Fleer was one of the major manufacturers of baseball cards during the 1980s and their 1985 set is considered a classic by collectors. Unlike today’s market with online databases listing current prices, collectors in 1985 had to rely on paper price guides to get an idea of what different cards might be worth. Let’s take a deep dive into what the Fleer 1985 baseball card price guide would have looked like during the heyday of the junk wax era.
The 1985 Fleer set totaled 402 cards and was issued in wax packs as well as factory sets. The standard rookie cards of future Hall of Famers like Barry Larkin, Mark McGwire, and Barry Bonds were included in the set at a time before anyone could predict their future stardom. The guide prices would have mostly reflected the current retail values that packs and wax boxes were selling for. Common base cards for star players would have listed around 50 cents while lesser known players may have come in as low as a penny or two.
Key rookie cards from the set that may have stood out even in 1985 would have included Donruss rookies Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry. Given their immediate success and popularity, those rookie cards likely would have commanded a dollar or two, much higher than the average. Star veterans like Mike Schmidt, Wade Boggs, and Rickey Henderson also would have had base cards listed modestly above the pack price. Insert cards featuring team logos or multi-player themes may have added some variety but without much influence on value.
The real jewels in any vintage set are the scarce short prints and error cards. While hard to predict future value, savvy collectors in 1985 would have paid close attention to the price guide listings for cards not found in every wax pack. One such card is the #402 error featuring Tim Raines in an Expos uniform despite playing for the White Sox. With a scant print run estimated in the low hundreds, an ambitious dealer listing for the Raines error may have priced it as high as $10-15, well above the norm for even star rookie cards.
Other potential short prints like the #65 Brett Butler Giants card or #118 Ron Kittle Angels misprint may have seen guide prices in the $3-5 range. Without firm sales data but perceived scarcity, these prices were total guesses but showed which outliers may have held long term appeal. The true short prints without any acknowledgment in the checklist like the now legendary Eric Davis rookie would have been anybody’s guess valued wise.
Guide prices also reflected the boom and bust nature of the 1980s baseball card market. Early 1985 prices built on huge 1983-1984 returns but signs of impending saturation were emerging. By late 1985, prices already started downward as overproduction killed resale values. A wise collector using guide prices would shift focus not to box fresh commons but the scarce novelties less impacted by glut. Still, even those prices failed to predict flash crashes still to come.
While today’s collectors can look back with perfect 20/20 hindsight of which 1985 Fleer cards worked out, the contemporaneous guide prices offer a glimpse of what information existed at the time outside of lucky speculation. Scarcity and novel design quirks mattered more than anyone’s player evaluation skills. But for a brief period, the 1985 Fleer set captured the unbridled optimism of the early junk wax era before the fall. Examining how different cards were priced then versus now remains a fun study in cardboard economic history.
Vintage card price guides provide a fascinating window into what speculation and knowledge existed at the time before notoriety and population reports changed everything. While few predicted superstar ascents, the 1985 Fleer guide showed how scarcer serially numbered parallels held greater promise than bulk base cards even at the height of the boom. Comparing then versus now prices illuminates how much has changed and stayed the same in the decades since in the strange economic world of the trading card market.
