How many of the Johnson and Ripken variants ( and which ones ) do you guys think were intended by the manufacturer (as opposed to unintended differences occurring in the printing process )

The only altered ones are the Bill Ripken cards. White Out cards IMHO they are all 100% fake. Show me one in hand and I can tell you within seconds how it was altered/made. I have never seen a single one that was not obviously altered from the way it left the printing press. Then there are the hole punch cards. Supposedly it was something Fleer actually done to a few cards. Problem is anyone with a hole punch can make one. I have also seen a ton of the fake saw cuts, but there are also a ton of real ones.

eBay is flooded with a ton of counterfeit Bill Ripkens of all variations and has been for over a year.

On both cards all the changes were intentionally done by Fleer. The printing process doesn't make alterations. Printing errors are way different that what went on with those 2 cards.

what's weird to me is that you can find a marlboro johnson in a wax box, and then find a blacked out johnson in the same box. maybe that's just normal, or maybe the box had packs from a different box.

This is 100% accurate.

I have opened many wax boxes from sealed cases and have found this to be true.

Just weird.

Just hanging out with RJ... I couldn't resist taking a picture of this latest low tint pickup as I pulled it out of the envelope and viewed it in the sun light. Steve

Nice card. It's amazing how much difference looking at them it direct sun light makes.

Thanks, Ben. It is so cool how some versions seem to stand out so well in the sunlight. Here is another raw one I got last week but took it outside to get a picture in the same sunlight. Also low tint but this one has a little more redness. For me it's like going to a museum... I could look at these all day long and not get bored. Steve

Cards look great Steve, I'll have to try that same thing!!!

Bam!

https://i.ibb.co/JFpPWWH/7-E1-C66-A0...2560-D3-E4.jpg

you just pull these? pretty sweet looking.

Great picture. Beautiful cards.

Nice pics to get the sign to show up that good. Fairly rare compared to the other versions. I have had maybe 15-20 of them at the most over the years.

Maybe it is the lighting, but anyone else notice there is no "pube" showing on either of those cards?

These are the clearest examples I have ever owned. Anybody know which case code is the cutoff to get clear ones like this?

Nope - there really is no exact number, tbh.

I only have one of that version left. Are you talking about the little red squiggle thing by FLEER. Seems to be fainter on the one I have plus the posters pics are so jacked up bright you would never see it anyway.

Weirdly there is no known system with them. You can get different versions out of the same case.

So what's the latest/highest known case code that a FF or Marlboro has come out of? I have a case from march of 89.

Not sure on the Marlboro. One of the guys posting in this thread might have a decent guess. I don't remember the Ripken FF code but a quick internet search should tell you, it is a known number.

Any hints of the Marlboro were well gone before the FF was corrected. I would estimate late Nov 1988 and early Dec 1988 would be the best shot at the RJ variations.

It looks like one of the above cards was graded a PSA 8 and listed on EBay recently. Other than that card, has anyone come across any blue cards?

I was curious about that GMA 8 one that sold on eBay last week. Hard to tell exactly which version it was from the pictures but I thought it had promise.

I've been trying to track down a PSA 10 of what I'd been calling the br2 version (and some call the second clearest version) for a long time in the BST section here. I was really excited to pick up a BGS 9.5 last week on EBay. Here is a picture of the card next to the clear one for comparison.

Steve, what does the rest of the BGS one look like? Can you post a picture of the whole card? Thanks!

Sure. Here is another one I took better showing that card. I was shining a light more on the sign in the BGS card in this one.

Interesting - thank you!

No dot to the left and no red pube, if I am seeing it correctly...

The BGS 9.5 actually does have the pube (on lower left) and the red comma (on lower right), but it doesn't have a dot in the upper blue bar. I've seen this version both with and without the dot. My guess is that dot actually keeps some really nice PSA 9s from being graded 10s.

Three years after starting my chase for this card I finally found a relatively clear PSA 10, which has been my huge want card and what has kept me locked into eBay and buying all sorts of variations along the way.

Steve

PSA graded 2 of our 3 cello packs and actually included the "Ad Partially Obscured" label on the flip.

Awesome!:)

https://i.postimg.cc/Jzy55Zkb/IMG-0681.jpghttps://i.postimg.cc/5NKmzn64/IMG-0679.jpg

I don't think I've broken 1989 Fleer since 2009-2010 but this sunday at the Rose Bowl flea, I bought 9 loose packs (and a bunch of small, 80's boxed/grocery/oddball type sets) and pulled a green tint Randy after first pulling a Ripken FF. Probably haven't pulled either of those cards from a pack myself since 2004-05. Pretty incredible odds.

Fantastic stuff, man. I've opened a lot of this stuff, and it never gets old...the feeling of either knowing you're going to pull one of these, or have good odds of doing so is still awesome.

Nice pull, Dylan. I've had terrible luck pulling nice ones recently. Great mini Goodens too!

Hernandez is a neat variant card as well

This was found in one of my fb groups. He just sent it express to psa. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...15d253f026.jpg

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WOW! Not seen one that clear before. :eek:

holy, that thing is sick.

i sent a few to PSA that all looked like marlboro ad on scoreboard to me, and they all came back obscured. pretty dumb when you find marlboros for sale that you can't see the sign at all.

That is awesome. What does that make, 3 or 4 almost clear versions?

This is #3. Kevin’s, Steve’s and this one. All three are AOS 9s. Such cool cards and there’s likely a few more.

It’s probable that you have seen 2 others in this thread. All three of the “clear”versions are likely very very similar. They will have just a slight hint of tinting on the card and with a picture, the very light tinting isn’t always apparent from what I can tell. It would be awesome to see the 3 clear cards together sometime!!

hey david, any idea how the owner got it? pack pull?

No idea how it was pulled, but he listed it for 15k....

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That is hilarious but the whole hobby is silly right now.

given where things are at, who'd be shocked if someone bought that?

I wouldn't be shocked at all. I sold hundreds of Randy Johnson Marlboro errors over the last year. Before that you couldn't hardly give them away.

And they’re still dirt cheap/way undervalued. All things considered.

I agree and always found it strange how cheap they sold for. He is a HOFer and for being junk wax era cards they are somewhat scarce. While hoarding them several years ago the only ones I paid more than $5 for are the green scribbles.

If the majority of the hobby understood just how quickly the card went through so many changes and had a better understanding of those changes, the situation would be very different. Id say "enjoy it while it lasts" but if at this point of hobby insanity they still sell for so little, they probably aren't going to go too crazy anytime soon.

Talked to the seller this morning, and he claims the card sold.

He reached out to me Saturday morning and said it was officially on the market for $15K OBO. Crazy.

insanity. where was he selling it? randy johnson black market site? :D didn't see on ebay.

Awesome information and excited that another one of these turned up! Thank you Statfreak101 for the heads up on this. The week before last Statfreak101 told me about seeing this card raw in a FB group. He reached out to the person who posted the pic (a card shop owner) and found out "...it sounds like a guy brought in a collection from the 80s and 90s, and had 14 different 89 Fleer hand collated sets...and inside one of the sets was this card." I forwarded the message and picture of the ungraded card to Kevin and we both agreed that this looked exactly like our cards. I honestly spent the better part of that night trying to find the Facebook group on my own. Unfortunately, I am incompetent navigating FB and had no luck. I didn’t see the graded card until David posted the pic here. It is incredibly exciting. I wish I knew more. Were these some sort of first press run on the first day before a quality check process? Did some "fix" not make it on one of the lines at the start of the first day of production?

I agree with Hatorade that this new find reinforces the likelihood there are more of these out there. I believe this card has the staying power to be a very important card for those who love 1980s wax and crave something really scarce (of course I am biased). As I’ve mentioned before, this card and its many versions feel (at least to me) like an 80’s take on the parallels of modern collecting. The clear and blue versions are scarce in an absolute sense and hard to come by no matter how much you search – which is so much different from almost anything else from the junk wax era. Things are crazy now in all markets, but I think the fascination with this card will continue to grow as people who were kids in the 80s continue to build out their collections. I agree with Dylan that initial lack of demand for this card was likely due to lack of information on the versions and lack of knowledge about the relative scarcity. There is a learning curve for the card because searching "Randy Johnson Marlboro" on eBay returns tons of results… even though very few listings for the rarest versions come up (or stay up long).

In thinking about this card and its many versions I keep going back to ideas of scarcity and available substitutes. In person the clear one is super rare (very scare) and in person there is a dramatic difference between it and any of the tinted/obscured versions (lack of substitutes). The closest you can get is putting very intense lighting on the sign in a br2 (as I’ve done in several posts last year) but even then, not really and in person no one would ever confuse the two. I guess the other possible substitute is the magnet with a picture of the clear version someone is selling on eBay (no that isn’t me… but it keeps getting suggested to me). The blue tint ones are the same way – in that they stand out visually among others.

When I heard about this new clear one, I actually bought (2) unopened boxes of 1989 Fleer #83261 just on the off chance someone had picked up the card in a recent wax pull. Paid way too much but got caught up in the excitement! The absolute scarcity of the clear one makes it hard to assign a value. It’s no secret that I’ve toyed around with listing the card. Kevin can also vouch for me that over the last couple years I’ve offered him up to $15k for his clear one (sorry for being such a pest, Kevin). It is a strange card for sure. In that respect, I’m not surprised on the ask price. I read the book “The Card” last year and there are parallels to the chase for this and other urban legend cards (e.g., the 31 PSA graded examples of the T206 White Border Honus Wagner). Everyone has their own idea of what is valuable to them… my next "best" card in my collection is a 1990 Frank Thomas NNOF PSA 7.5. I would give that up in a heartbeat for even a PSA 4 of a clear Marlboro card.

At the end of the day definitely take it all with a grain of salt as these are just my two cents. I have no idea why this card is still such a fascination to me but love the ride.

Steve

Be careful, if you Google "black market randy johnson" you might find something other than what you're looking for... :eek:

I can't help but agree with this post. If I could "like" it, I most certainly would.

If I ever end up pulling one of these out of a pack, I certainly hope someone is there with me to catch me when I fall over! :)

+1 it is a great post.

There should definitely be more out there some place. I wonder if there was ever/is a no tint at all version.

This is why if at all possible, it would be super cool to get someone from the Fleer company/plant that would remember ANYTHING about this card.

And of course the FF Ripken, too.

Thanks! My guess is that this is the no tint at all version. In person I can't see any tint on mine over the sign. I think the sign background isn't completely white due to some shadowing (or distortion due to sunlight or changing image) on the LCD (or whatever it is) screen. However, up close I don't see any film of tint color over the sign like there is on the other versions. I think the rectangle around the sign where the color goes from dark red or off white to black just defines the dimensions of the LCD screen.

Ummm, no offense. But they need to catch the card and let you bounce. :cool:

Excellent write-up Steve, I 100% agree with everything you said in there. These cards are unbelievably rare with the clear Marlboro, as now we know of only 3 clear versions. The Thomas NNOF gets all the pub; however, this card is far more scarce than that. Hopefully at some point, folks will realize that.

I am anxious to hear what the RJ looks like if you end up opening one of your very early Fleer boxes. Those are among the earliest date codes I've ever seen, and any RJ in the box will most certainly be some type of Marlboro version.

As Dylan mentioned, these cards went through so many changes in such a short period of time, it puts all the Ripken changes to shame. This is what makes '89 Fleer so fun to collect though, the thought of hitting one of these ultra-rare '89 Fleer cards from a set which can be considered anything but rare.

Not to take anything away from the Johnson cards, but those checklists with positions on front are incredibly scarce too. While nobody cares much, they are darn near impossible to find.

My sentiments exactly.

I believe that it has been confirmed several times over that the cases, especially mid November dates, contain a variety of correction types (obviously excluding one with a clear...) ranging from slight tint to boxed signs. Has this changed or has new info come up? I don't see nearly as much 1989 Fleer broken as I did last summer.

That's absolutely correct Dylan. I believe all the Johnson cards went through their changes long before the Ripken FF was ever first "corrected". Odds are there must be more clear versions out there, and they should be in the earliest dated boxes. I have opened a bunch of early Fleer, and different Johnson versions definitely appeared in the same case, similar to the Ripkens. The problem? The prices on old wax has skyrocketed, and at some point in the last 5 years, the amount of '89 Fleer unopened has dropped dramatically, despite the fact it was printed to the moon.

Just the fact that sealed cases from the first two weeks of production made it this far is pretty amazing to me (as a junk wax enthusiast). I couldn't believe the amount of them getting posted for sale last summer.

So it is my understanding that Fleer had multiple correction types (plates) going simultaneously pretty much from day 1 (or day 2, I suppose) while altering/adjusting them up until the January change over to solid blackout background, correct? So theoretically, a clear version could possibly be pulled form a case containing some other correction types.

Has anyone locked down the first date of production?

Dylan, I believe I have. But I am keeping that information off the public forum...so if you want to chat more, get a hold of me.

Personally, I have owned multiple 8326 cases (both sealed & unsealed) and ripped a ton of that run...it is very similar to the other case runs where the Johnson version varies. Pretty crazy, and I still have some FASC boxes of these in my possession.

You just have to think there are more than 3 of these out there - just by chance. How they are out there, it is anyone's guess. Whether they are still sitting in unopened packs, or someone has one in their collection that they aren't even aware of, or in hand collated set...who knows. But I am 100% certain there are more out there.

My hope is that with the finding of this latest one, it would possibly bring a couple more out in the wild. We will see!

Absolutely understandable.

I do also think there is almost zero chance that Fleer pressed and packed out just 10s of these. The rate in which the cards are printed and processed is very quick and a hundred or so would be a more accurate estimate if caught "immediately" by Fleer. Given the fact that sealed cases have been turning up and the vast number of hand collated sets from 1989 to now sitting in attics, closets, storage, etc, I think we will see more of them. Even is 100-200 copies exist, that is a microscopic supply against the entire production run.

Also, I'll say that my primary interest in the card is eventually locking down which correction attempts were produced for the shortest period of time. There have to be a few that only ran for a shift or day, max.

In post #87 you have a very sharp closeup image of the your clear version next to a blue version. It almost appears that there is some very light blueish tinting in that image over the white part of the ad. Some of the other photos of the other clear cards seem to show some light discoloration in that area too. That isn't evident with the card in hand?

To me it looks to have a few areas of red tint. I can't remember who but one of the owners of one sent me some great scans and I noticed the very small amount of red spots on it also.

I do know these card are next to impossible to get a great pic/scan of, at least for me any way.

As for being rare what is the current known blue tint count?

Back when I was hoarding them the green scribbles seemed to be the rarest. Now there seems to be a lot more of them around. To me there was 3 different green scribble versions. I think I came up with around 18-20 different versions total. The only new one I have seen since then is the blue tint.

The 89 Fleer set had some great errors. The Boggs no dot is my favorite and seems to be in the silly rare category.

I don't know if all of the pictures show up clearly enough on this site. So you can better see my clear card I just posted a pic on mySlabs. For reference I also posted one of my blue ones. I like that site because it lets you have very high definition images. I'm not seriously in the market to sell either of these at any reasonable price (and I know you have higher graded blue ones that I do) but the site makes you include some price for a card to show up.

Here is the link to cards I have up (I'm not sure how to get a link for one particular card):
myslabs.to/woodstock2

In person the background of the clear sign has a patchwork of subtle colors in it. It reminds me of some of the old laptop screens or even TVs. I agree there is some light distortion but believe it was part of the original photo of RJ in front of the sign and not after-the-fact tint. Maybe it has to do with the refresh rates of the older electronic billboard signage. I remember as a kid trying to take pictures of things on a TV or laptop and the pictures would show up with these strange color streams. This reminds me of that. To my eyes there is some light pinkish red, some yellowish white, and some bluish green. In the blue version the top of the cowboy's hat is part in and part out of the layer of blue tint. I don't see this on my clear one. In the clear version the entire cowboy's hat appears to me to be un-tinted. Even looking at the br2 one I posted on mySlabs (PSA #47414199) when you zoom in there is a distinct horizontal transition line that cuts across the top of the cowboy's hat that isn't there as far as I can see on the clear one. My eyes aren't as good as they used to be so that is why I put the pics up so you can judge for yourself. I hope this helps.

This is a fascinating thread!

To be honest, I've relegated most of cards from this era to boxes for my son to sort through or even donated. But it's great to see this serious research and attention to these cards. I absolutely love it. Good work!

Steve, in regards to the blue tint version - how noticeable is/was this card/tint to the naked eye before you really dissected it and noticed the difference in tint?

I only ask because I have a mountain of these and want to know if I need to go through them to see.

I have owned one and believe it might be the one Steve owns. The blue really sticks out. Actually it looks turquoise to me but there is no way you will confuse the blue card with a green tint.

I agree with Ben. It is pretty obvious unless you are ripping packs in a room without much light. Of course lighting on some eBay pics makes it difficult to tell for sure.. My rule of thumb for differentiating green vs blue versions beyond tint color, is in the blue version the cowboy is not obscured and there is no bubble.

I've always thought the "blue" version was more green in my opinion. It just seems to be a lighter shade of green without any black scribble obstruction, when compared to the version commonly labeled "green scribble". Or, turquoise as Ben says, I would agree with that too. I believe junkwaxgems.com shows pretty much all the different versions I've ever owned/seen, as does Steve's photo gallery.

For those interested, the Treadway targets were not early corrections, these appeared randomly relatively early after the Ripken was first corrected. These were not very early errors. I also do not believe the checklists with positions were extremely early errors. These also seem to be some random type variety, but I'm not sure what point they came in the print run. The Boggs is not terribly scarce, the version without the black dot on the reverse can be commonly found in later print runs, well after other errors were corrected.

I agree with Kevin and Ben. The "blue" color is more accurately described as turquoise. Sorry, I am not great with color names. This version really stands out though.

If the bold part is true it is news to me. I have been hoarding them since I pack pulled one back in the day. I have only ever seen 11 total and own 7 of them.

Yes I know there are 2 on eBay. One is listed by a great guy but he prices things so high Deans pricing seems like a bargain basement giveaway box. The other seller more than doubled their price when I made what I consider a reasonable offer.

Hi Ben, as I was mostly trying to open early runs, I mostly stayed away from the later print runs (if codes were known). I know I hit many Boggs, but I did not really place them aside as he wasn't someone I was looking for. Certainly, they are far scarcer without the print dot than with, but I know I have many of them sitting somewhere in my common bins. The same applies to Kevin Romine - his card was corrected very late in the print run, so there are far fewer corrected Romine's available than the original error showing Randy Kutcher batting.

If you ever run across them please remember me.

I most definitely will Ben, now that I know you're looking for these.

I really appreciate you following up. Attention to some of the other finer details with these cards goes a long way, so I was just hoping to get the best info possible.

I see some red in there and maybe some slight other coloring as well and Steve also confirmed some of that. The Blues are definitely a turquoise/sea green kind of color and not completely blue. I do think it's likely that the majority of the obstructing of the ad that Fleer did on these cards was done on/or relating to the cyan plate in my humble opinion.

The blue count is right around 5 I think. I’ve included a couple more images of the blue box card I mentioned earlier. They aren’t the greatest quality, but in hand the card is almost a royal blue and yet with any decent source of light you can easily read the lettering in Marlboro as no editing is done specifically to the lettering like the other versions and there is no bubble.

Does someone know if the shop owner pulled any other variations in the additional sets? If the sets all came from the same case, it would be interesting to see what else was in there.

I have a Boggs no dot in the collection - every time I pull it to look at it, I think about offering it up to you.

Stop thinking and email me a pic and price.:)