1991 Fleer "white border" mod tutorial

Figured I'd put a post together about how I make de-yellowed 1991 Fleer mods. I meant to get to it earlier in the summer, but hey, there are still plenty of sunny days left.

First, get the 1991 Fleer card you'd like to modify, along with a common/dupe that you won't mind destroying. For this example, I'm looking to bleach the border of the Tony Gwynn card, while sacrificing Kelvin Torve's card (no offence to Mr. Torve, who got into 42 more MLB games than the rest of us).

So now you want to cut the picture out of the chump's card. This will be our mask to block the sun from the good card's photo. If you have access to a paper cutter, you should probably use that to help you keep the edges straight. Scissors work fine if you've got a steady hand. And of course you could just measure the dimensions out on a non-card piece of cardboard to avoid needing a common '91 Fleer to sacrifice, but that's more work to get just the right size.

I like to use a hard case such as a screw-down like this one, and you just place the cut-out photo on top of the good card's photo. I've found that a small piece of paper towel on top can help prevent the top photo from sliding around much. Try to get the mask as perfectly centered as you can and then screw it down with everything in place.

Then you just find a sunny spot to put it. Your best bet is a window that gets a lot of afternoon sun. You'll likely notice fading after a couple weeks, with the bold yellow mellowing out to a nice creamy tone after a month or two. The longer you leave it, the lighter the border will get, until eventually it's as white as it'll get. You'll probably want to rotate the card at some point to account for shadows, and you can speed up the process by moving it around to different sunny locations throughout the day-- chasing the sun, as it were-- instead of leaving it in the same place all the time. Some '91 Fleer cards are bolder than others, so that could factor in with the timeline, too.

Troubleshooting: If your mask wasn't a good fit, you might notice yellow slivers remaining on the good card, in which case try trimming the mask at those parts. On the other hand if the mask was cut too small, you may notice fading around the border of the photo of the good card. It's hard to get it perfect, but it's not like you're submitting these for grading, so remember to have fun with it.

But yeah, after a few weeks pass, you should have yourself a sharp-looking homemade parallel ready to spice up your collection. I stamp/sign the back, like with my other cardart. You may choose to make a similar notation, or perhaps make a little explanation note to store with the card.. you know, to prevent confusion down the line. Definitely don't be a douche trying to pass off your mod as an official variant, like to fool somebody into overvaluing your polished turd. For the record, I've sold a handful of these mods over the years at about 5 bucks a pop (which I think is pretty cheap considering how long they take to make). I'll admit I've been coy with my process in the past, hoping to keep these as somewhat of a "brand exclusive" as I've tried to make a go of it as a niche cardartist. But demand never really took off and at this point I'm off to other ideas, though I still consider making 1991 Fleer mods one of my favorite summertime activities these days, funny as it sounds. It's fun to "make a thing" and these aren't much work, just patience. Makes unbearably hot days a little easier to take because you at least know your '91 Fleer mod is soaking up the rays, making progress for you.

So there you go. I hope some of you readers are intrigued about do-it-yourself parallels and maybe give it a shot yourself. You could even get funky with it, like try fading a gradient or with stripes or something. Good luck and have fun!