Fleer
Encyclopedia
The Fleer Corporation, founded by Frank H. Fleer
Frank H. Fleer
Frank Henry Fleer was an American confectioner whose Fleer corporation developed the first bubble gum from his earlier attempts....

 in 1885, was the first company to successfully manufacture bubblegum
Bubblegum
Bubblegum is a type of elastic chewing gum, designed to be blown out of the mouth as a bubble.-History:In 1928, Walter Diemer, an accountant for the Fleer Chewing Gum Company in Philadelphia, was experimenting with new gum recipes. One recipe was found to be less sticky than regular chewing gum,...

; it remained a family-owned enterprise until it was taken private in 1989.

Fleer originally developed a bubblegum formulation called Blibber-Blubber
Blibber-Blubber
Blibber-Blubber was the first bubble gum formulation, developed in 1906 by Frank Fleer. However, the gum was never marketed; its texture resembled Silly Putty...

in 1906. However, while this gum was capable of being blown into bubbles, in other respects it was vastly inferior to regular chewing gum
Chewing gum
Chewing gum is a type of gum traditionally made of chicle, a natural latex product, or synthetic rubber known as polyisobutylene. For economical and quality reasons, many modern chewing gums use rubber instead of chicle...

, and Blibber-Blubber was never marketed to the public. In 1928, Fleer employee Walter Diemer
Walter Diemer
Walter E. Diemer was an accountant and inventor of bubble gum.Born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Diemer was working as an accountant at Fleer in 1926 when the company president sought to cut costs by making their own gum base...

 improved the Blibber-Blubber formulation to produce the first commercially successful bubblegum, Dubble Bubble
Dubble Bubble
Dubble Bubble is a brand of bubble gum invented in 1928 by Philadelphia-based Fleer. Walter E. Diemer — an accountant at Fleer — enjoyed experimenting with recipes during his free time. In an interview a few years before his death, he said, "It was an accident"...

. Its pink color set a tradition for nearly all bubble gums to follow.

Fleer became known as a maker of sports cards, and has also produced some non-sports trading cards. In 1995, Fleer acquired the trading card company SkyBox International
SkyBox International
SkyBox International Inc. was an American trading card manufacturing company based in Durham, North Carolina. A subsidiary of Vector Group, it was originally formed as Impel Marketing in 1989. In 1990, the company was renamed SkyBox International...

 and, over Thanksgiving vacation shuttered its Philadelphia plant (where Dubble Bubble was made for 67 years). In 1998, 70-year-old Dubble Bubble was acquired by Canadian company Concord Confections; Concord, in turn, was acquired by Chicago-based Tootsie Roll Industries
Tootsie Roll Industries
Tootsie Roll Industries is a manufacturer of confectionery in the United States. Its best-known products have been Tootsie Rolls and Tootsie Pops....

 in 2004.

In late May 2005, news circulated that Fleer was suspending its trading card operations immediately. By early July, in a move similar to declaring bankruptcy
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....

, the company began to liquidate its assets to repay creditors. The move included the auction of the Fleer trade name, as well as other holdings. Competitor Upper Deck
Upper deck
Upper deck may refer to :* The Upper Deck Company, an American trading card business* The upper deck is the highest level internal deck on a ship, i.e. just below the superstructure and open deck....

 won the Fleer name, as well as their die cast toy business, at a price of $6.1 million. Just one year earlier, Upper Deck tendered an offer of $25 million, which was rejected by Fleer based on hope that the softening sports card market would revive. One negative aspect associated with Fleer's Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors is that many sports card collectors now own redemption cards for autographs and memorabilia that may not be able to be redeemed; those fears were somewhat quenched in early 2006 when random memorabilia cards were mailed to the aforementioned collectors.

Early attempts at sports cards

Well established as a gum and candy company, Fleer followed some of its competitors into the business of selling sports cards. It began by signing baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...

 star Ted Williams
Ted Williams
Theodore Samuel "Ted" Williams was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played his entire 21-year Major League Baseball career as the left fielder for the Boston Red Sox...

 to a contract
Contract
A contract is an agreement entered into by two parties or more with the intention of creating a legal obligation, which may have elements in writing. Contracts can be made orally. The remedy for breach of contract can be "damages" or compensation of money. In equity, the remedy can be specific...

 in 1959 and sold an 80-card set oriented around highlights of his career. Fleer was unable to include other players because another company, Topps
Topps
The Topps Company, Inc., manufactures chewing gum, candy and collectibles. Based in New York, New York, Topps is best known as a leading producer of baseball cards, football cards, basketball cards, hockey cards and other sports and non-sports themed trading cards.-Company history:Topps itself was...

, had signed most active baseball players to exclusive contracts.

Williams was nearing the end of his career and retired after the 1960 season. However, Fleer continued to produce baseball cards by featuring Williams with other mostly retired players in a Baseball Greats series. One set was produced in 1960 and a second in 1961. The company did not produce new cards the next year, but continued selling the 1961 set while it focused on signing enough players to produce a set featuring active players in 1963. This 67-card set included a number of stars, including 1962 National League MVP Maury Wills
Maury Wills
Maurice Morning "Maury" Wills is a former Major League Baseball shortstop and switch-hitting batter who played most prominently with the Los Angeles Dodgers , and also with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Montreal Expos...

 (then holder of the modern record for stolen base
Stolen base
In baseball, a stolen base occurs when a baserunner successfully advances to the next base while the pitcher is delivering the ball to home plate...

s in a season), who had elected to sign with Fleer instead of Topps. Wills and Jimmy Piersall
Jimmy Piersall
James Anthony Piersall is a former center fielder in Major League Baseball. Between 1950 and 1967, he played for the Boston Red Sox , Cleveland Indians , Washington Senators , New York Mets , and Los Angeles/California Angels .While he had a fairly good professional career as a center...

 served as player representatives for Fleer, helping to bring others on board. However, Topps still held onto the rights of most players and the set was not particularly successful.

Meanwhile, Fleer took advantage of the emergence of the American Football League
American Football League
The American Football League was a major American Professional Football league that operated from 1960 until 1969, when the established National Football League merged with it. The upstart AFL operated in direct competition with the more established NFL throughout its existence...

 in 1960 to begin producing football cards. Fleer produced a set for the AFL while Topps cards covered the established National Football League
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...

. In 1961, each company produced cards featuring players from both leagues. The next year reverted to the status quo ante, with Fleer covering the AFL and Topps the NFL. In 1964, however, Philadelphia Gum
Philadelphia Gum
The Philadelphia Chewing Gum Company was an American candy, chewing gum, and confectionery company.The company was established in 1948 in Havertown, Pennsylvania, by Edward P. Fenimore . His son Edward L...

 secured the rights for NFL cards and Topps took over the AFL.

Legal battles

This left Fleer with no product in either baseball or football. The company now turned its efforts to supporting an administrative complaint filed against Topps by the Federal Trade Commission
Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1914 by the Federal Trade Commission Act...

. The complaint focused on the baseball card
Baseball card
A baseball card is a type of trading card relating to baseball, usually printed on some type of paper stock or card stock. A card will usually feature one or more baseball players or other baseball-related sports figures...

 market, alleging that Topps was engaging in unfair competition through its aggregation of exclusive contracts. A hearing examiner ruled against Topps in 1965, but the Commission reversed this decision on appeal. The Commission concluded that because the contracts only covered the sale of cards with gum, competition was still possible by selling cards with other small, low-cost products. However, Fleer chose not to pursue such options and instead sold its remaining player contracts to Topps for $395,000 in 1966. The decision gave Topps an effective monopoly
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...

 of the baseball card market.

In 1968, Fleer was approached by the Major League Baseball Players Association
Major League Baseball Players Association
The Major League Baseball Players Association is the union of professional major-league baseball players.-History of MLBPA:The MLBPA was not the first attempt to unionize baseball players...

, a recently organized players' union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...

, about obtaining a group license
License
The verb license or grant licence means to give permission. The noun license or licence refers to that permission as well as to the document recording that permission.A license may be granted by a party to another party as an element of an agreement...

 to produce cards. The MLBPA was in a dispute with Topps over player contracts, and offered Fleer the exclusive rights to market cards of most players starting in 1973, when many of Topps's contracts would expire. Since this was so far in the future, Fleer declined the proposal.

Fleer returned to the union in September 1974 with a proposal to sell 5-by-7-inch satin patches of players, somewhat larger than normal baseball cards. By now, the MLBPA had settled its differences with Topps and reached an agreement that gave Topps a right of first refusal
Right of first refusal
Right of first refusal is a contractual right that gives its holder the option to enter a business transaction with the owner of something, according to specified terms, before the owner is entitled to enter into that transaction with a third party...

 on such offers. Topps passed on the opportunity, indicating that it did not think the product would be successful. The union, also fearing that it would cut into existing royalties from Topps sales, then rejected the proposal.

In April 1975, Fleer asked for Topps to waive its exclusive rights and allow Fleer to produce stickers, stamps, or other small items featuring active baseball players. Topps refused, and Fleer then sued both Topps and the MLBPA to break the Topps monopoly. After several years of litigation, the court ordered the union to offer group licenses for baseball cards to companies other than Topps. Fleer and another company, Donruss
Donruss
Donruss, currently known as Panini America and owned by Panini Group, manufactures sports cards. The company started in the 1950s, producing confectionery, evolved into Donruss and started producing trading cards. During the 1960s and 1970s Donruss produced entertainment-themed trading cards...

, were thus allowed to begin making cards in 1981. Fleer's legal victory was overturned after one season, but the company continued to manufacture cards, substituting stickers with team logos for gum.

Billy Ripken

In , Ripken's Fleer card showed him holding a bat with the expletive
Profanity
Profanity is a show of disrespect, or a desecration or debasement of someone or something. Profanity can take the form of words, expressions, gestures, or other social behaviors that are socially constructed or interpreted as insulting, rude, vulgar, obscene, desecrating, or other forms.The...

  fuck face written in plain view on the knob of the bat. Fleer subsequently rushed to correct the error, and in its haste, released versions in which the text was scrawled over with a marker, whited out with correction fluid
Correction fluid
A correction fluid is an opaque, white fluid applied to paper to mask errors in text. Once dried, it can be written over. It is typically packaged in small bottles, and the lid has an attached brush which dips into the bottle...

, and also airbrushed. On the final, corrected version, Fleer obscured the offensive words with a black box (this was the version included in all factory sets). Both the original card and many of the corrected versions have become collector's items as a result. There are at least ten different variations of this card. As of February 2009 the white out version has a book value of $120, but has been sold in mint condition on eBay for asking prices as high as $1,200.

Years later, Ripken admitted to having written the expletive on the bat; however, he claimed he did it to distinguish it as a batting practice bat, and did not intend to use it for the card.

Some collectors list the card as the "Rick Face" card. The script on the bat appears to make the word fuck look similar to Rick.

Key Trading Card sets

Fleer produced two benchmark trading cards in the 1980s. In 1984, Fleer was the only major trading card manufacturer to release a Roger Clemens
Roger Clemens
William Roger Clemens , nicknamed "Rocket", is a former Major League Baseball pitcher who broke into the league with the Boston Red Sox, whose pitching staff he would help anchor for 12 years. Clemens won seven Cy Young Awards, more than any other pitcher. He played for four different teams over...

 card; they included the then-Boston Red Sox
Boston Red Sox
The Boston Red Sox are a professional baseball team based in Boston, Massachusetts, and a member of Major League Baseball’s American League Eastern Division. Founded in as one of the American League's eight charter franchises, the Red Sox's home ballpark has been Fenway Park since . The "Red Sox"...

 prospect in their 1984 Fleer Baseball Update Set. The 1984 update set also included the first licensed card of Hall Of Fame outfielder Kirby Puckett
Kirby Puckett
Kirby Puckett was a Major League Baseball center fielder. He played his entire 12-year baseball career with the Minnesota Twins and he is the Twins franchise's all-time leader in career hits, runs, doubles, and total bases...

. Fleer also released factory sets of their baseball cards from 1986-92. Like the Topps factory sets, they came in colorful boxes for retail and plainer boxes for hobby dealers. The 1986 was not sealed, but the 1987-89 sets were sealed with a sticker and the 1990-92 sets were shrink-wrapped.

In 1986 Fleer helped resurrect the basketball card industry by releasing the 1986-87 Fleer Basketball set which included the Rookie Cards of Michael Jordan
Michael Jordan
Michael Jeffrey Jordan is a former American professional basketball player, active entrepreneur, and majority owner of the Charlotte Bobcats...

 and Charles Barkley
Charles Barkley
Charles Wade Barkley is a former American professional basketball player. Nicknamed "Sir Charles" and "The Round Mound of Rebound", Barkley established himself as one of the National Basketball Association's most dominating power forwards...

. This set is seen by many basketball card collectors as the "1952 Topps of basketball."

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the glossy parallel sets Fleer produced for their 1987-89 baseball sets (similar to the Topps Tiffany sets) became very popular in the hobby. However, that popularity wore off, and today, the sets are rarely seen on the secondary market.
1991 saw the first release of Fleer's Ultra set, which in some years was actually been released earlier than its regular Fleer (Tradition) set. The 1991 set had an announced production of 15% of regular Fleer and this set was produced on higher quality card stock and used silver ink, just like Donruss' Leaf set starting the previous year. The 1992 set used UV coating on both sides and gold foil stamping on the front, which was among the most beautiful sets of that year. 1994's Ultra and regular Fleer sets began another tradition of offering an insert card in every pack and the next year started another tradition called "hot packs" (where about 1:72 packs contained only insert cards. An assortment of the easier to find insert cards and not the rare 1:36 100% foil cards). Still another tradition that continues today is the Ultra Gold Medallion parallel insert set, which started in 1995 and also included all the insert sets for the first two years. These are inserted one per pack. In 1997, Ultra introduced the Platinum Medallion insert set which is traditionally serial numbered to 100. The following year, 1998, saw the introduction of the purple Ultra Masterpieces, which are one of ones. 1998 also started the tradition of including short printed cards in the regular/Gold/Platinum sets.

Fleer's super premium flagship set, called Flair, began production in 1993 with an announced production run as 15% of Ultra. Its trademark was that it was printed on very thick card stock (about twice the thickness of regular cards), used a unique glossy finish along with six color printing. The "packs" are done by shrink wrapping the cards (usually ten in a "pack") and then placing them in a shrink-wrapped "mini-box" instead of the usual mylar foil packs used on virtually all trading card products today. The 1997 Flair Showcase set included the first one-of-one cards for any major sport called "Masterpieces"; they paralleled the more common, or "base", Row 2, Row 1 and Row 0 sets.

Acquisitions

In 1992, Fleer was sold to the comic-book empire Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc.
Marvel Entertainment
Marvel Entertainment, LLC , formerly Marvel Enterprises and Toy Biz, Inc., is an American entertainment company formed from the merger of Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. and Toy Biz, Inc....

 for $265 million. Seven years later, Marvel sold Fleer-Skybox to a partnership formed by Alex Grass, the founder of Rite Aid Corp., and his son Roger. The Grass family retained ownership until 2005 when Upper Deck
Upper deck
Upper deck may refer to :* The Upper Deck Company, an American trading card business* The upper deck is the highest level internal deck on a ship, i.e. just below the superstructure and open deck....

 bought the rights to the name after it filed for bankruptcy.

In early 2005, Fleer announced that it would cease all productions of trading cards and file an Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors, which is a State Court liquidation, similar to Chapter 7 bankruptcy. In July 2005, Upper Deck
Upper deck
Upper deck may refer to :* The Upper Deck Company, an American trading card business* The upper deck is the highest level internal deck on a ship, i.e. just below the superstructure and open deck....

 acquired the rights to the Fleer name and began producing Fleer-branded basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...

, hockey
Hockey
Hockey is a family of sports in which two teams play against each other by trying to maneuver a ball or a puck into the opponent's goal using a hockey stick.-Etymology:...

, and football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

 cards. The $6.1 million Upper Deck paid for the Fleer name was significantly less than the $25 million UD offered to buy out Fleer a year earlier.

In 2006, Upper Deck produced baseball sets under the names Fleer, Fleer Ultra, Fleer Tradition, Flair, Skybox Autographics, and Fleer Greats of the Game. The last Fleer-branded baseball cards appeared in 2007.
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