2004 Fleer Platinum

Fleer Platinum for a little while at least was Fleer's contribution to the Retro craze. It was a pretty pedestrian set done in the style of an old Fleer set. In 2004, they took the wayback machine 20 years in the past and swiped their 1984 design. For some reason, Fleer didn't use the exact design, but UD Vintaged it so it kinda looked like the original but not quite. I'm not sure why they did that since Fleer created the design in the first place, but changing the bars on the front to team colors actually looks better in my opinion. The backs are nothing like '84 Topps and look like crap, but only nitpickers like me would care about that. In 2005 Fleer abandoned the Retro and turned Platinum into just another boring semi-premium set, and then Fleer died. Poor Fleer. Here's a pack of their last retrolicious set.


15 Esteban Loaiza
65 Al Leiter
44 Nomar Garciaparra
6 of 10 PP Derek Jeter Platinum Portraits
113 Pat Burrell
174 Erubiel Durazo Unsung Heroes
123 Cory Patterson

The Jeter insert makes this pack worth the buck or so I paid for it, the rest of the pack is a little lackluster. The design and photography is pretty nice though, except for the dumb looking Unsung Heroes cards. I have no clue what set they were stealing from on those cards and they went crazy with the Photoshop filters to make the photo look like a painting or something, which I hate. The rest of the cards though look pretty good. Pat the Bat is at the end of a mighty cut/whiff, Al Leiter glares at the batter like Dracula and Nomar does a pirouette on the way to a pulled groin. My favorite card in the pack is the Esteban Loaiza though. The retro uniform looks great on the retro card design.