2004 Fleer Greats of the Game

So, if you tuned in a bit earlier, you would have seen the 2004 Greats of the Game box I received today. I opened about 6 packs up right after work, but held off on the remaining 9 until after I finished chores and settled in front of the computer to watch the Yankees - White Sox game. This is a fairly large set, when you add in all the parallels, relics, autographs, super short prints, If Beckett is to be believed there is over 800 cards associated with the set. I don't intend to collect them all (particularly given that there are some 1/1 cards that sold in the four figure range. But, I think I am going to put together the base set and some of the inserts. Let' see what I got, shall we?




I really like the design of the cards. By desaturating the background, the focus is on the player and the shadow adds a little 3D effect to it. The base set consists of 145 cards, 66 of which I got in this box (with no duplicates!). Oddly, every base card I got was numbered 80 or lower. I am trying to find out if this set was issued in series. I'd sure hate to buy another box (and I am going to) and get a whole bunch of duplicates rather than the higher number cards I need. I don't actually have this Paul Blair card in my player collection, although I do have the blue parallel and gold autograph card in my PC binder.

There are blue parallels for each of the 145 card base set, numbered to 500. I received two blue parallels in the box: Bo Jackson (46/500) and this Mel Ott (314/500).



There is a 35 card parallel called Glory of Their Time, which honors players who had stellar years, numbered to the actual year. I got three of these: Harmon Killebrew (768/1961), Carl Yazstremski (751/1967), and this Al Kaline (81/1955).



Apparently there is also Glory of Their Time gold and game used parallels, but I didn't get any of those.

There is 10 card Battery Mate set, that also comes with autograph and dual autograph parallels. I got one of the base Battery Mate cards: Tom Seaver/Johnny Bench (1466/1979):


There apparently several other inserts and game used subsets, but I didn't get any of those. But, the box did promise one autograph card for every 5 packs. With a 15 pack box, I figured that I could hope for 3 autographs, though there is no guarantee it works out that way. Indeed, it seemed at the outset that I was going to be disappointed. After opening 9 packs, I did not have a single autograph card. Luckily, in the last 6, I hit my quota of three. These are sticker autos, but I like them nonetheless. Take a look:





All in all, I enjoyed opening this box and will probably order another box in May.