Perfectly imperfect

 

I completed the 1982 Fleer set today.

This is the fourth set I've completed in 2021 and it was long overdue.

According to the labels provided by blogger, I have written about 1982 Fleer more often than any other non-Topps set. This is post 44 about 1982 Fleer, breaking a tie with 1993 Upper Deck.

(For those suddenly curious about which baseball sets I've written about the most, here ya go:

1975 Topps - 259 times

1956 Topps - 146

1972 Topps - 135

1977 Topps - 99

1971 Topps - 94)

If I've written more than 40 times about a specific set, I probably should be completing the thing. So, thank goodness, 1982 Fleer is done. I just rechecked.

These are the last four cards that I needed:

Three Hall of Famers and -- what the heck? -- Jim Slaton?

Slaton was the second-to-last one, too, pulled out of an envelope just before the Tim Raines card.

I think I've written so much about this set basically for the same reason that I seek out interesting stories -- human interest stories -- in my job. The 1982 Fleer set is a good human interest story.

Like every person, 1982 Fleer has its strong points and its flaws. It's pretty and it's ugly. Like every human, it is wildly unpredictable, prone to mistakes and has its good days and bad days.

It is known for blurry photos, oddly cropped pictures and strange errors. But this is why I like it and why I find it so collectible. This set has character. There are interesting stories all over it. You can't say that about a lot of modern sets that show one action shot after another, an assembly line of perfection with no rough edges or tales to tell.

I've called '82 Fleer the three-legged dog of sets since the beginning days of this blog. 1982 Fleer is adorable in that kind of way.

But I also like it for other reasons. The set kicks off with all the Dodger cards, the first time something like that happened. I also like it because of the color-coded design. You can tell which team it is simply by looking at that border. It is colorful in a way that 1981 Fleer was not.

Normally when I finish off a set like this, I do a top 10 or something like that. But I have written about 1982 Fleer so many times and shown so many of the outstanding cards that it would just be repeating myself. You can find a few of those posts here and here and here and here and here and here. (It has been the subject of eight Cardboard Appreciation posts).

But now I'm done. I put up an official want list for 1982 Fleer back in January 2019. It's now joined 1981, 1984, 1988 and 1989 as '80s Fleer sets I have completed. I'm not far off from finishing 1983 and 1985 Fleer and that will give me something to shoot for now.

As for the errors in '82 Fleer, I don't have plans to pursue them, except for that Darrell Jackson hat variation, which I still find fascinating.

The set is complete but the stories are still there and I'll probably still write about '82 Fleer on the blog. Because I just love imperfect sets like this. And '82 Fleer is as perfectly imperfect as it gets.