1989 Fleer Randy Johnson #381 Marlboro Errors - 30 Years Later

[Hatorade]

DEEADE7B-6ACB-4DE3-875B-B4E896E440D9.jpgI finished up scanning all the Marlboro errors we have.We have 1120 cards, 310 PSA graded and 92 graded by BGS. I’ll be posting them all to My Flickr page soon so that anyone can view them and compare them to their own variations. Unfortunately the graded cards don’t scan real well. I still have to go through and crop all the images down to a size that works better to view on Flickr before I post them as well. I came across this little beauty towards the end of the scanning process. It looks very similar to some of the box versions,but the color is very different. It appears to me to be a dark blue version. You can’t really tell from the image, but with some decent light you can read the Marlboro lettering pretty well. There’s a pretty big jump from the other blue cards I’ve seen to this version. Does anyone have any blue cards that they could share an image of?

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by Hatorade

Attachment 342557I finished up scanning all the Marlboro errors we have.We have 1120 cards, 310 PSA graded and 92 graded by BGS. I’ll be posting them all to My Flickr page soon so that anyone can view them and compare them to their own variations. Unfortunately the graded cards don’t scan real well. I still have to go through and crop all the images down to a size that works better to view on Flickr before I post them as well. I came across this little beauty towards the end of the scanning process. It looks very similar to some of the box versions,but the color is very different. It appears to me to be a dark blue version. You can’t really tell from the image, but with some decent light you can read the Marlboro lettering pretty well. There’s a pretty big jump from the other blue cards I’ve seen to this version. Does anyone have any blue cards that they could share an image of?

That is a very cool card. 1120 WOW, I guess I don't have as bad of a hoarding problem as I thought.

[steve5838]

Hi. My name is Steve and I have been collecting 1989 Fleer Randy Johnson Marlboro cards for the last couple years. I'm a big fan of the card and keep an eye out, in particular, for graded ones with the clearer versions of the Marlboro sign. Thanks to many of the people posting on this and other boards I was able to view pictures of the various versions along the way including what appeared to be the only known instance of the "clearest version" (as noted in the above thread the card is owned by Kevin and graded a PSA 9). I always hoped to see the card in person and wondered whether more of these "clearest version" cards were out there. Anyway, last week I was lucky enough to stumble upon another "clearest version" card on eBay under the listing title "1989 Fleer RANDY JOHNSON PSA 9 Rookie RC See Pics - CLEAREST MARLBORO SIGN EVER!". As I reviewed the listing over breakfast something about the card kept nagging at me even beyond the clarity of the Marlboro sign. I came back to this board and compared the card in the listing to the clearest version owned by Kevin. The sign clarity in the two cards looked pretty similar (at least to my eyes) AND SO DID THE PSA CERT NUMBER. To my shock the PSA cert on this card (15790561) was just one number off the cert on Kevin's card (15790562). I looked the two cards up on the PSA site. Both cards are in the PSA database but unfortunately no documented previous sales of either card are listed. My guess is that the two cards were graded in the same batch and whoever originally submitted Kevin's card for grading also submitted this one. Beyond this I don't know anything about the card's origin (beyond the listing description that "Hello, I am new to eBay and I’m selling my dad’s stuff"). In any case, I knew I would kick myself later if this fell through by waiting for a counter offer to come back so I checked out with "Buy It Now". The card arrived today and I'm super excited about it. I'm attaching some pictures. I don't post much but figured that this new sliver of information could be interesting to a very small group of others and may add a new layer to the ongoing story surrounding this card. In case you're interested, you can probably still view the original listing on eBay by searching recently sold items too. Steve

[steve5838]

I made a quick video showing the card from different angles and posted it on YouTube at https://youtu.be/k7AGFtb0DVo
I apologize in advance that the video goes in and out of focus a bit but it was the best I could do with my phone. Interestingly there is no red squiggle on my card but the pube is there. I don't really understand the printing process but maybe the red squiggle originated with the initial/partial red overlay added on part of the Marlboro lettering? Of course I'm really not sure but wanted to put this out there in case anyone else was interested. Steve

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by steve5838

Hi. My name is Steve and I have been collecting 1989 Fleer Randy Johnson Marlboro cards for the last couple years. I'm a big fan of the card and keep an eye out, in particular, for graded ones with the clearer versions of the Marlboro sign. Thanks to many of the people posting on this and other boards I was able to view pictures of the various versions along the way including what appeared to be the only known instance of the "clearest version" (as noted in the above thread the card is owned by Kevin and graded a PSA 9). I always hoped to see the card in person and wondered whether more of these "clearest version" cards were out there. Anyway, last week I was lucky enough to stumble upon another "clearest version" card on eBay under the listing title "1989 Fleer RANDY JOHNSON PSA 9 Rookie RC See Pics - CLEAREST MARLBORO SIGN EVER!". As I reviewed the listing over breakfast something about the card kept nagging at me even beyond the clarity of the Marlboro sign. I came back to this board and compared the card in the listing to the clearest version owned by Kevin. The sign clarity in the two cards looked pretty similar (at least to my eyes) AND SO DID THE PSA CERT NUMBER. To my shock the PSA cert on this card (15790561) was just one number off the cert on Kevin's card (15790562). I looked the two cards up on the PSA site. Both cards are in the PSA database but unfortunately no documented previous sales of either card are listed. My guess is that the two cards were graded in the same batch and whoever originally submitted Kevin's card for grading also submitted this one. Beyond this I don't know anything about the card's origin (beyond the listing description that "Hello, I am new to eBay and I’m selling my dad’s stuff"). In any case, I knew I would kick myself later if this fell through by waiting for a counter offer to come back so I checked out with "Buy It Now". The card arrived today and I'm super excited about it. I'm attaching some pictures. I don't post much but figured that this new sliver of information could be interesting to a very small group of others and may add a new layer to the ongoing story surrounding this card. In case you're interested, you can probably still view the original listing on eBay by searching recently sold items too. Steve

Congrats, awesome pick up. I got a email about this card last night and then see it posted on here.

[steve5838]

Thanks, Ben. I appreciate it. I'm usually not this lucky and still can't believe it. The whole thing has me feeling like a little kid at Christmas. Silly but true.

[JoeDfan]

WOW. That is awesome!