1989 fleer baseball question
 

I was wondering is there any way to tell between first run production packs and later. Ie. can I tell what sort of fface card I'll get? Thanks.

No, If you are buying a case there are #'s on the side that will tell you if it is a F Face version or not. Cant remember the case # but fellow Net54 member Jon probably has it on his website somewhere. http://www.billripken.com/index.html

Actually, I remember a couple of years ago, I distinctly remember pulling different kind of FF cards based on the wax packs. The crown at the top left was sometimes not lined up "right" with the red stripe. Those packs gave me different versions than the ones that were lined up.
But for the life of me, I can't remember which one was which, but I do remember that it was very consistent for me, and I opened maybe 7 or 8 boxes that I got from different sources on eBay (I never wanted to buy a case on the chance that I would only get a dozen BBox versions).

Cool info Sean. I might have to buy some wax packs.

For sealed cases - the 5 digit stamped code is what you look for.
From my website - look under the top Fleer header, then click Cases on the left.

From the site:

Most have a 5 digit code stamped on them. From what I've been told (not my research) - here is the breakdown:

First digit is the year. 8 would be 1988. 9 would be 1989. The next 3 digits a for the day of the year. 001 would be January 1st and so on. The last digit is either the printing/sorting location or the employee shift number. Location 1 or 2 vs. Shift 1 or 2 etc. So, in theory, digits before 90171 (January 17th, 1989) would have the FF error inside.

For the record, I've pulled black scribble and black box cards from the same box and have seen FF cards pulled from 'late' run cases. So you never know. The clearest Marlboro Johnson cards were likely removed or at least mostly removed before Dec 1988 (83351 code).

Thanks for the reply, I've got a few boxes coming, just have to wait and see.