1996 Fleer Baseball Forum

Had an interesting exchange on a recent sale on ebay.  I posted what I thought was a 1996 Jeter Tiffany parallel for sale, it sold and the seller also took advange of my combined shipping by buying other Jeter inserts I had listed.  Got contacted today and was told that the card I listed was not the one deliveried.  That stumped me because the only parallel I could find for the set was the Tiffany set which has the silver holofoil, but what I didn't bother to check was whether the card had a matte or glossy finish. Anyways after doing some digging I found that there were also matte cards with silver foil, the base cards have gold, and there were also Tiffany card that had gold foil.  

Both inserts have been aleast documented on blogs and on message boards, but the database, beckett, and the standard cataloge did not have the parallels listed. 

http://tanmanbaseballfan.com/2017/02/1996-fleer-gold-silver-variations.html

http://www.freedomcardboard.com/forum/showthread.php/133616-1996-Fleer-Matte-finish-foil-question 

Both parallel sets have been added to 1996 Fleer set.  I did offer to take the mislisted card back, but he decided to keep it.

Thank you for adding these parallel sets.  I have a couple of these and can add to my collection.

I have at least one of these, but was never certain on the extent of the checklist.

As far as cataloging them, I also wasn't sure about whether we should here as the reson these exist is simply the fact that they laid the wrong foil on the cards. Very simply, these are "wrong foil" cards, a printing glitch, normally items we don't checklist. This is why I didn't add them. Additionally, as far as I know, I don't think the full checklist has ever been verified to exist, so by adding these, we have possibly introduced "phantom cards", that is, cards that don't exist. Also, player, team, and/or set collectors could now have cards on their want list that are simply printing errors. This is something Admin has been very clear about in the past about avoiding.

Dan, I can positively state that these were issued as a separate issue from Fleer.  I recall breaking down two boxes at the local card shop when I lived in San Francisco, the cards I have in my collection were dupes from that break.  Hope this helps, Ora

As a follow up on my previous note, here is an EBay listing that may support this:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1996-Fleer-Base-Cards-Silver-Foil-Variation-Starter-Set-Lot-of-237/202418597442?hash=item2f2116a

Ora

What do you mean by a separate issue? These were issued standalone? Ebay listings prove nothing.

I know some exist. But I also know other sets have cards that are missing foil, got the wrong foil, etc. These are printing errors we don't catalog.

My thoughts on this being a separate issue is that in the boxes I opened, there were no gold foil base cards or silver foil tiffany cards.  All the packs I opened from the two boxes contained silver base cards and gold tiffany ones.  I do not recall whether any inserts were included in the boxes.  Being that Fleer no longer exists, I'm not sure how anyone can verify why this variation occured.  Unfortunately, the card shop in San Francisco closed years ago, so that possible source is no longer there either. Perhaps someone else my have some insider information that can help?

Nowhere have I found any indication that these were intentional. The precedent has been set here (and requested by Admin) that these are not listed here. We do not list the following unintentional parallels (list not exhaustive, just a sample):

• Blank Fronts
• Blank Backs
• Wrong Front/Back combos
• Missing Foil
• Wrong Foil

Most of the time, a "wrong foil" happens when John Brown's name gets printing on Bob Smith's card. In this case, it was gold foil being used instead of silver, and vice versa. As we have learned over the years, these card manufacturers used several printing companies to produce the cards. Since these seemed to all come out of the same boxes like this, it sounds even more like a complete screw up on the printer's part. I'm going to submit IRs for both of these sets to be removed. It will probably take a while before Admin reviews them. If the IRs get closed without the sets being removed, then Admin has deemed they belong.

In the meantime, Ora, please delete what you have listed as collected in the Tiffany Gold Foil set, else we'll need to have someone go in and enter an IR for ALL 600 cards that are listed for the second time. The checklist was uploaded twice, and the easiest way to remedy that is to delete the whole thing and re-upload it correctly. Please let me know when you have removed your card from the collection.

Thanks for your response Dan, I have removed both the silver base and gold tiffany cards posted in my collection. Thanks for your input, you are doing us collectors a great service!  Ors

Duplicated checklist has been removed. Feel free to add the correct checklist.