Twenty years ago, Fleer decided to fill a void in collecting basketball cards. 1986 would be a year to reestablish his name to make NBA cards. This would be a good move considering that Topps had stopped creating basketball cards after the 1981-82 season and its only competitor would be the Star company with its sparsely distributed packaged cards. Having something of a monopoly in hand and the luck of a new NBA star on the horizon, “Michael Jordan” to anchor this game, would create what would be considered his rookie year on the basketball billboards.
Set numbers 1 through 132 on common cards and 1 through 11 on sticky stickers with a checklist. Timing is everything and having a great rookie set and what would be considered rookie cards to stars like Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Chris Mullin, Clyde Drexler, Joe Dumars, Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, Hakeem Olajawon, Isiah Thomas , Danny Ainge, Wayman Tisdale, Dominique Wilkins and James Worthy would make this a set to be labeled the best in basketball of all time, which could never be classified as the 1952 Topps baseball card game.
But there are more than just rookies on the checklist, with cards from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Larry Bird, Julius Erving and Magic Johnson also included. Add it all up and there’s something for just about every basketball fan, making it a hit with collectors to this day.
Finding individual cards from this set is not that difficult on the Internet or in large card contests, and the graduated versions of the best newbies often change hands for a lot of money. Two things to consider when examining the condition of the singles in this set are centering (the edge should be evenly distributed on both sides of the card and the chipped edges, an issue that affects many sets of sports card edges with colors.
1986-87 Fleer Label Information!