Does Anyone Know Why George Foster Had Two Cards In The 1981 Fleer Set? Both Are #216…
While composing my checklists for the new player collections that I am going after, I noticed something odd when creating the checklist for 1977 NL MVP George Foster.
It appears that in Fleer’s 1981 set, the company issued two cards of Foster. Both are numbered as 216, and I have seen them listed since on Ebay and other sites as ‘A’ and ‘B’ versions.
But what is the story behind the cards? I know that some of the knowledgable readers of this blog know the answer – Please share it with me!!!
And since I have secured both versions of these cards for my collection, I thought I would share the ‘A’ and ‘B’ with you…
A
B
Thanks for reading. NOW HELP ME UNDERSTAND!!!
30-Year Old Cardboard 
It’s interesting. I can’t look up the set in my Standard Catalog because I’m at work but a couple quick search on the internet didn’t tell me anything, as a matter of fact the two checklists I found, that list variations, don’t even list a variation for this card. I know that 1981 Fleer had multiple errors that were corrected through multiple print runs, it’s possible that they just changed the photo for one of the print runs. Why? Well, who knows.
cynicalbuddha- I appreciate the work you have put in already. Kind of the same results that I got – no clear answers just yet.. Let’s see if anyone else can offer up more on this.
Thanks.
IIRC one of them was supposed to have a different card #. But I may be mistaken.
JT- Possible, but not sure that explains it…
It looks like the 1981 Fleer set gave stars multiple cards with the same number ie Steve Carlton has 3 cards all number 6, Reggie Jackson has 2 cards both number 79 etc. I don’t know the reason, but maybe it’s because after they finally were allowed to produce cards again they just rushed everything out.
Matt- You’re right about the Reggie as I have both. Still not really certain as to what happened…
I believe the special cards – the “Slugger” and “Golden Arm” cards, for example, were to be at the end of the set where the “Super Star Special” cards would eventually be located. Fleer simply misnumbered a bunch of them early on.
handcollated – Sounds very probable. Thanks for the ‘scoop’!
I just can’t believe George Foster is smiling. When I was a kid, I thought he was a pretty scary looking dude. Maybe the photographer took 2 photos just to prove the 1st one wasn’t a fluke.
but seriously, one of them is misnumbered and supposed to be #202. Not positive which.
BA – great catch! How did you come to this realization? Did you stumble upon the 2nd version and remember that it didn’t match up picture-wise (which means you were probably really good at that “Memory” game when we were kids)? I wonder if it happened for anybody else…..
Thanks Ryan. I caught it while updating my checklist after making a few purchases.
Hey everyone. I have both foster cards of foster. the picture up top A. #216 and B. #202. Adam