Topps and Fleer - sharing images?
 

While working on a project recently I noticed something that I'd never noticed before - the images used on Rod Carew's 1982 Fleer card and on his 1982 Topps Action card are identical. How did this happen? Are there any other instances with any of the major manufacturers permitted another to use one of their images? Did they share photographers and did this slip by? Nothing major, of course...but it is curious I think.

Kind of Sort of.

Remember card companies purchase photos from free lance photographers. The photographer sends in slides and the card companies pay for them.

In this case, both companies chose the same photo to purchase for use in their set.

Rich

In this case Topps sure did a better job producing it

No doubt - the 1982 Fleer set in general looks as if the images were taken by the photographers' kids on Take Your Child to Work Day...

I think both the Topps and Donruss update sets in 1986 used the same photo for Bo Jackson.

When I read the thread title, these cards were exactly what popped into my mind. I remember that when I was buying 82 cards, wondering how might that happen as well.

Or maybe the Fleer is a 1982-era photocopy of the Topps image. :)

Some of those 1982 Fleer Cards have TERRIBLE photography. The 1981 set, while rushed to production, actually had nice photos. 1982 not so much. This is my favorite bad photo.

https://img.comc.com/i/Baseball/1982...&size=original
1982 Fleer - [Base] #387 - Jack Clark
Courtesy of COMC.com

Going back to 1961, Topps and Fleer used the same photo for Tom Flores. Not sure if that's the oldest example but can't think of any during the Bowman/Topps years.

The photography for the 82 fleer set was actually very good, at least partly.

One of the guys who was a freelance photographer and sold photos to Fleer that year was a semi regular customer at the same card shop I hung out at. I got to see some photos from the same series in person and they were really good. I should have written his name down and tried to buy a couple prints.
It was cool going through a bunch of cards fresh out of the packs while he pointed out which ones were his. ( One of the very few times I opened cards in the shop, I almost always wait till I get home. )

Fleers printing and production in 82 though..... Not as good as the photos. If you look at a bunch of them you can see the tape they used to hold the negatives on either the original or the mask.

OK if the photos were good, the production was bad in many cases. Either way, not as well done on that level as 1981 was.

Entirely true. The overall quality of the 82 set was substandard even by 1982 standards.

I'm working on something now where I am examining the images from Topps, Fleer and Donruss 1982 sets, and obviously Fleer is the least attractive, but what's become clear to me is that Topps isn't very good either. Not the design per se, but some of the image selection and quality, particularly the image quality in the traded set. For me, the Donruss set has by far the best looking images in 1982.

I thought Donruss went in the right direction from 1981 to 1982. Some of their 1981 cards were just atrocious, collation was terrible and the card stock was very thin. 1982 was much, much better and I agree, Donruss had the best looking cards in 1982.

Fleer on the other hand went downhill in 1982. Their 1981 cards were fairly nice for a new entry and they had some really good photos - Fernando, Reggie, George Foster, etc. 1982 however was pretty bad with fuzzy photos, bad color and just overall poor quality.

And Topps just kept chugging along, much like the Big 3 Detroit automakers in the mid to late 1970's and into the 80's.

At the time, for a couple of years, I could tell you the name of every card given the photo.

I LOVE the comparison of Topps to the Big 3! Perfect!

TO say Donruss Collation from 1981 was terrible is being too kind. I remember in the summer of 81 buying a whole wax box from my local corner store and getting only Yankees Royals or Tigers. The gum wasn't bad though.

The 81s had awful collation at first.

The local shop had a box where each pack had 11 of the 18 cards the same card. Not a bad deal for the kid who got 11 of Yaz, not so good for his friend who got 11 checklists.