1996-97 Fleer Michael Jordan Silver vs Gold

[soey10]

I just noticed while going through my cards that this card has the foil printed in gold and in silver. Everything else on the card fronts and backs are identical. Does anyone have any idea if this was just something that happened because they printed two separate versions at different factories or at different times?


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[soey10]

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[soey10]

I just went to COMC and looked through all 38 copies and they all seem to be the gold version, does anyone know if this could have been a possible international version, nothing on the back is any different though.

[mc1]

Ive never heard of, seen or noticed this.

I also went through the Jordans on COMC and they all do seem to be the regular gold version.

I went through the Rodmans and a few do appear to be the silver version.

[JimCa]

Not sure if it's the case with the Fleers you have, but Hoops had a 1:3 Silver parallel inserted in some Retail versions right around the same time.

Pics forthcoming......

[JimCa]

Originally Posted by JimCa

Not sure if it's the case with the Fleers you have, but Hoops had a 1:3 Silver parallel inserted in some Retail versions right around the same time.

Pics forthcoming......

Same year - 96-97 Hoops #11:

[cardlover29]

Originally Posted by soey10

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this is interesting. I have a few rookies, shareef, pierce that I have gold and silver for. I am in canada and bought canadian packs, maybe that has to do with it?

[CubKings]

I have several Marbury Fleer RCs and one of them always looked silver to me. But I know it's not a parallel so I always assumed maybe it faded or was just a printing error.

So who knows what it could be.

It's like the 97-98 Topps Springfield parallels that are normally bronze, but some have been seen to be actually gold. Kinda odd.

[phdbeckett]

I have a Ray Allen that is Silver.

[nyana450]

Originally Posted by JimCa

Same year - 96-97 Hoops #11:

How is the silver different? is it just silver foil, or is it silver holographic?

[JimCa]

Originally Posted by nyana450

How is the silver different? is it just silver foil, or is it silver holographic?

It's just plain old silver foil. It is Hoops we're talking about.....

[Nomad]

Could be valuable, depending on player on card... MJ certainly qualifies, even 10th year.

Because silver/gold foil is a well established card value indicator, this could be equally classified as a variation or an error. It is not a printing mistake per se, which doesn't affect value too much... foil misapplication, lack of foil, double printed foil, wrong back, miscut.

Foil variation/errors from the mid-90s (they only really occur for a couple years, there is an ultra rare 96-97 silver Fleer Jeter like this as well) are an interesting phenomenon that is only starting to be explored by collectors.

Actually adds a nice chase element to opening bricked boxes... an element of rarity to cards that are otherwise mass printed, fairly common (ok, grade is the de facto chase, because it applies to any card, but not many of these boxes will yield a pristine surface).

If grading or authenticating, I would send to CSG, they come from a collecting matrix that includes coins and stamps, where rare examples of this type are what drives the hobby.

[nyana450]

Originally Posted by JimCa

It's just plain old silver foil. It is Hoops we're talking about.....

haha, fair point. So the regular has gold foil? I have 2x Larry Johnson's in my PC, both are silver, and i cant seem to find anything but silver on ebay

[rogueriver]

I dont remember a silver version from back then and I was big into cards back in those days, however a couple thoughts would be one got a little more sun or moisture then the other and the gold foil turned silver over time. Or maybe it was just a printing error when the foil was lighter or an error in printing. Just my opinion. Print quality back in those days are not as good as they are today.

[Clipperfan3]

The silver might be Fleer Sprite

[49ersSF]

I believe the Kobe rookie has a gold and silver as well. I remember noticing it while looking through my Kobe's last year.

[Nomad]

The differential weathering theory doesn't make sense. Because the entire card would be warped, baked, faded, or whatever. The gloss on the card's surface would be first thing to show that.

My theory was that there were trolls at Fleer creating ultra scarcity that no one would notice for exactly 25 years, until that became a thing.

[mc1]

Originally Posted by Nomad

The differential weathering theory doesn't make sense. Because the entire card would be warped, baked, faded, or whatever. The gloss on the card's surface would be first thing to show that.

My theory was that there were trolls at Fleer creating ultra scarcity that no one would notice for exactly 25 years, until that became a thing.

Its a printing error man. Deal with it.

[Nomad]

That's what I have been saying. But I have also been saying it's a type of printing error, unlike a misprint, that can hold value. Possibly a great deal more than the intended pack-seeded silver/gold foil variations, such as Hoops. Because its a lot more rare and it looks nice. Assuming a couple hundred exist, best correlate for a 10th year Jordan silver Fleer I can think of is a 69 Mantle Topps white text variation. (There are white text variations of other players in that set, worth considerably less.) They are nice looking rare errors, that's what adds the value.

I don't own any of the Fleer silver foils, just my two cents.

[maconithappen]

I thought I remember seeing something like this in an old Beckett article that someone wrote in "Readers Write". I'll have to check.

[Nomad]

Well, a couple days of flipping through old binders netted a silver Kobe in the wild....

[Nomad]

Sorry for the bump, this might get the attention of a few people who are interested in mid-90s variations. So after sending a Kobe TSC Rookies -1 (R-12) silver foil (found in the wild, 90s binder) to CSG, they authentificated and slabbed it ... meaning factory cut, pack pulled, unaltered, good to go....

Has anyone come across this variation, either of Kobe or another of the rookies in the subset? (Iverson, Nash, Marbury.... 25 in all) At a minimum one sheet of 100 cards, yielding four sets, should have gone through and into packs, since factory cut. Unless... somehow the universe wanted a one of a kind silver foil of Kobe's earliest printed card to exist.

(Card nerds like myself note: fine print lines running above ROOKIE. These are actually tiny scratches from the foil application machine, suggesting to my untrained eye a very early print run. Also notice the y in Bryant runs into the L in Lakers in the gold and not in silver, a known variation.... A few scanned images of the R12 online appear silver-ish, but are actually gold.)

If anyone has come across this card, or similar, or has any fresh ideas about what it is, I appreciate the insight. Personally, as someone with a few decades of experience collecting, I still can't quite wrap my head around how unlikely this card is to exist.