Saturday, July 21, 2018

1984 Fleer Update Kirby Puckett!


This was a white whale type of card for me that I hoped to land one day, and am very proud to own it now. Got a solid deal on it with the help of an eBay coupon code. I wanted a PSA-slabbed copy since I know there are known to be counterfeits of this one out there. It doesn't bother me that it's graded a 5, which isn't very good for a modern card, though I've given it a close look-over and am not sure what knocked it down. I guess the upper right corner is a tad discolored, but not bad at all. If that helped drop the price on an otherwise beautiful card, I'm totally cool with that.


This is his "one true rookie" since he didn't get a Topps or Donruss card until 1985. (..though being in an Update set, you could argue it's not actually a "true" rookie, but rather an "XRC".)

I'd like to eventually get the Roger Clemens as well as the rest of 1984 Fleer Update to complement the '84 Fleer set I built a few months ago. But I've got the big one out of the way now.

I tweeted this out last night and got a lot of good responses. If we're talking "back in the day", you could make a strong case for the '85 McGwire Team USA card, perhaps the Canseco Rated Rookie, Mattingly rookies, and the "big 3" from 1983 Topps. But here in 2018, the only 80s rookie card I think would have a shot at challenging for the podium of "Top 3 rookie cards of the 80s" would be the '82 Topps Traded Ripken (which I'd like to score someday). But that's just my opinion. Fun to hear other takes on the matter, so feel free to chime in.

3 comments:

  1. Great Looking Puckett!

    I'd say in chronological order the most iconic 80s Rookies -

    1980 - Rickey
    1982 - Cal Ripken Topps Traded
    1983 - Gwynn Topps
    1984 - Puckett Fleer Update (Clemens is a close second from the same set)
    1984 - Mattingly Donruss
    1985 - McGwire Team USA
    1986 - Canseco Donruss
    1989 - Griffey Upper Deck

    I was never a big fan of the picture they chose for Gwynn's rookie card, and of the rest of the Hall of Famers, I'd have Rickey and Griffey 1 and 2. Both Ripken and Puckett are tough cards to get for a bargain, it's tough to choose between them.

    As a Twins fan I have my preference, of course - my fav 82 Topps Traded card is actually Kent Hrbek's rookie...

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  2. The '82 Traded Ripken card is amazing. He looks incredibly bad-ass on it.

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  3. Congratulations Gavin! It's way to hard for me to narrow the list of great 80's rookie cards down to three, but Brian's list is rock solid.

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