Fleer Laughlin World Series Cards

FLEER - WORLD SERIES

(with Drawings by Robert Laughlin)
1970 and 1971 (plus any B&W '67s if I can find them)

I've loved these cards since I was a kid and first saw a pack in either K-Mart or some other big retail chain in 1970/71. I also recall that the gum included by Fleer in this product and in others had a powder (presumably to keep the gum from sticking to the cards) that had a distinctive taste. I both hated it and yet loved it at the same time thinking it was worse/better than the Topps gum. I think the gum Fleer used was sugar-free.

These cards have political style cartoons depicting the teams that played in the World Series for that card's particular year. The blog The Fleer Sticker Project is a good background source for these cards, and was a major help to me in reconnecting to this set. Ebay and Sportlots also had a hand in reconnecting me. More recently I found a Sport Collector's Digest link (http://www.sportscollectorsdigest.com/article/fleer_world_series_cards/) with an excellent description of the set(s).

It seems that in 1967 an independent company (maybe Fleer I'm not sure) along with Robert Laughlin produced a card set with black and white cartoons. I'm not 100% sure of the total card count I think it's 64? The 1970 set is based on that set and uses color versions of the drawings. The 1971 set changed a few of the drawings. Like many early 1970s cards many people are confused about when the cards came out since the copyright date is 1968. Topps did the same thing in 1975 with the non-sports set of the TV show Planet of The Apes the cards are copyright dated 1967 but were produced in 1975. In my My Ebay Guide on POTA cards I describe how to tell the difference between those and the original movie cards produced in 1968. I need to update the images on that guide, but I digress.

The 1970 set has 66 cards From World Series 1903 - 1969 (minus 1904 when there was no series) the 1971 set has 68 cards and includes 1904 and 1970. From 1972 - 1978 Fleer apparently released an update each year to include the most recent year, or they had a reprint set made in 1978. The jury is still out concerning when/how these updates were released. I'm going with the yearly updates as I recall seeing that mentioned in a price guide or a hobby magazine about these sets. Some of my 1970 card backs seem to have darker blue ink than others. I don't know if that means I've managed to get better preserved cards or that they may have reprinted the set at one time. My 1971 card of the '63 WS has a back that to me seems more of a dark brown than true black, and my card of the '24 WS seems to be a dark grey/charcoal black.


In 1980 Fleer reprinted the 1971 set (sort of) with card fronts and sticker backs from WS 1940 to 1979 with some of the cartoons replaced by new ones. I have the full Sticker set, although I'm curious about sticker variations that I might try to find. I haven't scanned those yet when I do I'll post a part two to this post and probably add at least one image here.

The two 70s sets are very similar but have tell-tale signs to tell the differences.

Keys to telling the sets apart:

1970
* The WS year is in a baseball.* The card back is white with Blue inked lettering.

1971

*The WS year is above the MLB Logo.
*The card back is white with Black inked lettering.

I find it interesting that the 1937 WS card from 1970 is the only card (so far, I don't have the entire set yet) that does not have the abbreviation "vs." on its front. I have two of this card and neither one has it.


There is a slight inconsistency with the team names. Sometimes the Yankees are abbreviated as "Yanks" and the Cardinals as the "Cards". The Athletics are always listed as the "A's" and the White Sox always as "Sox", but the Red Sox are never abbreviated. The Cubs are always listed with the team "C" logo (the one that says "Cubs"). Some of the Giants vs. Yankees series are listed as "Giants vs. Yanks" and some not. Some of the Cardinals vs. Yankees series are either "Cards vs. Yankees" or "Cardinals vs. Yanks" never any "Cards vs. Yanks". Interesting, I'm not sure why this is. As I said there doesn't seem to be any consistency to using the team nicknames.

Here are my set needs:

UPDATED 19 NOV 2009

1970
4, 6, 9, 20, 26, 33, 36, 41, 45, 48, 49, 61, 62,

1971
#s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68

These are ones I need to replace for being off centered (some more so than others):1970: 1, 3, 14, 19, 32, 35, 38,43, 44, 53, 54, 57, 59, 60, 63, 66
1971: 61

For some reason, or maybe many as with other card sets, many of the cards from these sets that I had as a kid disappeared save a handful to about a dozen maybe 15. Most from the 1970 set including the 1917, 1950 and 1967 (I think that is my favorite one). The 1963 card from 1971 seems to be the lone survivor from that set of the cards I had when I was a kid. Here are a few of the other cards I seem to remember having as a kid. I know there are a few others but these I'm the most sure of.