Is this the dullest set I've ever completed?

 

I said after completing the 1986 Fleer baseball set that I'd try to write another post dedicated to the set, as I usually do after finishing one off.

I didn't know whether I'd actually do it because I had an idea of what I'd find:

Is this the dullest set I've ever completed?

 

OK, the answer to that is "no." I've probably finished off duller sets. 2011 Lineage springs to mind, although I had a lot of fun with that at the time. 2021 Topps is no great shakes, but at least I didn't have to try to finish it, someone just bought me it. Yeah, there have got to be some other completions duller than '86 Fleer, but the fact that I even thought that question tells you it's near the bottom for me.

 

There is a reason the set has left my brain for literally years. For a set from the 1970s or 1980s to do that -- I mean so much that I didn't recall what the set looked like -- is practically an impossible feat given what my memory regards as important (i.e.: baseball card sets of my youth). The set must be defective.

 

I collected it so it could stay in my memory bank and so I could maybe find something interesting about it. I set out to pull some interesting cards. There really aren't a lot of them. Mostly what you find with 1986 Fleer is this:

 

There is a lot of point-and-shoot with the absolute same cropping in this set. Sometimes there's a bat on the shoulder or glove upraised, but it's the same stare, same positioning and same stomach crop.

The variation on these shots are stuff like the Trujillo card, guys throwing or batting with weird crops. There are weird crops all over this set -- which is an '80s Fleer thing -- but when there's nothing much else to look at it in the rest of the set, I just see a decent shot ruined.

There are action shots -- some odd ones -- but a lot of the action photos are dark in this set. I've mentioned before that Fleer seemed to fall off a cliff after 1983 and 1984. The 1985-90 sets feel like Fleer started going through the motions.

I can see why collectors from this time liked the Super Star Specials. They jazz up an otherwise run-of-the-mill set.

This isn't only a Fleer problem from this time. 1985/1986 Topps seems to be a regression, especially when you look at 1983 Topps. I'm sure the same can be said for Donruss. No wonder Upper Deck created so many fanboys. The mid-to-late '80s weren't the most exciting (but I will always love 1988 Topps).

For "interesting" cards from 1986 Fleer I grabbed some of the usual suspects.

Obviously, there's Hatcher's giant glove.

Billy Sample saluting the collector.

Lonnie Smith spotting a UFO while taking his lead.

Kirk Gibson under the critical eye of his grandmother.

Greg Minton really upset that his hand is being touched.

Some of others of note but keep in mind that the Steve Sax shot is probably the biggest benefit of camera light of any card shown here. That picture is dark.

There are quite a few drab photos in the set, which is probably photo processing of the time but also cameras adjusting to the increasing number of night games. Also we're at the height of the cookie-cutter stadiums in the mid-1980s and the surroundings are pretty boring. I didn't think so at the time, but when I look back on highlights from the '80s, it looks pretty stark.

So when there's something sunny and shiny in the '86 Fleer set like this Juan Samuel card, it stands out.

I will point out every time I see a Marlboro ad in a card photo prior to 1989 that it was really no big deal, 1989 Fleer Randy Johnson.

There are some all right cards in this set, such as this Dave Kingman. But for a set this size, I'm willing to bet that I could find more interesting cards in almost any other 600-plus card set that I've completed.

That does not bode well for me pulling out the 1986 Fleer binder and looking at it from time to time. But like I've said before, this set contains lots of players from my youth, so in that way it will always be interesting to me.

Now ... the 1987 Fleer set is up next at some point. I don't have my hopes up.