1989 Fleer Randy Johnson Quest

[discodanman45]

My new collecting goal is to get high quality versions of his 1989 Fleer "Error" cards. I am up to three different versions, but wanting more! If there are any experts about this, could you verify if I am right about the labeling? I just got another one from ebay that is the box, but doesn't have the bubble. I actually find this more intriguing than the Billy Ripken card. It looks like there are 15 different versions for me to hunt down!

Red Box with Bubble


Red Box


Red Tint Marlboro


Green Tint Marlboro


Black Scribble

[Slette]

Discostu is a collector of Randy Johnson rookies and knows an astounding amount about baseball card oddities and eccentricities. You may want to look him up.

[JRX]

Read this, there apparently only 2 super clear versions

https://junkwaxgems.wordpress.com/20...ro-variations/

[Rage]

Originally Posted by JRX

Read this, there apparently only 2 super clear versions

https://junkwaxgems.wordpress.com/20...ro-variations/

Was about to post that link too, seems like OP's "green scribble" is listed as "black scribble"

[discodanman45]

Originally Posted by Slette

Discostu is a collector of Randy Johnson rookies and knows an astounding amount about baseball card oddities and eccentricities. You may want to look him up.

Thanks for the advice. I will definitely look him up. I am going by https://junkwaxgems.wordpress.com/20...ro-variations/ which seems to be very thorough and accurate.

I definitely want to get my cards graded to keep in my personal collection. PSA will grade the regular version, the one that has a box, and the one you can read Marlboro. The green scribble one though is not an option and I have no idea what classification they would put it under. BGS seems to have the "Green Tint" one covered there, but there seems to be a difference between the scribble and the green tint variation. I don't know what BGS means by the green tint...

[JRX]

I actually looked into this a couple of days ago. Not in any rush to buy, but the history of this is interesting.

[1989FF]

Was going to link jacksoncoupage@ but that's been done already. Used to bump into these during my FF collecting years.

That was a huge problem I and a close buddy had with getting version labeled correctly. One good thing about GAI was that I was able to get all my versions graded correctly. They worked with me a lot on that.

Happy Hunting!

[HarryLime]

PSA lumps everything into three categories: the corrected ALL BLACK version, the Partially Obscured (basically, everything that isn't an unaltered Marlboro sign gets tossed in here), and then the Marlboro sign showing.

I started this project maybe six months ago and there's definitely more than 15 variations. I discovered blue color where there is red & green in some variations as well as multiple colors in the same card.

I've slowed down on the project and don't really search for them anymore. It just became too daunting. Trying to label all of the different cards and keep track of them was getting ridiculous. It was a lot of fun for the first month or so though.

Arthur

[Redbandit]

Picked this up at my LCS for $20 think it’s the red tint




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[discodanman45]

Originally Posted by HarryLime

PSA lumps everything into three categories: the corrected ALL BLACK version, the Partially Obscured (basically, everything that isn't an unaltered Marlboro sign gets tossed in here), and then the Marlboro sign showing.

I usually grade with PSA, but may use BGS for this project. Even though BGS has 5 types for this card, the black scribble one is kind of by myself. Wish that card was handled differently by PSA and BGS.

Can't go wrong with a $20 Marlboro card of Randy Johnson. That is the top Randy Johnson rookie IMO. It is not only a limited production card, but is a great conversational piece!

[junkwaxgems]

Let’s see..

PSA will slot all versions into three categories: Marlboro ad on scoreboard, ad partially obscured and Ad completely blacked out. And they will slot them incorrectly. You can often find PSA holders mislabeled as Ad completely blacked out that are actually box versions, etc.

There are * at least * 12 versions of the card. Perhaps 15, perhaps 20, it really depends on how close you are looking and what you believe constitutes a noticeable change the plate/design of the coverup attempt. For this reason, PSA will never accurately label these.

With one known exception so far, the Randy johnson card went through * ALL * of its changes before January 1st, 1989. More than two weeks before they started work on the Bill Ripken error.

Many of The earliest known production date (sealed) cases of 1989 Fleer that have been opened yielded multiple versions of the card. Box versions alongside red tints and green tints, etc. Some cases contained four-six different versions. This means that the correction process wasn’t exactly linear. Fleer likely had multiple presses with separate sets of plates running simultaneously, each with a different correction type applied to it. Previously it was believed that, since Fleer publicly acknowledged using two separate printing facilities, that green tinted corrections came from one and red from another. And also that Fleer had produced coverups first over the word marlboro, then the color masking/darkening of the sign area and then finally the box over the sign area before the full blackout.

[junkwaxgems]

Originally Posted by discodanman45

Green Scribble?

I believe this is a relative of the green scribble that is referred to as the “black bar” version. The scribble looks like a deflating pyramid, where this looks like a rectangular shape over the word Marlboro. IIRC the bar version exists on both red and green corrections.

[pip]

Originally Posted by junkwaxgems

Let’s see..

PSA will slot all versions into three categories: Marlboro ad on scoreboard, ad partially obscured and Ad completely blacked out. And they will slot them incorrectly. You can often find PSA holders mislabeled as Ad completely blacked out that are actually box versions, etc.

There are * at least * 12 versions of the card. Perhaps 15, perhaps 20, it really depends on how close you are looking and what you believe constitutes a noticeable change the plate/design of the coverup attempt. For this reason, PSA will never accurately label these.

With one known exception so far, the Randy johnson card went through * ALL * of its changes before January 1st, 1989. More than two weeks before they started work on the Bill Ripken error.

Many of The earliest known production date (sealed) cases of 1989 Fleer that have been opened yielded multiple versions of the card. Box versions alongside red tints and green tints, etc. Some cases contained four-six different versions. This means that the correction process wasn’t exactly linear. Fleer likely had multiple presses with separate sets of plates running simultaneously, each with a different correction type applied to it. Previously it was believed that, since Fleer publicly acknowledged using two separate printing facilities, that green tinted corrections came from one and red from another. And also that Fleer had produced coverups first over the word marlboro, then the color masking/darkening of the sign area and then finally the box over the sign area before the full blackout.

Fascinating stuff. Has an attempt ever been made to assign values to each of the variations or at least rank them in order of scarcity?

[junkwaxgems]

Originally Posted by pip

Fascinating stuff. Has an attempt ever been made to assign values to each of the variations or at least rank them in order of scarcity?

Many, many times.

[pip]

Originally Posted by junkwaxgems

Many, many times.

Is there a definitive guide that has been produced or is that still a work in progress? The reason I ask is because a standardized guide might lead to the TPGs labeling the cards properly. Seems like they're just winging it right now.

[SaveMeTheGum]

Someone (maybe you) just bought my green tint off of COMC. (Listed as variation #5)

[discodanman45]

Originally Posted by pip

Fascinating stuff. Has an attempt ever been made to assign values to each of the variations or at least rank them in order of scarcity?

https://junkwaxgems.wordpress.com/20...ro-variations/

The author here tries to rank them in order in scarcity. If you have the scribble or Marlboro in a PSA 9 or 10, the card will sell for quite a bit. PSA 9s are about $150 and PSA 10s are $500 plus. Finding buyers though is difficult because it is a weird card to understand or know it's exact scarcity.

[junkwaxgems]

Originally Posted by pip

Is there a definitive guide that has been produced or is that still a work in progress? The reason I ask is because a standardized guide might lead to the TPGs labeling the cards properly. Seems like they're just winging it right now.

This has been answered in my post and, in a way, on my blog cited earlier in the thread.

But to go further into it, no, beyond the “clear” version, collectors simply lean toward versions with the Marlboro man visible, in terms of higher sales but only those in the know, who’ve collected them for years, have assigned a hierarchy after the clear version. And even that info isn’t ironclad since we are only just now learning that many versions (and very different versions) can be found within the same, single day of production, case. This info is very important.

[junkwaxgems]

Originally Posted by discodanman45

https://junkwaxgems.wordpress.com/20...ro-variations/

Finding buyers though is difficult because it is a weird card to understand or know it's exact scarcity.

For me, it is easy to understand their collective scarcity. Every single version of the card before the final, solid black background version, was produced within the span of about two weeks. The production for 1989 Fleer ran until April 1989, possibly even later. But just two weeks in a November yielded arguably 12-15+ versions.

[unclemonkey]

Oh man... I remember hunting these in my million card hoard.

Out of 50K+ cards of that year and set, I pulled maybe 5. Remember grading a couple and the best I could do was PSA 9

[discodanman45]

Originally Posted by SaveMeTheGum

Someone (maybe you) just bought my green tint off of COMC. (Listed as variation #5)

The most recent ones I bought were two green tint black scribbles for $40 on ebay. The cards are in beautiful shape and one may gem. It is perfectly centered with sharp corners. Discussions like this always do bring extra buyers to the market, so I should have kept my mouth shut to avoid extra competition!

[junkwaxgems]

Originally Posted by discodanman45

The most recent ones I bought were two green tint black scribbles for $40 on ebay. The cards are in beautiful shape and one may gem. It is perfectly centered with sharp corners. Discussions like this always do bring extra buyers to the market, so I should have kept my mouth shut to avoid extra competition!

Way too late for that. The recent boom in junk wax has caused everything to go crazy but 1989 Fleer May be the most popular product of the last six months. Everyone is on to this card. That said, they are still criminally undervalued.

[discodanman45]

Mail day and another variation I found in an ebay lot.

Red Box???

[discodanman45]

Found a lot with Johnson's on ebay and this looks like the green tint readable Marlboro. The card has centering issues, but this seems like a hard one to get.

[Hatorade]

There’s about 150 images of the errors in this album if you want to get an idea of some of the different versions that are out there.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/rjmarl...57691321051631