2001 Topps Opening Day Stickers

Topps issued their first Baseball team logo sticker set in 2001 when they inserted team logo stickers in packs of their 2001 Opening Day set.


The nice thing about this set is that it includes all 30 teams (something Fleer never was able to do since they stopped producing stickers before the Diamondbacks and Devil Rays joined the league). The one exception is that the set was done before the Expos moved to Washington, DC to become the Nationals, so unfortunately there is not a sticker set that has all 30 teams as they exist today (Topps - are you listening?)

Here is a look at the complete set:





Given how long Topps has been producing Baseball cards, its interesting that it wasn't until 2001 that they finally issued team stickers.

Prior to this release, Topps had issued team logos on stamps in 1962:


and on rub-offs in 1966:


The only Baseball team sticker release Topps had done prior to 2001 was a test issue called Action Emblems that hadn't even included team logos in 1973/1974:


The above image comes courtesy of great The Topps Archive blog which provides very interesting insight into this test issue. These were done at a time when Topps was having issues with MLB's licensing fees and trying to see if they could market products without logos. The interesting thing about this release is that the design is nearly identical to the 1973-74 Basketball Stickers:


While the idea of team stickers without team logos never caught on (for obvious reasons), at least the design was able to be put to good use. Its just too bad Topps wasn't able to do a set similar to the Basketball set for Baseball at the time which actually used team logos and could have been done as inserts.

I guess Topps really didn't see Fleer as much of a threat at the time with their cloth logo stickers since Topps could have inserted Baseball stickers in their products as a way to discourage kids from buying Fleer packs. If kids could get stickers of their favorite teams along with cards of their favorite players in the same Topps pack, why would kids even consider buying the Fleer stickers. Perhaps the agreement Fleer had with MLB Properties gave them exclusive rights to issue team logo stickers so Topps might not have been able to do this even if they had wanted to.

1988 - 1993 Panini Baseball Logo Stickers

Even though I've finished up my review of Fleer's baseball stickers, I've still got a few other team logo sticker sets yet to cover. Since I just finished reviewing Fleer's last logo sticker sets which were issue in conjunction with Panini back in 1995 & 1996, I thought I'd go back and cover the earlier Panini sets from 1988 through 1993 which also contained team logo stickers (but did not have any involvement from Fleer).

The Panini sticker sets each year consisted of player stickers as well as a sticker album. Team logo stickers were part of the set, and were foil stickers (as opposed to the player stickers which were not).

1988:

Panini's first baseball issue included a team logo sticker, a uniform sticker, and a cap emblem / team pennant sticker:


1989:

Once again there were 3 different team stickers, but this time there was a logo sticker, a team name, and a stadium sticker:


1990:

There were 2 team stickers in 1990 - a logo sticker and a batting helmet sticker. In addition, the winning teams from the 1980 through the 1988 World Series had a World Series Ring sticker. Presumably the design for the 1989 ring wasn't yet ready when the 1990 set went to press, so the 1989 World Champion A's are represented by the World Series trophy instead.


1991:

There were 3 different Panini sets in 1991. The regular issue which containted a team logo sticker as well as stickers with 2 team pennants:


A Canadian set (which unfortunately I do not have any scans to show), and another Canadian set entitled "Top 15" which showcased top statistical performers from the previous season. The team stickers in this set honor teams that led in various statistical categories, so not all team logos are represented in this set. As these are Canadian, the text is in both English and French:


1992:

Panini used a glitter foil effect for the team logo stickers in 1992:


1993:

Panini used a gold foil background for the 1993 logo stickers, and also included uniforms on the 2 new expansion teams from that season (the Rockies and the Marlins):


1994:

Panini issued a sticker set in 1994, but there were no team logo stickers.

1995:

As I previously reviewed, Panini issued the 1995 set in conjunction with Fleer which once again contained team logos (but dropped the foil background):


1996:

And they once again teamed up with Fleer in 1996 (and brought back the foil):


1996 was the last baseball sticker set that Panini issued in the US. They issued baseball sticker sets in Venezuela in 1997 and 1998, although it does not appear that team logo stickers were included in those sets.

1995 & 1996 Fleer Panini Baseball Stickers - Coming Full Circle

Fleer had one more series of Baseball team logo stickers which they released a few years after their final set of insert stickers in 1991. Fleer partnered with Panini in 1995 and 1996 to release Baseball Album stickers which included team logo stickers.

The 1995 stickers have logos against a white background with a colored border:





while the 1996 release has a similar design, but is on a silver foil sticker:





The stickers were not inserts, but were part of the regular set.

You may be thinking that the design of these stickers look familiar.....and you'd be right:


Fleer came full circle with these sticker sets and returned with a design and sticker size that was almost identical to their very first Baseball decals that they released back in 1960, 1961 & 1962.

Just for fun, here is a look at Fleer's very first Baseball logo decals from 1960:


and 1961/62:


What a perfect set of bookends to start and finish the 30+ years of Fleer Baseball decals/patches/quiz cards/iron ons/stickers with 2 sets of stickers in the mid 1990's that so closely resemble the very first decal sets from the early 1960's.

Its interesting taking a look at which teams have undergone significant logo changes during this time, and which seem to hardly have changed at all. The other thing you can appreciate in comparing the sets is how many more teams joined the league since the first set was released in 1960 as MLB had grown from 16 teams in 1960 to 28 teams by 1996 (with 2 more teams joining a few years later in 1998).

This wraps up the review of Fleer Baseball Stickers as we've now finished looking at every baseball sticker set that Fleer released. I'll be picking up where I left off with the Fleer Football sticker review as we get closer to Football season, but I've still got a few baseball related items to review, so stay tuned!

1991 Fleer Ultra Baseball Stickers

Fleer had one final Baseball sticker release as inserts in packs of 1991 Fleer Ultra:


The stickers are smaller than normal card size and are blank backed:




With Score entering the market in 1988, Upper Deck issuing its groundbreaking set in 1989, and Leaf returning to the baseball card scene with a high end premium offering in 1990, the baseball card market was quickly changing. Premium cards with high quality photography on slick card stock with UV coating suddenly made the annual sets from Topps, Fleer and Donruss seem cheap and dull.

By 1991 the card companies that had been helping drive the baseball card boom of the 1980s decided to issue premium sets of their own. The ultimate result was an explosion of different sets. Not only were there multiple card companies producing card sets by the early 1990s, now those companies were producing multiple sets under different brands.

Donruss got the process started with the 1990 Leaf set,


and in 1991 Topps responded with Stadium Club


while Fleer debuted the Ultra brand.


For the first year Fleer included Baseball logo sticker inserts in the Ultra packs as they had with their base set, but this was only to last a year. By the time Fleer issued its second Ultra set in 1992, they had stopped using logo stickers for inserts in all their products. With so much focus on insert cards, Fleer no longer saw the need to include stickers in their packs.

As we reach the end of the review of Fleer's baseball stickers, its amazing to see what a change took place in the hobby over a relatively short period of time after Fleer successfully took on the Topps monopoly in the late 1970's and opened the market to competitors who continued to expand the market to levels never imagined.

If someone would have predicted in 1980 when Topps was the only option available to collectors that within 11 years there would be 5 major baseball card manufacturers producing multiple card sets each, they would have been thought of as crazy, yet thats exactly what happened between 1981 when Fleer and Donruss entered the market to 1991 when card companies started segmenting the market with premium high end cards to go along with their lower priced base card sets. Who would have ever thought that the baseball card market was a market that could be segmented?

Unfortunately the company that paved the way for this tremendous change is no longer with us, having suffered through bankrutpcy in 2005 and having the rights to its name bought by Upper Deck. Upper Deck produced a few sets under the Fleer name after the acquisition, but has not issued any Fleer baseball related sets since 2007.

The sad irony is that the tremendous growth in the market which Fleer helped bring about by defeating Topps and winning the right to produce baseball cards at the beginning of the 1980s ultimately led to an overcrowded marketplace by the early 2000's which simply couldn't support so many different brands. Fleer's financial difficulties sealed their fate as they went out of business, and other producers soon found themselves out of the market as well when MLB started restricting the number of licensees to try to bring some order and stability back to the hobby.

My hope is that one day Upper Deck realizes what a great legacy they have with the Fleer name and find a way to reintroduce the brand successfully, which of course would mean including team logo stickers!

1991 Fleer Baseball Stickers

Fleer issued their final series of Baseball team logo stickers in 1991:


The 1991 Fleer Baseball stickers marked the end of a 25 year run of Fleer Baseball team patches / stickers that started in back in 1967 with their first release of cloth emblem patches:



1991 would be the last year that Fleer included Baseball stickers as inserts in packs:



Factory Sets:


and Update Sets:


Fleer marked the end of their run with the one thing that has distinguished so many of the Fleer sets over the years - VARIATIONS!

The 1991 Fleer Baseball sticker set is the king of the variation sets as every single sticker in the set has a variation. For some stickers the variations are fairly obvious, and for others you have to spend a little more time looking to find the differences.

For your viewing pleasure, here is the complete set of all the variations - see if you can spot the differences:









No one is sure why there are variations for each sticker. The one theory that makes the most sense is that Fleer had 2 different printing companies producing the stickers and each printed a slightly different sticker. I have yet to come across any 1991 uncut sticker sheets so I can't confirm if the differences can be found on the same sheet (in which case, the variations would have been intentional and not the result of different printers).

The backs of the stickers contain Top 10 lists for each team's batting and pitching career records:

With the insert craze starting to catch on in the early 1990s, presumably Fleer didn't see the need to keep including the stickers as inserts when they were creating a number of different other insert sets by 1992 as this pack shows:


Once insert cards became all the rage and each year's set had an ever increasing number of insert sets, it probably didn't make sense for Fleer to keep creating new team logo stickers every year.

After 25 years of producing team logo cloth patches, quiz cards, iron-ons, and stickers, (with the final 10 years having the stickers included as inserts with their annual baseball card sets), Fleer stopped producing team logo stickers after 1991.

Fleer did release one more baseball logo sticker set in 1991, but it was not associated with their base set. I'll cover that set in my next post.