2000 Fleer Greats of the Game Set
Overview
When it comes to developing the perfect autograph card set, everything has to fall in place. The checklist, design, affordability, scarcity, signature quality, whether the signatures are on-card, all play a role in creating a memorable set that will remain popular with collectors over time. Fleer was able to accomplish this feat during the turn of the century with the 2000 Fleer Greats of the Game release.
in 1999, the card industry started to see more retrospection sets gaining popularity as the century came to a close. With Fleer coming off a strong year after their successful debut Sports Illustrated Greats of the Game release, the company was looking to take things to a new level in 2000.
Laying the Foundation
When developing the follow-up 2000 Greats of the Game set, Fleer's Director of Product Development Jim Stefano had a vision. "I looked at what we did with the 1999 Greats of the Game set. Then I looked at Upper Deck's Century Legends set," Stefano told Beckett Baseball Card Monthly. "I wanted something that fell in between those two products."
With that vision, Fleer created a burgundy bordered card with a simple player photo that pops with a white background. In an upper corner, the Fleer logo appears in silver foil and the team logo appears near the middle. The photo fades out at the bottom, giving way to the player's name and a refreshing amount of white space.
Aide from the the base set, is broken up into four subsets: an autograph set, a jersey set, an retrospection set, and an autograph parallel set.
Gold Border Autograph Set
When it comes to developing the perfect autograph card set, everything has to fall in place. The checklist, design, affordability, scarcity, signature quality, whether the signatures are on-card, all play a role in creating a memorable set that will remain popular with collectors over time.
The checklist consists of 90 legendary players, the majority of which are in the National Baseball Hall of Fame (51 as of 2022).
The 2000 Fleer Greats of the Game Checklist features on-card autographs of legendary players who came from a time where people took great pride in their penmanship. Nearly every autographed card in the set is clean, legible, and artistic in a way that stands out from other designs. The white space at the bottom of the card also allows that autograph to beautifully stand out.
With autograph cards seeded at four autos per hobby box, pulling an autographed card was a realistic expectation for collectors. While many of the autographs could be easily obtained on the secondary market, Fleer had many "Short Print" Autographs in the release which made chasing the complete set challenging, yet fun.
2000 Fleer Greats of the Game was designed during a time when vintage themes were becoming a common part of the hobby rather than a novelty. While other companies opted to combine prospects, current stars, and retired players in their releases, the Greats of the Game autograph checklist focused on players who had already stepped away from baseball.
Fleer Retrospection Set
Retrospection is a fifteen-card tribute to the vintage 1960 Fleer Baseball set, but instead has a reflective shiny border, the Fleer silver stamp, and foil player lettering. Just like the original 80-card 1960 Fleer set, it continues the tradition of focusing on retired legends . These cards were inserted in 1:6 packs in the Fleer GOTG set.
Yankee Clippings Set
The Yankees Clippings insert set was initially the biggest draw to the Greats of the Game set and offered the first ever Mickey Mantle game-used card. The 15-card set that consists entirely of players from baseball's most storied franchise.
These cards were only available in the "Hobby" packs are relatively tough to find, seeded at 1:48 packs, or every other Hobby box. "We wanted to put together a Yankees set with players who played key roles throughout the years. We think we've done that here," Stefano said.
Memorable Moments Set
Four Memorable Moments card were released in the set. It is a Purple Border parallel card autographed and notated by the player with one of their career achievements. Each card is hand-numbered on the reverse side to the last two digits of the achievement's year. The four players in the set are Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, Herb Score, and Ron Guidry.
There have also been a unsigned Purple Parallel cards that have surfaced onto the secondary market. It is rumored that these cards were acquired from the Fleer bankruptcy auction in the mid-2000's.
Autograph Variations
There are several autograph variations that found themselves into the hands of collectors over the years. The variations mainly reflect inscriptions or a different ink color:
- Dave Concepcion signed in red ink
- Yogi Berra signed in blue ink.
- Herb Score inscription "55 ROY"
- Ron Guidry inscription "78 Cy Young"
There has been some debate on whether the Concepcion and Score variations are considered a part of the Master set.