Fleer produced a 2nd version of the Grand Slam Hi-Gloss Baseball Stickers in 1978 which at first glance look almost identical to the 1977 version.
Once again, there was a team logo sticker with the city name as well as a cap monogram / team name sticker.
However, there are some differences. See if you can find two differences between the 1978 sticker on the top and the 1977 sticker below:
The first difference is pretty easy to spot. On some of the logo stickers, Fleer added a note that there was a "World Series Puzzle on Back". This note appears on some, but not all of the logo stickers. In cases where there was no room for the note, the sticker looks identical to the 1977 version on the front.
The second difference is much more subtle. The 1978 stickers have a (R) registered trademark beside the MLB logo while the 1977 stickers do not.
All the logo stickers have the (R) regardless of whether or not they have the "World Series" notation. The cap monogram / team name stickers do not have an MLB logo.
While the 1977's were blank backed, the 1978 version has a World Series Puzzle with a picture from Dodger Stadium from the 1977 World Series. Here is a picture of the completed puzzle:
The 1978 puzzle backs are vertical, and the borders have a white/red/white/blue border. These two items help differentiate the 1978 set from the 1979 set which also has a puzzle back.
In addition, Fleer once again produced stickers noting the World Series Champion Yankees and NL Champion Dodgers in addition to their regular stickers:
Note the Dodgers sticker is an example of one of the logo stickers that do not have the Puzzle notation.
Whereas the 1977 set excluded the cap monogram / team name stickers for the expansion Mariners & Blue Jays, the 1978 set includes these 2 stickers:
The total set size increased by 2 with the addition of the Mariners and Blue Jays stickers, bringing a full set to 55 stickers, and a complete master set with all border variations to 97.
The stickers can once again be found with the 3 color and 2 color border variations that I covered with the 1977 series, and there is no change in terms of which teams have 3 colors vs. those which have 2.
There are however, a number of differences between the 1977 and 1978 stickers due to uniform & logo changes. In the following pictures, the 1977 sticker is on the left and the 1978 sticker is on the right:
The wrapper for the 1978 series is very similar to the 1977 wrapper given both are yellow with team logos on the front. Here are 2 examples of the 1978 wrapper variations:
The 1978 wrappers say New Hi-Gloss Grandslam Baseball Stickers, whereas the 1977 wrapper says New "Grand Slam" Baseball Stickers :
Note one of the 1978 wrappers shows the Yankees World Champs stickers, which also helps indicate that these would have been issued after the 1977 Yankees World Series win. Actually one pack shows the AL division winners and the other pack shows the NL division winners from 1977.
If you'd like to check out a recently opened pack of the 1978 stickers, check out this posting on A Pack A Day where David from Indians Baseball Cards. Always. just opened a pack.
Fleer would use this same design a third time in 1979. Next time I'll cover the 1979 set and how to differentiate it from the 1978 set.
UPDATE 04/2010:
Fleer Sticker Project contributor Troy has passed along this review of the 1978 Fleer set from Sports Collectors Digest (SCD):
Wow.... some of those cards are terrible. Some of them with the completely wrong logos & some have logos from the '60s still. I would had been greatly disappointed being a White Sox fan with that set. I don't think they ever put the Go-Go-Sox style cap logo on the red uni's batting helmets. Where'd Fleer get that Boston "B" from? I've never seen it on any caps. I noticed a bunch of these are batting helmet decal logos, tho not all of them.
ReplyDeleteHey, if you ever find any Florida Marlins stickers, send 'em my way! :)
ReplyDeleteWe can do a little trade! :)
For anyone interested in completing a master set of 1978 Fleer with all of the front/back variations, I can say that the full sheet of 1978 Fleer was completed with two intact puzzles per sheet with 66 pieces apiece, or 132 cards total in the master set. Each of the stickers with script lettering can be found in three variations - either blue/yellow/white or pink/white/white (with a different back variation for each of the two white stickers). This accounts for 84 of the 132 cards. The remaining stickers, with the multi-team logos, account for 27 more, including the MLB logo. This leaves 111 cards, or 21 left to be accounted for, which are back variations for some of the multi-logo stickers. These variations are on the A's, Braves, Cardinals (4 diff. variations total), Cubs, Dodgers, Expos, Giants, Indians, Mets, Orioles, Padres, Phillies, Pirates, Royals, Tigers, Twins, White Sox, and Yankees. This accounts for 20 of the 21; the remaining variation from the full sheet is the Angels multi-logo sticker, which was printed twice on the sheet with the same back - the difference is that one of the variations has a small white circle inside the middle red triangle of the "A" in the bottom "Angels" sticker. The other card from the sheet does not have the white circle. Thus, a complete master set of 1978 Fleer baseball should have 132 cards.
ReplyDeleteBronnera - thanks for the information on the back variations, and how those variations account for the entire 132 card sheet. Do you happen to have a picture of the 2 Angels variations that you mention? I have not seen this before. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the value of a whole set 1978 stickers
ReplyDelete