Live, Love, Laugh(lin)...

[JollyElm]

Whoops!!
I neglected to include fleerfan in the OP. His handle has now been rightly added.

[JollyElm]

Another observation that seems to support the fact these cards are pretty rare (or perhaps, more specifically, were printed in but a single run) is the consistent misalignment of the colors on most, if not all, of the seven cards.

For instance, here are a few examples that you will find, dare I say it, on all versions of the card:

1. On the 1974 card, the giant 'A' always has a ghost of a white or white/blue border around much of it due to misalignment. There is also a stray yellow splotch on one of the serif-like shapes.

2. On the 1975 card, both caps have the bleeds, as well as Yaz' left elbow blue sleeve, virtually all of the red on the Reds' player, and some other misalignments, like the lower right corner area.

3. On the 1977 card, there is extra skin on the bat near the player's hands, and the blue across the entire card is simply a misaligned mess.

I've looked at a sh_t ton of these cards on-line and I don't believe it's possible to find even one without the anomalies (although logically they are in no way actual anomalies) I just noted. To me, this says that they either rushed to print these out, leaving their QC lacking, or they just did a single print run and never went back to adjust and fix all of the problems in said run, like all printers (should) do.

[Fleerfan]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

Whoops!!
I neglected to include fleerfan in the OP. His handle has now been rightly added.

Thanks!

Congratulations on completing the 1971-1977 "update" set! Those are some beautiful cards.

[Fleerfan]

As for why the 1977 card isn't "Reggie-ed" out, my guess is that since Reggie would have been under contract to Topps, Fleer didn't want to risk any legal issues depicting an active player. In Clemente's case, he would no longer have been under contract to Topps. This is also why the 1970 Fleer World Series set had to remove active players and required new artwork from Laughlin's original 1967 B&W set.

For some great insight into the way Fleer approached things based on a 1971 interview with Laughlin, please see my post on the Topps Greatest Moments set, which foiled Fleer's plans for a Laughlin "Great Feats of Baseball" set which Laughlin ultimately released on his own in 1972.

http://fleersticker.blogspot.com/201...ments-set.html

[laughlinfan]

Those are beauties, Darren! Congratulations! As Darren knows, I've been a fan of Bob Laughlin's work for many years, and have always enjoyed sharing and talking about Bob and his cards and issues. (Try me! ) If Darren doesn't mind, maybe I can share some info in this thread that I have picked up over the years. I am also thankful for some of the great info Fleerfan has posted on his blogspot over the years - a great resource as well!

Speaking to the issue at hand, the 1978 Fleer/Good Humor set, they are tough to find, especially in top end shape. I had a good run for a few of the early years of eBay grabbing these when they would show up in small lots - my Laughlin searches missed very few listings for the first many years of eBay, and I would estimate that a small lot of these 1978 cards would only show up maybe once or twice a year and I was happy to pick up some of these (and almost ALWAYS from NY, NJ, or PA). About 10-15 years ago, I was exchanging emails with a Fleer issue expert, and he didn't believe that these cards even existed - sent him scans to prove they did! In the past 10 years, they have become much more sought after (especially the Clemente, which is maybe my all time favorite card), and the scarcity is better understood, so they are being listed individually at some pretty good prices. I would love to see a pack of these, but I also have never seen one. Pretty cool that someone here (quitcrab!) remembers getting them from Good Humor trucks. I have some of these 1978 cards that show wax from the packs - I have little doubt they were issued in some sort of pack. Since no wrapper has ever been uncovered, for a while I thought maybe they just reused the Fleer wrappers from 1970 or 1971, but they both had a 10c price on the wrapper, which probably wouldn't have been a logical price point in 1978. The mystery remains!

Darren, the rest of the 1978 set is equally tough. You should keep going! Looking at the backs, you can easily distinguish 1971s from 1978s from the card stock, although I don't think PSA grades them distinctly. If I had to guess, I would say the 1978s were maybe printed in about 2-3% of the quantity of the nationally released 1971 set. Just an educated guess though!

Happy collecting!

[laughlinfan]

Grabbed a few cards out of a mixed box of 1978s and 1971s I had kicking around. Just wanted to show a couple of things. The 1971s (left) are printed on a gray card stock, and the 1978s (right) are an off white or cream stock. I also pulled a few 1978s out that show the wax residue you see on some 1978s that (I'm pretty certain) are evidence of some type of wax packaging. Have some more fun things from the 1978 set somewhere - will post when I stumble across them!

[JollyElm]

Hey Marty,
So without unnecessarily restating the obvious conclusion from your post, it seems the entire 1971 set was reprinted for the summer of 1978 to be distributed along with the new update cards?? God, that sucks. Ha ha. If I decide to chase the set, now I'm going to have to find two different versions of everything.

--elm

[laughlinfan]

Thanks for the laugh, elm! "Reprint" has such a negative connotation - I prefer re-issue, and in very small numbers. If it makes you feel better about it, let's just consider it a scarce cream back parallel set issued 7 years later! On the plus side, almost no one knows the difference, so if you find the first 68 cards from the 78 set, you can probably get them for the price of the much more plentiful 71s!

Bob wanted to issue a full new set in 1978 with all new artwork, including the additional cards, in commemoration of the 10 year anniversary of his first set, but somehow we ended up with just 7 new cards. Another unsolved mystery!