I could have bought 4 factory sets for what I paid for these! Guess the thrill of the hunt is what makes unopened stuff fun.


I also snagged about 30 1989 Donruss racks just for fun. I'll spare you the scans from those though.

digicat

I should know better, but I guess I never learn. I've never been good at games of chance. It's as if there's some sort of cosmic anomaly around my being that causes me to loose when it comes to random stuff.

Sometimes, something good slips by.
Back in 1991, I opened up a box of Upper Deck football and Upper Deck baseball. EVERY SINGLE PACK of Football had an Emmit Smith hologram insert, and EVERY SINGLE PACK of Baseball had a Hank Aaron hologram. Guess lightning struck twice in one place and burned out my luck.

Bosox1976

Thanks for sharing; thrill of the chase is exactly right.

mikeschmidt

I'm looking for high-grade examples of the Schmidt/Sandberg card from the set. Let me know if you got any

RedHeart54

It's still a very nice set IMO. I spent over a year putting together a mint, well-centered set. One of the best of the '80s!

digicat

So, a quick question to anyone who's been through a bunch of 1985 Fleer:
Those print lines you can see on the Puckett and Clemens above, are those due to centering and placement on the sheet they were printed on (as in, those print lines are actually guide lines for the cutter), or are they flaws from the printing process?

bsfastball

Im pretty sure that PSA wont grade down for those print lines (see 1970 topps as an example)

digicat

With the centering as it is, I'd probably get 7s at best, I might as well save the money and leave it raw.

ArnyVee

That's a good set. But, those particular cards that you showed would grade out at 7s (Mattingly & Ripken In Action have outside shot at 8s?) at best as you said. I would keep them raw and just enjoy them that way.

I've never looked those up to see what commons go for or anything. That'd be a fun set to put together. I'm too wrapped up in the ones that I have to even think about it though.

MorrellMan

Thrill of the chase indeed. I ripped a couple dozen '86 donruss packs that I got for about a buck apiece. Realized after all was said and done that there was really nothing in there to chase.

jmbkb4

Clemens could easily be an 8.

Thanks for sharing.

digicat

One more scan....

I had a few 1985 Fleer racks that I picked up along with the boxes that I decided to save for later. Well, getting home today was "later" enough I guess.

Gwynn, Ripken, and Boggs. The Boggs was o/c (suprise suprise), as is the Gwynn, but it still looks nice. The Ripken is pretty sweet looking...




The Ripken has the standard rought cut bottom edge that doesn't seem too uncommon with this year, does PSA grade down for that? Think this Ripken might be worth sending in?

jmbkb4

Looks like these 2 cards (above) are 8's on a bad day and 9's on a good day. I'd drop the $16 and get 'em both graded.

TheCARDKid

What's the highest grade that the Puckett or Clemens would get with the line on the bottom?

Only some cards in the set have them.

bsfastball

The lines shouldnt affect the grade at all. From what I've seen, PSA does not take off for print lines like that (see 1970 Topps, the wille mays card especially, for examples of this)

digicat

Hmm. According to the PSA grading standards, a PSA 9 can have 65/35 centering, and the Clemens is about:
61/39 l/r
64/36 t/b

Close inspections shows 4 sharp corners, and 4 crisp edges. There is a slight tilt to the picture though.

Hmm...

On Ebay, there's a PSA 9 (oc) that ended a while back with the bottom line on it, however, it was close to 75/25 t/b.