Remember opening early 2000s Fleer products?

[ewokpelts]

Originally Posted by marl1220

2000 Fleer Tradition has been my favorite release/design since 2000.

I didn’t like fleer making a fake heritage their flagship set.

[ewokpelts]

Originally Posted by bblair_2002

Dug out my Mets collection and here's a pic of the Willie Mays:

Untitled by Brett Blair, on Flickr
Untitled by Brett Blair, on Flickr

that’s a nice card

[bblair_2002]

Originally Posted by ewokpelts

that’s a nice card

Thank you.

[mfw13]

Originally Posted by ewokpelts

I didn’t like fleer making a fake heritage their flagship set.

Fleer Tradition predates Heritage by a year.

Arguably it was the success of 2000 Fleer Tradition that made the executives at Topps realize that the were sitting on gold mine (i.e. the intellectual property rights to their original designs) and start the Heritage line in 2001.

Prior to 2001, Topps had not released any retro products (or inserts) utilizing their original designs.

UD continued to riff on Topps designs up until 2009, when Topps sued them over their use of the 1979-80 Topps Hockey design. resulting in UD losing their baseball license.

[GUCD231]

Big fan of early 2000’s Fleer as well. I especially enjoyed collecting 2002 Fleer Tradition Baseball. #1-100 are short prints and each card has an American flag which I’m guessing commemorated our remembrance of 9/11.

[ewokpelts]

Originally Posted by mfw13

Fleer Tradition predates Heritage by a year.

Arguably it was the success of 2000 Fleer Tradition that made the executives at Topps realize that the were sitting on gold mine (i.e. the intellectual property rights to their original designs) and start the Heritage line in 2001.

Prior to 2001, Topps had not released any retro products (or inserts) utilizing their original designs.

UD continued to riff on Topps designs up until 2009, when Topps sued them over their use of the 1979-80 Topps Hockey design. resulting in UD losing their baseball license.

The 50th anniversary is why heritage exists.
Topps had made archives sets almost ten years earlier than heritage.
And the topps/UD lawsuit has more to do with the2010 baseball product UD produced

[corockies]

Originally Posted by Boredlawyer

I also miss 2001 Pacific Private Stock... hint, hint, if anyone has Game Gear patches from the set, I'll pay a premium.

2002-2005 remains my favorite era, the ending being when Topps re-classified the "rookie card" in 2006, creating a 5 year lag effect for guys we previously treated as rookies. I wasn't interested in a 2008 Joey Votto RC when I had his 2002 XRC.

2004 was my favorite. For folks that weren't around collecting, Bowman Draft only had 10-15 first year autographs. UD, Donruss and Fleer each got one-time licenses to produce "draft" products. The UD and Donruss sets had a huge number of autographs with 2nd-8th rounders, which was unheard of for Bowman Draft. Created a fun scenario where some highly touted prospects didn't have Bowman Draft cards, including non-auto'd base, but had relatively limited autographs in these other brands, OR they had rare Bowman Sterling cards, but no Bowman Draft cards. The most notable of these guys were Hunter Pence and Dustin Pedroia. Neither had Bowman cards their rookie year, but had serial numbered autographs in these other products.

What puts a damper on that excitement was none of those prospects--Nate Schierholtz and Reid Brignac come to mind--never panned out. Was fun for a while though!

2005 was also a really fun year for draft because there were a number of high ceiling bats in the first round. Draft had 15 chrome autographs, and half of them were really exciting hits. The base set had a bunch of really high profile bats like Jay Bruce, McCutchen, Tulo, along with some guys that didn't pan out, but carried weight for that first year. Felt like every box was returning a big name.

I loved 2004 Donruss Elite Extra Edition. I built the entire base set w/all autographs, and tried to get as many nickname / inscription signed cards as well. I still believe to this day the autographs from this set are the most unique across any brand. Here's my Hunter Pence autograph RC trifecta (first, last, and jersey # cards). Serial #001/672, #009/672 (jersey # with the Astros), and #672/272:

[blackbears86]

Originally Posted by ewokpelts

It was bonkers for a bit. Leaf had absolute memorabilia that at one point offered signed balls, glass plaques with autos or relics, and then framed “jerseys”’with a card and auto.
Fleer had signed hats
Topps had balls and mini helmets.
I’m not sure what is had but they were right there too.

I have just one box of absolute baseball (update from 2005) I absolutely LOVE absolute baseball. Fantastic cards and boxes are basically non-existent on ebay.

[ewokpelts]

Originally Posted by blackbears86

I have just one box of absolute baseball (update from 2005) I absolutely LOVE absolute baseball. Fantastic cards and boxes are basically non-existent on ebay.

The plaques and balls are almost nowhere to be found.
I grabbed some
Mark Buehrle jersey frames years ago and haven’t seen any since.

[marl1220]

Originally Posted by BlowoutBuzz

You mean 1954 Topps? LOL.

Either or, it's a beautiful set.

[UMich92]

Sorry to hijack the Fleer thread, but thought I'd add this regarding 2001 Absolute.

I haven't looked recently, but it has seemed to me that the balls from 2001 Absolute are both hard to find and also not in great demand. Like many other things, probably depends greatly on the player. Also, many of the HOFers are numbered to 25 making it more than likely they found there way into PCs. Crazy that Fergie Jenkins signed 1000 of these!?!

Regardless, here is a 24 ball lot that I acquired back in 2015. Most are really nice with a couple that are badly faded. I still have most with the only 2 that found homes with player collectors are the Henderson and Puckett.




Row 1: Maddux /25, Ford /25, Aaron /25, Clemens /25, Gossage /500, Robinson /25
Row 2: Sean Casey /25, Palmer /500, Henderson /25, Jenkins /1000, Newcombe /500, Bucky Dent /500
Row 3: Manny Ramirez /25, Puckett /25, Snider /25, McCovey /25, Jackson /25, Bobby Richardson /500
Row 4: Schmidt /25, Bonds /25, Javy Lopez /25, Mays /25, Bonds /25, Tommy John /1000

[UMich92]

More on topic, I ripped a bunch of 2001 Fleer Platinum looking for Mark Prior. Ended up building the set while hitting a nice Todd Helton patch card.

[Onions]

Not a great pic, but here is the Puckett.



Sent from my SM-S926U using Tapatalk

[PuddleMonkey]

I'll take it!

[ewokpelts]

Originally Posted by UMich92

Sorry to hijack the Fleer thread, but thought I'd add this regarding 2001 Absolute.

I haven't looked recently, but it has seemed to me that the balls from 2001 Absolute are both hard to find and also not in great demand. Like many other things, probably depends greatly on the player. Also, many of the HOFers are numbered to 25 making it more than likely they found there way into PCs. Crazy that Fergie Jenkins signed 1000 of these!?!

Regardless, here is a 24 ball lot that I acquired back in 2015. Most are really nice with a couple that are badly faded. I still have most with the only 2 that found homes with player collectors are the Henderson and Puckett.




Row 1: Maddux /25, Ford /25, Aaron /25, Clemens /25, Gossage /500, Robinson /25
Row 2: Sean Casey /25, Palmer /500, Henderson /25, Jenkins /1000, Newcombe /500, Bucky Dent /500
Row 3: Manny Ramirez /25, Puckett /25, Snider /25, McCovey /25, Jackson /25, Bobby Richardson /500
Row 4: Schmidt /25, Bonds /25, Javy Lopez /25, Mays /25, Bonds /25, Tommy John /1000

Fergie lives in Texas, where playoff(now panini)was based. He might have literally gone to the offices and signed as much as they gave him.

[ewokpelts]

Originally Posted by UMich92

More on topic, I ripped a bunch of 2001 Fleer Platinum looking for Mark Prior. Ended up building the set while hitting a nice Todd Helton patch card.

Jus recently?

I have a prior that i got in a blaster back then.

[UMich92]

Originally Posted by ewokpelts

Jus recently?

I have a prior that i got in a blaster back then.

No, not recently. It was several years before Covid.