Collecting the 1987 Fleer Basketball Card Set

Set Notes

What happens when a 132-card set is loaded with great second-year players, but lacks star rookie cards of it's own? PSA's Kevin Glew has some thoughts on playing second fiddle.

Curator of Collections, Card Cyber Museum

Playing second fiddle isn't easy.

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Excerpt

Just ask John Oates. One half of a hugely successful music duo, he's been overshadowed by his taller and more charismatic bandmate, Daryl Hall, for more than 30 years.

What does this have to do with sports cards? Well, the 1986-87 Fleer Basketball set is the Daryl Hall of hoops issues and the 1987-88 Fleer set is the John Oates.

Like Hall, the 1986-87 set – with its who's who of basketball rookies – still commands considerable attention. The 1987-88 offering, on the other hand, remains in the background, out of the limelight.

More set notes

This set consists of 792 standard-size cards. Cards were primarily issued in 17-card wax packs, 50-card rack packs and factory sets. Card fronts feature wood grain borders encasing a color photo (reminiscent of Topps classic 1962 baseball set). Subsets include Record Breakers (1-7), Turn Back The Clock (311-315), All-Star selections (595-616), and Team Leaders (scattered throughout the set). The manager cards contain a team checklist on back.

The 1990 Topps set contains 792 standard-size cards. Cards were issued primarily in wax packs, rack packs and hobby and retail Christmas factory sets. Cards fronts feature various colored borders with the player's name at the bottom and team name at top. Subsets include All-Stars (385-407), Turn Back The Clock (661-665), and Draft Picks (scattered throughout the set). The key Rookie Cards in this set are Juan Gonzalez, Marquis Grissom, Sammy Sosa, Frank Thomas, Larry Walker and Bernie Williams. The Thomas card (414A) was printed without his name on front creating a scarce variation.

This set consists of 792 standard-size cards. The cards were primarily issued in 15-card wax packs, 42-card rack packs and factory sets. Card fronts feature white borders encasing a color photo with team name running across the top and player name diagonally across the bottom. Subsets include Record Breakers (1-7), All-Stars (386-407), Turn Back The Clock (661-665), and Team Leaders (scattered throughout the set). The manager cards contain a team checklist on back. The key Rookie Cards in this set are Ellis Burks, Ken Caminiti, Tom Glavine and Matt Williams.

The 1990 Topps Traded set was the tenth consecutive year that Topps issued a 132-card standard-size set at the end of the year. For the first time, Topps not only issued the set in factory set form but also distributed (on a significant basis) the set via seven-card wax packs. Unlike the factory set cards (which feature the whiter paper stock typical of the previous years Traded sets), the wax pack cards feature grey paper stock. Grey and white stock cards are equally valued.

This set consists of 792 standard-size cards. Cards were primarily distributed in 15-card wax packs, 48-card rack packs and factory sets. This was also the first year Topps offered a factory set to hobby dealers. Standard card fronts feature a black and white split border framing a color photo with team name on top and player name on bottom. Subsets include Pete Rose tribute (1-7), Record Breakers (201-207), Turn Back The Clock (401-405), All-Stars (701-722) and Team Leaders (seeded throughout the set). Manager cards feature the team checklist on the reverse.

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