1985 Fleer Update

 Set size: 132 standard-sized cards

Front Design: A color player photo sits inside a cup-shaped dual-border design, with the player's name, position, and team logo appearing at the top. The cards have a gray border.

Back Design: The backs are printed in black ink with red highlights, and contain the player's name, team name and position, as well as a small black-and-white photo along the top. The player's statistics fill the middle of the card, and the bottom of the card contains biographical trivia and vital statistics.

Parallels and Similars: The cards are identical to the 1985 regular Fleer issue, except for a U- prefix on card numbers.

Distribution: Cards were sold through hobby stores in a box containing team logo stickers.

Thoughts: When I first started collecting in '89 and the early '90s, Donruss and Fleer sets before 1988 seemed so exotic. They had white card stock and a completely different design feel than Topps. This issue isn't exactly amazing, but even the simple designs can be attractive at times. It's not cluttered but it isn't plain, either. It's not my favorite '80s Fleer design, but it's better than 1985 Topps and at least as good as 1985 Donruss.

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1994 Score Rookie/Traded

Set size: 165 standard-sized cards

Front Design: A color photo appears inside a red "cracked" border, with a green accent in an upper corner with the Score '94 logo, and yellow tab in a lower corner containing the team logo. The player's name appears in a multi-colored shadow design at the bottom of the card. Rookie cards have two photos on the front.

Back Design: The dark blue/purple backs have two more player photos, in addition to position, team, vital stats, a short biography, and recent and career statistics. The card number appears at the bottom with an RT prefix. Rookie cards are horizontal with only one photo.

Parallels and Similars: This design is different from the regular Score set that year, but it was paralleled in a "Gold Rush" series, which have gold foil fronts and the Gold Rush logo in an upper corner. The parallels were inserted one per pack.

Distribution: Cards were released in hobby and retail packs with one Gold Rush card per pack. Two insert sets, Changing Places and Super Rookies, were randomly inserted; a redemption card was included 1:240 packs. The redemption card could be mailed in for a "September Call-Up" Alex Rodriguez card.

Thoughts: With the brighter primary colors in a stand-out design, this set screams 1990s, which means it's a love-hate kind of design. It's probably four years too late, as bright colors seemed to die around 1991 when the banana-colored Fleer set went rotten. I find it fun and fairly unique, showing some design initiative beyond the solid bordered straight-line designs many sets featured. While I know a lot of people won't like this set, it was a big step releasing a set like this amongst the other offerings of the year.

Additional Images: Card back: