2004 Fleer Greats – Cut Signature Edition – Part 5 – Wrapping it all up.

Wrapping up Series 2!

Happy 4th of July weekend everyone!  I hope that all had a safe and filling 4th!

I’ll wrap up my thoughts and experiences with the Cut Signature Edition of the 2004 Fleer Greats of The Game Baseball set and set the table for my overall impressions from 15 years of chasing these two remarkable sets.

As I mentioned in Part 4, I have been able to identify 427 cards that make up the Cut Signature Edition (series 2) of the 2004 Fleer Greats Baseball product.  As Fleer was in it’s final days and months, there were inevitable production and distribution problems with this set.  As a result, there are a few questions that I have that I have yet to be able to find an answer for.  They are:

1. With the Announcing Greats autograph cards; were the autographs on-card auto’s or were they the same “sticker” auto’s or cut auto’s that we see on all other autograph examples.  The only autographed Announcing Greats cards that I have seen (and the two that I have) are on-card auto’s and I’m unsure as to whether they are IP auto’s.  Both are slabbed authentic from psa/dna.
2. With the Forever subset;  There were so many redemption cards here, which is evidence to the production and distribution issues mentioned above, as well as a split between which cards were available through their hobby product versus their retail product, it’s hard to know exactly how many Forever subset cards there really are!  I have identified 144 of them (and I hate the fact that it’s not 145!!) but have never seen examples of any of the Fernando Valenzuela, Steve Garvey, Ron Santo, Tom Seaver or Keith Hernandez cards (other than the base cards).  In addition, while I have three examples of the game patch-dual logo cards from the Forever subset, I have yet to see an example of the game patch – dual number variant.
3. There is the issue of the GBA cards that were issued as redemption cards only and not issued as part of the base card set.  These include Gold Border Autograph (GBA) cards from Marty Marron, Denny McClain, David Cone and Deion Sanders. I have the Marion and McClain cards and have seen a production error card of Deion Sanders but have not seen the Cone card.
4. And finally, I really, really, really would like to talk to a former Fleer employee who is familiar with this set and ask about a few of the base set cards that may lack a GBA issue.  I understand that it may have been a contractual issue, but I would love to know if there is really a GBA card for Mark Fydrich, Fernando Valenzuela, Wade Boggs and Rick Sutcliffe.

With all of these questions now off my chest, here is my success with this set.

As mentioned, I have identifies 427 cards that make up the Cut Signature Edition.  My successes are as follows.

Base cards – 178 player cards (base set – including blue border variants and GBA variants) of which I have 157.  I’m missing just nine GBA cards and the rest of the missing cards are the blue border variants.

Announcing Greats – I’m 10/10 on the base set and 2/8 on the autograph cards.

Yankee Clippings – I have six of the eight swatch cards (missing Rizzuto and Maris) and two of the swatch/auto cards (O’Neill and Skowron).

Forever subset – Of the 144 cards in this massive subset, I have 90.  Add to this my success in obtaining 3/11 of the game patch-dual logo cards and I’m comfortably over half-way home here.

Etches in Time Cut Autographs – This is a strikingly beautiful subset of 40 cut signature cards and I consider myself fortunate to own 12 of them.  There are a lot of cards that are less than (of 10) so I’m not sure how many more I’ll be finding.

Personality Cuts – I’m a solid 0/10 here and unless I win the lottery, that’s where I’ll end up!

Total – I am at a respectable 284/427 with the Cut Signature Edition.  Enough left to remain motivated but enough in binders to be happy!

Next up – I’ll but the 2004 Fleer Greats of The Game Baseball product to bed with my thoughts on the combined sets and then we can start to talk about the next 2004 Greats of The Game product – FOOTBALL!!

Until then, be safe and happy.