An ode to box bottom cards from 1983-92

[zyceoa]

First off, here's all the product I've found that has box bottom cards...

1983-84 Topps Stickers
1985-87 Donruss
1986-91 Fleer
1986-88 Fleer Star Stickers
1986-91 Topps & O-Pee-Chee
1986 Fleer Baseball's Best * (With Kirby Puckett)
1987 Fleer Baseball's Best * (With Bo Jackson, Will Clark)
1987 Fleer Limited Edition * (No real big names)
1987 Fleer Baseball's Best * (With Rickey Henderson)
1988 Fleer Superstars * (With Rickey Henderson, Ryne Sandberg)
1988 Score
1992 O-Pee-Chee
1992 Upper Deck

Now I'm sure many consider 85 Donruss to have the first box bottom cards, but Topps actually did it first with their 83 Stickers set and then again in 84. Donruss followed suit and by 86 everyone was doing it. Fleer would mix in team logos with the actual players and include them in oddball product as well. 88 Score would feature the starters from the 87 All-Star game as a nice touch. Topps and O-Pee-Chee would be similar over the years except for the additional french text on the back of the later. 91 Fleer featured the no hitters from the previous year, 9 of them in all! And 92 O-Pee-Chee had unique cards featuring the 91 division winners.

The most intriguing would be the Fleer sets with the *. These were actual boxes that contained small 44 card sets at various retail outlets. Yep, small boxed sets in much larger box. Now these box bottoms can be tough as hell to find and I just checked the Bo Jackson in particular tends to sell for over $100.

So there you have it. Whether you kept them or tossed them aside, they tend to be scarcer than the pack pulled cards from that era and have a unique quirk to them. Let's see your grails!

 

[mrmopar]

Always enjoyed finding boxes in retail stores that I could take home when I bought the rest of the packs. Sometimes we'd move packs around to get the box we wanted. Many were damaged due to munched corners or scratches from sliding across unforgiving shelves. Football and hockey cards on boxes in that time frame too.

Some of my favorites were the 85 Football and 86 Baseball with red color added where the regular cards didn't have it.

 

[UMich92]

Thanks for the info. Didn't realize those late '80s Fleer box sets were displayed in boxes that had cards on the bottom. I have a few empty 1989 Fleer boxes stashed away with my Alan Trammell collection. Mom had gotten intrigued by the Ripken FF card and was able to buy a few boxes directly from a candy distributor in my small home town. So I have a few FF cards along with Griffey rookies to go with the Trammell box bottoms.

 

[mrmopar]

Only a few of the boxed sets had cards on the bottom of their retail boxes.