Amazing 1989 Fleer Bill Ripken find
 

Just got this bad boy in the mail today. It is pretty much the rarest of the rare. From all the top 89 Fleer Bill Ripken collectors it is considered the 3rd to 5th at the most known example of this version. It is known as the CS3 or Circle Scribble 3 version. I am beyond happy to have it.

Congrats Ben!

Billy will be famous forever, but not for his field and batting prowess. My wife got me a signed FF very many years ago. That is as far as I went chasing the many variations.

Cheers,

Butch

Cool, post a pic of it. Did he do his best to cover up the FF? I know he did that on several. I have a P4 Diamond Willy Dipken he personalized to me.

I will do that but it will be a couple of months before I can get to it. We are packing to move and a great deal of my 'stuff' is boxed!

I'll be sure to get you a picture later this year.

Cheers,

Butch

Hope you have a easy smooth move.

Here is my only Bill Ripken auto. I can't remember what awesome forum member went out of their way and got this for me but I really appreciated it.

Great pickup. I was 10 years old at the time of its release, and I still get a kick out of this card and the multiple variations 33 years after the fact.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Great card Ben. Good luck with your sale.

Most "Circle Scribbles" have the factory sawcuts. To find one without the cut is Rare!

Congrats!

Congrats Ben, I know how happy you must be

Extremely happy. More happy to have found a new to the hobby example and to own and hopefully soon to have owned it. I have owned most of the big cards in the hobby but I am a high end card renter. I own them for a while and sell them to own another big card.

Card renting lets me own/have owned some amazing cards over the last 35 or so years with little to no out of pocket expense.

endless variations in 89 fleer

Recently picked a CS3 SC up to add to the collection.

I will add photos soon, but absolutely stoked to get this in the collection.

Nice, post a pic for sure. I think I started a thread when I found my SC3 SC a few years ago.

I checked out on these years ago but this is a really cool card and one I was unfamiliar with prior to this post.

On the topic of scribble versions, I am familiar with the F, F-loop, No F and now this but are there more variants to the scribble itself? I seem to recall an almost legible F FACE visible through the black cover or am I making this up?

Jon a fellow member has a website dedicated to the different versions. www.billripken.com There are 4 different Circle Scribbles. The website has great pics of them. I have never owned a CS4 version regular or sawcut.

There is a very weird only know scribble version I found several years ago. It is also pictured on the site as Jon owns it now. There is also a white scribble version that is way more rare than the 3 scribbles you are familiar with but nothing like the super rare circle scribble cards.

I think the version Im recalling is one of the non-circular black scribble types (not sure on the No F, loop, closed loop) but the black cover-up is light enough to still read the writing. It was definitely not one of the circular scribble cards.

Here is a decent grouping of the 4 "CS" varieties. Very Rare cards!

Circular pattern with different levels of coverage.

Probably an early FF correction by Fleer. Maybe after the White Scribble but before the regular basic Black Scribbles or Black Boxes.

Jon,

Your site is really great. Im big on variations that went through many stages and I'd assume the 89 Ripken is the king of it.

The card I'm trying to recall would be a standard black scribble, not circular, and the black coverup is not as dark as the F*** FACE words. Does this ring any bells?

Based on my findings and a few others, if this were the accurate timeline, this would have been a VERY QUICK & short duration correction attempt by Fleer.

These are the 3 basic Black Scribble variations. I think this is what you are referring to. Much, much more common than the CS cards pictured above.
Scribble w/F showing, Loop or Partial F and the Light Loop or No F version.

If you are thinking of a specific card, this may be what you are identifying? A Scribble w/F with a lighter mark. The FF is visible underneath. This is one of those versions within a version. Not sure if I've seen another one quite like it.

Wow, I love this one! What a cool card!

I am going off memory here but yes, this is what I am trying to recall. Except, my memory has the FF words in black, not magenta as shown in your example. But same idea, a standard black scribble but with a lighter/opaque coverup and the FF words visible beneath it.

I have noticed in hand with good magnification you can see the F Face in most of the scribble versions. Some individual cards do show it better than others.

It also could have been something someone altered. I have seen a ton of different alterations done to these cards.

True and True.

Yeah, looking at copies on comc, I can somewhat see the words through the scribbles. Maybe what I had was just a regular copy that seemed more pronounced at the time.

Picture, not the greatest, but here it is
 

Ben,

I am unpacking things and came across the signed 89F Billy Ripken.
He did not quite cover up the bat handle but did come close.

Very cool, thanks for posting it.

Weirdly Billy did a signing recently and signed the FF version for the low price of $75 each. Usually he won't sign it.

http://1989fleerripken.blogspot.com/...vered.html?m=1

Im only seeing this now. Seems like a huge development for this card.

Forgive me if this collector is a regular here and Im late to the party.

Depends on how you look at it. To me it is just a large find of counterfeit cards. It is a very cool find but it doesn't change what the card is. Just my opinion on this "Mystery" card. I am not a expert but did recently stay at a Holiday Inn Express for multiple nights.

I remember seeing Donovan (or maybe Jon) first mention this card many years back and my initial thought was that it had to be a counterfeit (cashing in on the FF craze, likely in 1989), but whoever it was who first broke news of it really made a compelling case for it being some oddity produced by/for Fleer.

Is the general consensus now that these are, in fact, fakes?

I have heard some very compelling stories but it doesn't change that they are extremely obvious fakes IMO.

There are so many differences in ways that make no sense in printing that Fleer would have never done this for any reason.

The backs seem to definitely give it away that it is counterfeit. The poor clarity in separation of text and the grey scale. The large disparity in orange tint colors seem to give it up as a copy also.

I am with you, not the greatest fake but makes sense that people would have been producing fakes during the craze and the extras pop up years later.

I think everything you laid out in your statement on Jon's site makes a lot of sense. My initial thoughts on it back when it first turned up (2010ish?) seemed like an obvious counterfeit. And now it appears that another 1500 or so have turned up. Go figure!

The first "Mystery" FF card was identified over 20 years ago. It was the only known example for nearly 10 years - and yes - there were a few of us looking. By 2010 one or two would appear on eBay. That continued +/- until this huge discovery.

The "Mystery" FF has many differences compared to the original. Many of those are better on the "Mystery" card. Unlike any fake I've ever seen before. I still feel like these were professionally made and not like 99% of other fakes out there. By who and why? Who knows.....

I agree that they had to be made in a real print shop. Who, we will likely never know. Why, to make some quick cash. Then after selling some decided it was wrong and the reason we only found a few till this big find.

The big find also makes no sense for many many reasons. Why would an antique shop have them and not have sold them years ago? Seriously at any time in the last 20 years they had at very minimum $30,000 setting there in cards that are as easy to sell as any card in the hobby. Why wouldn't they have sold them before?

It is a "mystery" card for sure in so many ways.

Also - that antique store find of 1500+ was in eastern PA (near where Fleer was located). Coincidence?

Back in the mid to late 90s - the FF was a $5 card. I really don't think these were made to cash in a profit. Why fake a $5 card?

Flashback link: HERE

For me the real question is why would Fleer make a huge stash of low grade copies using different designed stripes, a second generation resized picture, different card stock, cut the wrong size(they are all smaller than a real 89 Fleer), different screening size, and several other differences. Did Fleer really go out of its way to buy and use card stock they never used to make any other card? To me not a single thing about the card makes sense that Fleer printed it.

Who knows? Why would anyone create a fake/reprint of a $5 card using a non-scanned image with better fonts, images and clarity on the back?

A simple fake would be a scanned, low grade image. The work put in to these is crazy. Not your run-of-the-mill fake.

It may have been a $5 card, but it has ALWAYS had a ton of people looking for it. Seemed demand always outpaced supply. So it makes sense to fake a $5 card if you know you can sell 50,000 of them for $5 each.

It's a very strange card. Hopefully now there's 1500 more I'll be able to get one.

I had the chance to examine one from Jon up close a few years ago, and it really is a strange thing.
There are many points as Ben has pointed out that would indicate a fake.
But there are also points that to me point away from a fake.
The vast majority of fakes start with a real card and simply do color separations off that card. That's not horrible, as it keeps the image the same, but it is also at the same time horrible lazy work because they make the solid black an easily spotted halftone.

The mystery card isn't simply cropped smaller as you might think at first, but is slightly enlarged in relation to the borders. The head sitting slightly higher while the other three edges of the image appear "trimmed" is the tip off on that.
To me that looks more like someone had access to the original image and made their own version. It's not a simple "photograph the card through filters as halftones" like most fakes.

There are similar things going on with the reverse, especially with the yellow, where in at least one spot yellow was added in places no other 89 fleer has it.

There are differences in the black layer, and ones that look like a second generation negative except for the MLB logo being too different to be a direct copy from an existing card.
When I went looking to see how consistent some other things were on 89 fleer, I bought a small batch of regular 89 B Ripkens that had the copyright line in slightly different places on a couple cards.

Overall, I'm not positive what it is. It's probably a very ambitious fake, that wasn't necessarily sold in large quantities. (Also a bit odd for fakes)
Maybe an inside job by a Fleer employee?
The possibility I like better is that it was printed specifically for an outfit like shop at home. I have at least one card that came from them, but "wasn't made" It's actually a set that wasn't sold as a set, plus a signed card that wouldn't ordinarily be signed - all sold as a package by one of the TV shopping places.
Plus a couple other items that were not released but ended up in the hobby when the company closed and their stuff was auctioned off.

Either way it's an interesting card.

I doubt we will ever know for sure. Is fun to speculate. People fake $1 autographs and many of other items worth less than $5 every day. In the last 20 years if you could get a F Face card for under $10 you got a deal. So why would a antique shop have them to begin with and why wouldn't they have sold them in any of the several times they have sold in the $20 each range?

I agree that they are not your regular cheap counterfeits. These IMO had to be made by someone in a real print shop. So to them this work was really nothing hard or special.

I owned several(around 15 total) back when these were rare. I had one with different card stock, one clearly hand cut, and noticed at least 2 different versions. It would have been cool to be able to check out the big find in person. Maybe with the cards in hand a lot more could be figured out about how they got printed.

Just to the bold part. Those copyright lines are in different places because they all come from the full Bill Ripken sheet. At one time when I was really into these cards I could tell you the location on the sheet from looking at a BB card because of the small differences each card has.

EDITED to add, The cards with the moving copyright line is only on the Black Box cards with the rounded upper left corner. There is a similar version with the same rounded corner box but has a jagged upper left white stripe on the card.

To give an example the 1952 Topps Mantle was double printed and the two cards have slight differences to each other but each card printed in the same location on the sheet are exactly the same. The rounded corner Black Box cards are similar but there are 132 Bill Ripken Black Box cards on the same sheet with slight differences.

Now that I didn't know.

Great info to have.

From your post it seemed to me that was info you didn't know. Does it change any of your thoughts on them?

Not really.

The differences are such a very mixed bag of things fakers would do and things they wouldn't.

What I'm confident saying - They were not a pack issued or complete set card.

To some that might be all they need to call them fake.

Some of the differences are not sensible for someone faking them.
It's a really strange thing, and hopefully I will be able to get one from the new hoard.

I probably have the high res scans I did when I had one in hand.

If you just want one to check out for a while PM me I will send you mine.

Jon sent one to me along with a normal error. And a Canadian card?

I did I think 1200 dpi scans of both, and measured things like thickness. Also compared how they looked under short and long wave UV.

Going on the assumption that they're fake, it's the most mixed bag of great and sloppy work you could think of.

Couldn't agree more. Weird how it was done but I understand why it was done that way.

When were these first discovered?

I was just looking up some info about a thought I had, and I may want one of these even more.

Current technology can digitally produce the plates on the press, with essentially no physical process. Or digitally done but off the press.
The early technologies to do this might explain some of the weirdness.

UV process free plates- Not on press 3M 1995, Kodak 2001. Both failures for a few reasons.

Digital thermal plates- Kodaks fist successful ones 2005 but there were others before that.

https://www.kodak.com/content/produc...e-paper-EN.pdf