1959 Fleer Ted Williams Packs

jgrigali

Does anyone have a picture of the 1959 Fleer Ted Williams 8 Card packs...or can at least describe how they may differ from the 5cent/6card packs that do not contain card #68?

Stone193

edit: found a clear wrapper







I thought I had seen one - just couldn't remember where.



For comparison:

jgrigali

That might be it, the 6 card packs i see on google/etc. say Bubble Gum, then 5c on the next line, then 6 cards on the next

and now i find it...

Old Cardboard Wrappers

Stone193

Originally posted by: jgrigali

That might be it, the 6 card packs i see on google/etc. say Bubble Gum, then 5c on the next line, then 6 cards on the next



and now i find it...



Old Cardboard Wrappers

Old Cardboard is where I found it.

ZTarg

Margins must have been very tight at Fleer back in the day that in order to add 2 cards to the pack they had to hold back the bubble gum.



Product line assistant: Sir, why don't we add two cards to the packs to increase mid season sales?

Product line manager: OK, but hold back the bubble gum.

Product line assistant: Hold back the bubble gum, but we're Fleer, we invented bubble gum.

Product line manager: Give them two more cards and keep the bubble gum in there? Are you trying to bankrupt us?

bishop

In reading FTC cases from the 60s involving complaints by Fleer involving Topps, the 59 set did fairly well. Things tailed off with the 60-62 offerings, and the 63 set, with the cookie was a bust. It was poor sales rather than litigation the halted it at one series..

Since Topps player contracts gave them exclusive rights to market a players image with confections ( including gum), Fleer had to have players not under contract with Topps ( Williams and then retired stars) to sell with gum, or had to sell them with something else ( cookies for Fleer in 63 and marbles for Leaf in 1961)

Counterfeit copies of the Ted Signs card were rampant for a time.

By the way, 1959 was not Fleer's first baseball set. That occurred in 1923