Buzz Break: 1987 Fleer baseball cards (rack pack)

From time to time, Buzz will break a box of something and post the results here. Like this and want to see more? Or maybe there's a box you'd want to see busted? Send Buzz an email at BlowoutBuzz@blowoutcards.com.

The pack: 1987 Fleer MLB (three wax packs via one rack pack)
Where to buy: Will take some looking ... BlowoutCards.com for other retro releases

Keep reading for a full breakdown and gallery of what was in this one.

Packs per rack pack: 3
Cards per rack: 54 (51 cards, three stickers)
Base set completion: 
50 of 660 (8 percent)
Duplicates: 0

Notables on base cards – Bo Jackson (RC), Bobby Witt (RC), Jose Canseco, Bruce Sutter, Alan Trammell, Tony Perez, Steve Garvey, Bert Blyleven, Harold Baines ... and other notables from past who are ultimately commons now.

Insert cards: 4
Fleer Headliner (1) – Keith Hernandez
Team Stickers (3) – Brewers, Red Sox, Pirates

Autographs: None

What's Buzz-worthy: I wanted to introduce an occasional Retro Rip kind of Buzz Break, so I went back to a good year from simpler times and more of a marquee release that, well, you had to be there to perhaps appreciate the most. The baby blue hues of 1987 Fleer paid a lot of bills for a lot of people back in the day with this one being the homes of Rookie Cards (ignoring previous-year XRCs) for buys like Barry Bonds, Barry Larkin, Bo Jackson, Will Clark, Ruben Sierra, Wally Joyner, Kevin Mitchell, John Kruk, Bobby Bonilla and more ... and then top stars like Jose Canseco, Wade Boggs, Ryne Sandberg, Tony Gwynn, Kirby Puckett, Dave Winfield, Don Mattingly, Pete Rose, Rickey Henderson and many more. With old Fleer packs in this era, the collation is clean -- you shouldn't get duplicates in a clean wax box -- while the pack seals are light, meaning tampering has happened plenty of times in the past. But the rack packs? Those are three sealed wax packs inside a cellophane wrapper so they are safe to open without reasonable issues to be aware of. (Anything is possible but I think it's less likely.) This rack wasn't expensive, so I bit and I was rewarded with a very clean copy of perhaps one of its best cards -- the Bo Jackson -- but look at my bottom border. (Thicker on the left than the right.)I got the good ol' parallelogram parallel -- a crooked diamond cut that has happened often in many a past pack. He was not alone and that pretty much nixed any grading dreams here (not that there were many). The Jackson is still nice but that slightly crooked cut will not help. (It's not bad, but it's there and it wouldn't help for a top grade.) If you want to land high-grade stuff from this one, I say just buy it already slabbed ... it's going to be very hit and miss. I think the best find here was the Bo ... but not much else in the today and now.

Product Grade: A- (iconic set that has a lot of good cards)
Pack Grade: A- (Bo and Canseco would have made this one a monster back then)
Fun Grade: C (not really anything special ripping-wise here, especially today)

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