The Definitive Collection (Baseball Edition) – 1989 Billy Ripken

Player Name: Billy Ripken

Card Sets: 1989 Fleer

Card Numbers: 616

Why are these cards must have?: How fitting is it that Billy’s card came up for review on New Year’s day, officially it can be said it’s the 20 year anniversary.  This would be the grand daddy of all error cards.  Sure there have been some “error” ahemm gimmick cards of late that are worth much more, but this error sent the hobby world chasing.  I remember at the time I was in 11th grade and my friend bumped into me in th hall and told me how he’d been trying to find me all day and showed me his f@$kface card.  Everyone was buying 1989 Fleer, just to get one of these.  Then Fleer came under heat for releasing the card and started to release other variations.  As you can see above there are at least 10 variations and by some accounts there are nearly a dozen.  I used to have the block box one, but at some point I guess it left my collection.  The most valuable is the whiteout variation, which books for $125, but I’ve seen graded versions run almost $500.  I think after I finish the definitive list, I am going to do a definitive error card list.  Since I was in 1989 though I couldn’t pass up doing a review of this card. For more information about the card and all the info you can shake a stick at visit Bill Ripken’s website <link>.

Scale of 1 – 10, how must have are these cards: 10, sure he only hit 20 homers in the majors, but this is THE error card of the hobby. The card runs anywhere from $1.00 – $500 depending on which variation and whether or not it’s graded.