The Greatest Decision Fleer Ever Made

 Fleer got married in 1998 to Sports Illustrated. This was a match made in heaven. Here's just one example of a base card from 98, showing off the poster boy wunderkind himself Junior Griffey.

 The back - is that Joe Robbie Stadium? That's an interesting choice. Anyway, they tried to predict what the player would do in the following season. They actually short-changed The Kid by 3 homers!

 From the beginning of the relationship, Sports Illustrated provided context for the greats of the past and the present. This would eventually become it's own set in the early 2000s - Fleer's Greats of the Game without mentioning S.I. at all.

 My favorite part of this pairing? Putting Sports Illustrated covers on baseball cards. GENIUS!

 The 1999 base set again had a simple enough design that let the player's personality come through in great photography.

This is just a bonus - came in the same COMC order... This card has a 3-D effect with raised textures like Upper Deck's Ovation sets a decade later.

Let's hear it for Fleer for once! Not bad. I missed all of these cards the first time around as I stopped collecting seriously around 1996 or so. I missed out on the greatest decision Fleer ever made!

Checking out COMC

I think the biggest difference between my first years as a collector compared to today is access.

With eBay, Just Commons, Sportlots, and COMC (just to name the biggest ones) there are millions more cards a click away from purchase than when I was a kid.

I had resisted COMC for awhile now, not really sure why. I think what I liked the most about using the site is that it is very easy to sort and browse the inventory on hand. Some of it is mislabeled, but for the volume they are working with, it is very impressive!

I haven't really collected autographs much to this point, so I decided to head over to COMC and pick some low hanging fruit.

I sorted all baseball ; autographed ; lowest price first - -

I found some really cool stuff!

Steve Dunn was one of several guys the Twins tried to bring in to replace Kent Hrbek's production. Twins fans remember him (or don't) along with such luminaries as Scott Stahoviak, David McCarty, Paul Sorrento, etc. I remember him because I bought his Spring Training batting practice jersey at Twinsfest back in 1995. I figure I should have one of his cards since I've been wearing his shirt to games for the last 20 years... 

 Speaking of Kent Hrbek - I am just discovering the Fleer / Sports Illustrated set from 1999. It eventually morphed into Greats of the Game. These weren't autographed, but they were really cool!

Once I saw those base cards, I looked at the autographs from the set.
The only thing I paid more than $2 for:

 How sweet is that?!? First of all, that is an awesome photo, and having it autographed. . . . Just wow. Everything, including a lot more than I scanned, shipped for just 3 bucks!

I think I'll be logging on to COMC again soon.