Let’s face it, if you’re in your mid-20s or older, you probably still remember when card collecting wasn’t just a hobby—it was a cool hobby for millions. In the late 80s and early 90s, baseball and football cards were glutting the market as fast as companies could print them in order to satiate the market. Among the more famous errors from that era was a very peculiar one, found early on in packs of 1989 Fleer baseball cards: The infamous Billy Ripkin #616.

If you were among the lucky few to have the first iteration of Billy Ripkin’s card, it seemed fairly innocuous at first; that is, until you actually looked at the bottom of the bat. Right there, in black letters readable to the naked eye, read “FUCK FACE”.

Parents everywhere were stunned, kids overjoyed at their newfound lucre, and Fleer decided it’d make things right immediately. Well, that was the theory, anyway.

Not only was it a massive lack of oversight on Fleer’s behalf (and perhaps one of the greatest errors in baseball card collecting history), it would take upwards of ten subsequent and blundering changes to the card for Fleer to finally correct the error to everyone’s satisfaction.

At first, Fleer used a marker to crudely rush out a new version, then in later revisions used a variety of other techniques (including an airbrush and common office white-out) until finally they decided to stick a black box on it and call it a day.

So, you’re probably asking yourself at this point, “How could this happen in the first place?” Ripkin finally admitted it was the work of teammates, but even this didn’t convince many that it wasn’t deliberate given the various levels of review each card was subject to. Whatever the case, the error and its variations remain collectible cards to this day.

1. I think I have about 10 of those things. I used to buy the idea that it was just his teammates pulling a prank, but the fact that the camera man did not notice, Ripken did not notice, he just happened to throw the bat over his arm to make it visible, and (and this is the kicker to me) the bat just happened to be turned exactly so you could read it properly (instead of upside down, sideways, etc, it all just doesn’t add up.

   Brent (#)
   Friday August 17, 2007