 | |
| Company type | Private (subsidiary ofUpper Deck Company) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Confectionery,collectibles |
| Founded | 1885 |
| Founder | Frank H. Fleer |
| Defunct | May 31, 2005; 19 years ago (2005-05-31) |
| Fate | Brand acquired byUpper Deck in 2005 |
| Headquarters | , |
| Products | Bubble gum,trading cards |
| Owner | Marvel Entertainment (1992–1999) |
| Parent | Fleer/SkyBox International (1995–2005) |
TheFleer Corporation, founded byFrank H. Fleer in 1885, was the first company to successfully manufacturebubble gum; it remained a family-owned enterprise until 1989.
Fleer originally developed a bubble gum formulation calledBlibber-Blubber in 1906. While this gum could be blown into bubbles, in other respects it was vastly inferior to regularchewing gum, and Blibber-Blubber was never marketed to the public. In 1928, Fleer employeeWalter Diemer improved the Blibber-Blubber formulation to produce the first commercially successful bubble gum,Dubble Bubble. Its pink color set a tradition for nearly all bubble gums to follow.
Fleer became known as a maker ofsports cards, starting in 1923 with the production ofbaseball cards. Fleer also releasedAmerican football (1960) andbasketball (1986) card sets through its history.
The company also produced somenon-sports trading cards. In 1995, Fleer merged with the trading card companySkyBox International and, over Thanksgiving vacation shuttered its Philadelphia plant (where Dubble Bubble had been made for 67 years). In 1998, 70-year-old Dubble Bubble was acquired by Canadian company Concord Confections; Concord, in turn, was acquired by Chicago-basedTootsie Roll Industries in 2004.
In late May 2005, news circulated that Fleer was suspending its trading card operations immediately. By early July, in a move similar to declaringbankruptcy, the company began to liquidate its assets to repay creditors. The move included the auction of the Fleer trade name, as well as other holdings. CompetitorUpper Deck won the Fleer name, as well as their die cast toy business, at a price of $6.1 million. Just one year earlier, Upper Deck tendered an offer of $25 million, which was rejected by Fleer based on the hope that the sports card market would turn in a direction more favorable to their licenses and target collector demographic. One negative aspect associated with Fleer's Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors is that many sports card collectors now own redemption cards for autographs and memorabilia that may not be able to be redeemed; those fears were somewhat quenched in early 2006 when random memorabilia cards were mailed to the aforementioned collectors.
The Fleer company was started by Frank H. Fleer inPhiladelphia, 1885, as aconfectionery business.[1] Well established as agum andcandy company, Fleer predated many of its competitors into the business of issuing sports cards with its 1923 release of baseball cards in its "Bobs and Fruit Hearts" candy product. These rare cards are basically the same as the 1923 W515 strip cards but are machine cut and have a printed ad for the candy company on the back. Many years later in 1959 it signedbaseball starTed Williams to acontract and sold an 80-card set oriented around highlights of his career. Fleer was unable to include other players because rival companyTopps had signed most active baseball players to exclusive contracts.
Williams was nearing the end of his career and retired after the 1960 season. Fleer continued to produce baseball cards by featuring Williams with other mostly retired players in aBaseball Greats series. One set was produced in 1960 and a second in 1961. The company did not produce new cards the next year, but continued selling the 1961 set while it focused on signing enough players to produce a set featuring active players in 1963. This 67-card set included a number of stars, including 1962 National League MVPMaury Wills (then holder of the modern record forstolen bases in a season), who had elected to sign with Fleer instead of Topps. Wills andJimmy Piersall served as player representatives for Fleer, helping to bring others on board. Topps still held the rights to most players and the set was not particularly successful.
Meanwhile, Fleer took advantage of the emergence of theAmerican Football League (AFL) in 1960 to begin producing football cards. Fleer produced a set for the AFL while Topps cards covered the establishedNational Football League. In 1961, each company produced cards featuring players from both leagues. The next year reverted to the status quo ante, with Fleer covering the AFL and Topps the NFL. In 1964,Philadelphia Gum secured the rights for NFL cards and Topps took over the AFL.[2]
Sometime after 1961 Fleer producedThe Three Stooges' cards.[3]
This left Fleer with no product in either baseball or football. The company now turned its efforts to supporting an administrative complaint filed against Topps by theFederal Trade Commission. The complaint focused on thebaseball card market, alleging that Topps was engaging in unfair competition through its aggregation of exclusive contracts. A hearing examiner ruled against Topps in 1965, but the Commission reversed this decision on appeal. The Commission concluded that because the contracts only covered the sale of cards with gum, competition was still possible by selling cards with other small, low-cost products. Fleer chose not to pursue such options and instead sold its remaining player contracts to Topps for $395,000 in 1966($3,344,211.42 in 2021 dollars). The decision gave Topps an effectivemonopoly of the baseball card market.
In 1968, Fleer was approached by theMajor League Baseball Players Association, a recently organizedplayers' union, about obtaining a grouplicense to produce cards. The MLBPA was in a dispute with Topps over player contracts, and offered Fleer the exclusive rights to market cards of most players starting in 1973, when many of Topps's contracts would expire. Since this was so far in the future, Fleer declined the proposal.
Fleer returned to the union in September 1974 with a proposal to sell 5-by-7-inch satin patches of players, somewhat larger than normal baseball cards. By now, the MLBPA had settled its differences with Topps and reached an agreement that gave Topps aright of first refusal on such offers. Topps passed on the opportunity, indicating that it did not think the product would be successful. The union, also fearing that it would cut into existing royalties from Topps sales, then rejected the proposal.
In April 1975, Fleer asked for Topps to waive its exclusive rights and allow Fleer to produce stickers, stamps, or other small items featuring active baseball players. Topps refused, and Fleer then sued both Topps and the MLBPA to break the Topps monopoly. After several years of litigation, the Topps monopoly on baseball cards was finally broken by a lawsuit decided by federal judgeClarence Charles Newcomer in 1980, in which the judge ended Topps's exclusive right to sell baseball cards with gum, allowing Fleer to compete in the market.[4] The court ordered the union to offer group licenses for baseball cards to companies other than Topps. Fleer and another company,Donruss, were thus allowed to begin making cards in 1981. Fleer's legal victory was overturned after one season, but the company continued to manufacture cards, substituting stickers with team logos for gum.
In 1989,Bill Ripken's Fleer card showed him holding a bat with theexpletive "fuck face" written in plain view on the knob of the bat.[5] Fleer subsequently rushed to correct the error, and in its haste, released versions in which the text was scrawled over with a marker, whited out withcorrection fluid, and also airbrushed. On the final, corrected version, Fleer obscured the offensive words with a black box (this was the version included in all factory sets). Both the original card and many of the corrected versions have become collector's items as a result. There are at least ten different variations of this card. As of February 2009 the white out version has a book value of $120, but has been sold in mint condition on eBay for asking prices as high as $400.[6] Years later, Ripken admitted he wrote the expletive on the bat to distinguish it as a batting practice bat, and did not intend to use it for the card.[5]
Some collectors list the card as the "Rick Face" card. The script on the bat appears to make the wordfuck look similar toRick.[7]
In 1984, Fleer was the only major trading card manufacturer to release aRoger Clemens card; they included the then-Boston Red Sox prospect in their 1984 Fleer Baseball Update Set. The 1984 update set also included the first licensed card of Hall Of Fame outfielderKirby Puckett. Fleer also released factory sets of their baseball cards from 1986-92. Like the Topps factory sets, they came in colorful boxes for retail and plainer boxes for hobby dealers. The 1986 set was not sealed, but the 1987-89 sets were sealed with a sticker and the 1990-92 sets were shrink-wrapped. From 1987-1989, Fleer also released a parallel baseball set on glossy paper.
In 1986 Fleer helped resurrect thebasketball card industry by releasing an officially NBA-licensed 132-card 1986-87 Fleer Basketball set which included the rookie cards of NBA Hall of FamersMichael Jordan,Chris Mullin,Clyde Drexler,Joe Dumars,Hakeem Olajuwon,Isiah Thomas,Dominique Wilkins,Karl Malone,Patrick Ewing andCharles Barkley. The set also included an additional 11 card All Star sticker set featuring a second rookie card/sticker of Michael Jordan. From 1986-1989, Fleer was the only major card company that produced basketball cards. In 1990 Hoops,SkyBox,Topps, andUpper Deck introduced their own basketball card sets in two major releases each year per company. Each of these manufacturers, including Fleer, over-produced their basketball card product for half-a-dozen years, glutting the basketball card market. Over 500,000.00 1986-87 Fleer basketball boxes were manufactured in print run.
Fleer's first Ultra set came out in 1991. The 1991 set had an announced production of 15% of regular Fleer and was produced on higher quality card stock using silver ink. The 1992 set used UV coating on both sides and gold foil stamping on the front. 1994's Ultra and regular Fleer sets began another tradition of offering an insert card in every pack; in 1995 they started another tradition called "hot packs," where about 1:72 packs containedonly insert cards. Fleer's Ultra Gold Medallion parallel insert set also started in 1995, and were inserted one per pack. In 1997, Ultra introduced the Platinum Medallion insert set, which was serial numbered to 100. 1998 saw the introduction of one-of-one purple Ultra Masterpieces, and started including short printed cards in the regular, Gold and Platinum sets.
Fleer's began production of a super premium flagship set, called Flair, in 1993. Flair had an announced production run of 15% of Ultra. Flair was printed on very thick card stock, about twice the thickness of regular cards, and used a unique glossy finish and six color printing.
Fleer acquired a license deal fromWWE to produce and distribute WWEtrading cards from 2001 to 2004.[8]
The Fleer family, Frank Fleer's descendants, sold Fleer in 1989 for just under US$70,000,000 to John W. Fleer and Charter House Investments. John W. Fleer retained majority ownership in the company. Fleer was pushing into retail chains like Rite Aid, which brought the ire of the hobby dealers in the early 1990s.[1]
Comic book companyMarvel Entertainment purchased the company on July 24, 1992, for US$540 million.[9][10][11][12][13][14] Marvel purchased another card company,SkyBox International, on March 8, 1995, for $150 million.[10] Fleer/Skybox reduced its push into retail chains to start its Hobby Bullpen program that committed the company to support and provide relief for hobby dealers and collectors.[1]
Marvel entered bankruptcy in 1996 along with its subsidiaries. Fleer was directly hurt by the1994 Major League Baseball strike andprolonged lockouts in the NBA.[1] In June 1997, Marvel formed its Marvel Enterprise division, headed by president and CEO Scott C. Marden, to manage its trading card and sticker businesses, as well as Marvel Interactive, anInternet-entertainment and software-publishing company.[15]
Fleer was placed on the market by Marvel at an asking price of $30 million. Fleer exited bankruptcy, along with the rest of the Marvel group, on October 1, 1998. In February 1999, Fleer/Skybox was sold to a corporation owned byAlex Grass and his son Roger.[1]
In early 2005, Fleer announced that it would cease all productions oftrading cards and file an Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors, which is a State Court liquidation, similar to Chapter 7 bankruptcy. In July 2005,Upper Deck acquired the rights to the Fleer name and began producing Fleer-brandedbasketball,ice hockey andAmerican football cards. The $6.1 million Upper Deck paid for the Fleer name was significantly less than the $25 million they had offered to buy out Fleer a year earlier.
In 2006, Upper Deck produced baseball sets under the names Fleer, Fleer Ultra, Fleer Tradition, Flair, Skybox Autographics and Fleer Greats of the Game. The last Fleer-branded baseball cards appeared in 2007.
Media related toFleer at Wikimedia Commons
