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 495-card set was primarily distributed in first and second series 11-card packs with a suggested retail price of $1.29. In addition, eight-card retail packs, 40-card jumbo packs and 504-card factory sets (containing the complete 495-card set plus a random selection of eight insert cards and one hermetically sealed Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle Reprint insert) were made available. The card fronts feature a color action player photo with a gloss coating and a spot matte finish on the outside border with gold foil stamping.

The 2000 Topps Traded sets were released in October, 2000 and featured a 135-card base set, and one additional autograph card. The set carried a suggested retail price of $29.99. Please note that each card in the base set carried a 'T' prefix before the card number. Topps announced that due to the unavailability of certain players previously scheduled to sign autographs, Topps will include a small quantity of autographed cards from the 2000 Topps Baseball Rookies/Traded set into its 2000 Bowman Baseball Draft Picks and Prospects set.

The 2001 Topps set featured 790 cards and was issued over two series. The set looks to bring back some of the heritage that Topps established in the past by bringing back manager cards (322-351), dual-player draft picks cards (352-361, 737-751), three-player prospect cards (362-376, 727-736), Golden Moments (377-386, 782-791), Season Highlights (387-391), League Leaders (392-399), team cards (752-781) and Playoffs (400-406). Notable Rookie Cards include Ichiro Susuki and Hee Seop Choi. Also included with the factory box are 8 unnumbered checklist cards.

This set consists of 132 standard-size cards featuring traded players in their new uniforms, rookies and draft choices. Factory sets consisted of 140 cards including a set of eight Topps Finest cards. Card fronts feature a player photo with the player's name, team and position at the bottom. The horizontal backs have a player photo to the left with complete career statistics and highlights. Rookie Cards include Rusty Greer, Ben Grieve, Paul Konerko, Terrence Long and Chan Ho Park.

This 132-card standard-size Traded set, numbered 1T - 132T, was distributed exclusively in hobby set form in a red and white box through hobby dealers. The set numbering is in alphabetical order by player's name. The cards are identical to regular-issue 1986 Topps cards except for whiter stock and 'T'-suffixed numbering. Key extended Rookie Cards (XRC) in this set are Barry Bonds, Will Clark, Andres Galarraga, Bobby Bonilla, Jose Canseco, Bo Jackson, Wally Joyner, John Kruk and Kevin Mitchell.

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