Sticky Saturday - Investigative Journalism Edition

Last week's stickers opened up a mystery. For some reason my box of 1986 Fleer Classic Minis has what appeared to be 1987 stickers in them. Plus one was missing as I only got 17 stickers in the box. The box I bought was not shrink wrapped (nor were any of the other half dozen the dealer had) so it could be a case where someone swiped the '86 stickers and replaced them with others. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense since I sorted through the actual cards and they were all there. Not one missing, not even the Canseco rookie. I bought a 1987 set at the same time though, and luckily this one was sealed tight. No one pulled a switcheroo on these stickers.


One thing that was different in that the stickers were mostly alternating upside down and right side up when I pulled them from the box. This is different from the '86 box as the first three were upside down and the rest right side up. So maybe this is more evidence that there was a switcheroo, maybe not. Here's what I got:

Mariners
Pirates
Orioles
Brewers
Angels
Indians
Giants
Cardinals
Royals
Cubs
Red Sox
Phillies
Tigers
Astros
Mets
Yankees
Expos
Yankees

One double, no Braves and they are the same red striped sticker design that I got in my other box. Looks like I did get hoodwinked. That is until I noticed something:

Aha, a clue! the cool Trident Mariners logo on the left was from the 1986 box, the boring stupid generic M's in a baseball logo on the right was in the box of '87s. I wasn't able to find a Mariners sticker from 1986, but I do have this rather beat up M's sticker from '87.

I think that card spent some significant time in a back pocket. So now we know that the M's logo was definitely used in 87, we just need to find out what they were using in 86. My 86 Fleer collection mostly came from junk lots, so I don't have too many stickers. I'll have to defer to the expert on this one.

So maybe the stickers weren't tampered with after all? Maybe Fleer used the same design for both 86 and 87? If so where did the star design come from? I won't be able to check out those other sets until at least April, but if I can snag one, I'll report my findings. In the meantime, this post has a definite lack of Braves in it, so here are a couple more from the '88 set. The Bravos share stickers with the Orioles and Tigers on these cards, and for some reason the backs showcase Busch Stadium and Wrigley Field. Next week though, you'll finally get a card where the frnt and backs match. Till next time, enjoy...