I enjoy writing these baseball card history posts because, as I mentioned in the first one, it takes me back to my childhood days. When I had a vague idea of card values, but had absolutely no idea about the actual economics behind the industry. Particularly the fact that due to overproduction, almost all of the cards from the wax pack era would be worth little more than the material they are printed on.
So, yeah, there really aren’t any 1990 Fleer cards worth much. If you’re hoping for pocket change, then you’re hoping for Canadian versions, or cards that could be highly graded. And even the latter really needs to be PSA 10 to make much of a difference.
But one card breaks the mold…
1990 Fleer Jose Uribe
Or does it…
The most likely answer is that it does not. No one is quite sure why Uribe cards have shown up on Ebay for exhorbitant amounts, but it became noticeable enough that Beckett even wrote an article addressing it.
Of course, such an occurrence can drive prices up. And in the case of Uribe it has. The card outpaces other common cards from the 1990 Fleer set by a decent margin. Most recent sold listings (as of September 2019) show some have sold for around $20, and with many selling in the $2-$6 range.
That’s not bad for a random base card of a non Hall of Fame player.
1990 Fleer Graded Cards
Card grading has gotten a bit of bad press lately. And there are some in #thehobby who would be happy to see this aspect of card collecting disappear.
But I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Many of us are collectors, and as such, we love having things to chase. For example, finding perfectly graded cards printed around thirty years ago.
There’s enough interest that recognizable players (Boggs, Griffey, Sosa, Bo Jackson) can fetch up to 30 dollars.
Two questions:
- Would unopened Fleer packs today yield grade 10 cards?
- Is there actually not a grade 10 Griffey card anywhere (as this guy claims)?
1990 Fleer Error Cards
Credit to TradingCardDB for many of the cards on this list. You should definitely check them out if you are looking for definitive checklists for card sets.
| Player Name | Card Number | Type of Error |
|---|---|---|
| George Brett | 621a | 10 .390 (instead of .300) seasons) |
| Cal Ripken Jr. | 624a | name misspelled as Ripkin |
| Will Clark | 630a | wrong number of total bases (32 instead of 321) |
| Checklist 574-660 | 660a | word checklist on front in smaller font |
| Dave Martinez | 353a | 90 in upper left hand corner is yellow (instead of red) |
1990 Fleer Base Cards
If the cards are not graded, then you should not expect much here. Any random player (no offense to Jim Leyritz and …) can get you a dollar but only the superstars of the era will get you more than that.
