Beyond the Diamond: Fleer’s Legal Battle Led To Innovation And The Quirky 1965 and 1966 Weird-Ohs Sets

In 1966, Fleer sold the last of its baseball player contracts to Topps after fighting them in court for its aggressiveness in securing exclusive player contracts. Fleer actually initially won their case at the Federal Trade Commission but lost on appeal. Despite a challenging landscape, Fleer embraced innovation and diversity and ventured into non-sports cards pretty hard to help sell their bubble gum. One really intriguing outcome of this experimentation was the emergence of the 1965 Fleer Weird-Ohs and the 1966 Fleer Baseball Weird-Ohs. 

1965 Fleer Weird-Ohs

Kudos to The Sport Americana Price Guide to The Non-Sports Cards for details about these two Fleer Weird-Ohs sets; there isn’t much else written about them. They point out that the wrapper design tells you what this set of cards is all about; it features a monster wearing an “SCTA” hat (Society for Cruelty to Animals) flagging down prospective victims.

1965 Fleer Weird-Ohs Wax Wrapper

The 66-card set is packed with similar bizarre characters based on characters developed by the Hawk Model Company – who have a copyright on the back of the cards.

1965 Fleer Weird-Ohs #3 Francis The Foul – Front
1965 Fleer Weird-Ohs #3 Francis The Foul – Reverse

The front of each card features a unique cartoon character, their name, and a brief description of their “proclivities.” The green card backs all feature Francis the Foul on the left-hand side and a detailed description of the character in black text underneath a clearly marked “Weird-Ohs” trademark.

1965 Fleer Weird-Ohs #4 Davey – Front
1965 Fleer Weird-Ohs #4 Davey – Reverse
1965 Fleer Weird-Ohs #7 Terry Tent – Front
1965 Fleer Weird-Ohs #7 Terry Tent – Reverse
1965 Fleer Weird-Ohs #13 Pop Fly – Front
1965 Fleer Weird-Ohs #13 Pop Fly – Reverse

1966 Fleer Baseball Weird-Ohs

Despite “baseball” being in the set’s title, the hobby has always categorized the 1966 Fleer Baseball Weird-Ohs as a non-sport set. 

Fleer stuck with the weird-oh design and basic card format in a spin-off to poke fun at baseball with this 66-card set. The fronts again feature colorful artwork designed by artist William Campbell with a caption (that usually rhymes) below it within the card’s white border. The backs have the “Baseball Weird-ohs” set title, the card title (not the same words as on the front), and a descriptive back story of the character that often describes something comically violent on the right side, with “Doug Out” from card #1 on the left side which has an orange background.

1966 Fleer Baseball Weird-Ohs #1 Doug Out – Front
1966 Fleer Baseball Weird-Ohs #1 Doug Out – Reverse
1966 Fleer Baseball Weird-Ohs #2 Texas Leaguerer – Front
1966 Fleer Baseball Weird-Ohs #2 Texas Leaguerer – Reverse
1966 Fleer Baseball Weird-Ohs #4 Sonny Sun-Field – Front
1966 Fleer Baseball Weird-Ohs #4 Sonny Sun-Field – Reverse
1966 Fleer Baseball Weird-Ohs #13 Newton Nervous – Front
1966 Fleer Baseball Weird-Ohs #13 Newton Nervous – Reverse
1966 Fleer Baseball Weird-Ohs #62 Hey Hey Harry – Front
1966 Fleer Baseball Weird-Ohs #62 Hey Hey Harry – Reverse

In 2020, REA auctioned off a few of Campbell’s original art pieces. Each piece is approximately 4-3/4″ x 6-1/8″—the four pieces sold for $810.

1966 Fleer Baseball Weird-Ohs Oringal Artwork

The art for card #62 featuring Hey Hey Harry sold for $355 in October 2013.

1966 Fleer Baseball Weird-Ohs Hey Hey Harry Original Artwork

Wrap Up

When it comes to the Fleer Weird-Oh sets, collectors seem to either love ’em or hate ’em without a lot of in-between. That divide has left a unique market dynamic where collectors can track down complete sets for a modest, though not “super-cheap” price range between $70 and $90. The set has maintained a certain level of popularity, evidenced by its re-issue in 2007/2008, though no new items were introduced. 

1965 Topps John Huarte Original Football Card Artwork

Here’s the original flexichrome artwork for John Huarte’s 1965 Topps #117 Football card.

Ron Oser Enterprises offered it in their December 2000 auction catalog.

They described it as a “Very desirable 3 3/4” x 5 1/4” flexichrome artwork of Huarte’s Short Print rookie card #117 from Topps’ popular 1965 ‘over-sized’ issue. Beautiful condition, neatly affixed to a 7” x 11” black paper backing, accompanied by an example card (EXMT).”

Here’s the artwork next to the final card.

Check out The Original Artwork Archive for more!

The Uncut Sheet Archive

Welcome to the Uncut Sheet Archive! This is the hub for all the articles I’ve written about uncut sheets, sorted by sport and set. My goal is for it to be the definitive source of uncut sheet information on the web, offering insights into distribution, production quirks, and the factors behind why some vintage cards were so condition-sensitive, even out of the pack!

If you have any rare sheets to share, shoot me an e-mail.

Baseball

Basketball

Football

Hockey

Multi-Sport

Other Sports

Non-Sports

An Incredibly Rare 1930s Walter Johnson Candy Dick Tracy Wrapper

Here’s one of the scarcest non-sport collectibles in the hobby from the Walter Johnson Candy Company, a 1930s Dick Tracy R41 set wrapper.

In November 2000, Mastro offered this one along with a complete set of 144 cards. They dated it to 1934, but others, like TCDB, date the release to 1937. The Non-Sports Bible just calls it a 1930s set.

The auction description said, “The wrapper displays vividly, bright red and blue coloring printed on wax paper. It displays customary wear for such artifacts and grades as an eye-appealing Excellent.”

Naturally, the box is even tougher to track down; REA sold the following example for $1,560 in the summer of 2019.

Check out The Unopened Archive for more!

The Unopened Archive

Welcome to the relaunched Unopened Archive! It used to have pages with photos of packs, wrappers, boxes, and cases from all the big pre- and post-war releases. This 2.0 version is more of a hub for all my blog posts about different unopened material. Over time, I’ll bring back the old content and add way more—like info about fakes, finds, sales, collation, and all the known products out there.

If you’re looking for a particular unopened product photo, shoot me an e-mail.

Baseball

Basketball

Football

Hockey

Other Sports

Multi-Sport

Non-Sports

Unopened Hobby Books, Magazine Articles, and 101s

Top 10 World Series Cards

T.S. O’Connell wrote an excellent article for Sports Cards Magazines’ April 1995 issue about World Series Cards; these were his Top 10. What do you think about the list?

Here’s the rest of the article, and be sure to check out The Complete Topps’ World Series Card Guide, which was published a few years earlier in the Fall of 1990.

A Great New Gift Idea! The Topps 1964 Baseball Gift Box

My favorite thing about the hobby is interacting with other collectors and hobby historians and learning about new items. Well, on the morning of May 1st, 2023, a collector contacted me via e-mail after perusing the site with two photos of an empty box of cards I’d never seen before.

1964 Topps Baseball Gift Box
1964 Topps Baseball Gift Box Lid

He thought maybe they were issued around Christmas time in 1964 to sell leftover cards after the season had ended and asked if I knew anything about it. I searched some of my older books and came up empty-handed. He mentioned the box didn’t have any code on it, so I asked if he’d be ok with my sharing it on Facebook to see if anyone else could help.

On Facebook, a collector mentioned he had seen a reference to the box before and shared the following sell sheet.

1964 Topps Baseball Gift Box Sell Sheet

One collector on Facebook commented that the box on the sell sheet looks a lot like a carton of cigarettes! And another was pretty sure Topps only made this product in 64.

The box wasn’t really meant for Christmas; it’s a gift box for any occasion, “what better way to say ‘happy birthday’ or just ‘hello.’ The boxes came 24 per case for $14.40 or 60 cents a box. Each box had 20 5-cent packs (100 total cards), though given the gift theme, I don’t think they were meant to be sold by the pack. 

A ton of collectors reached out to me asking if the owner was interested in selling the empty box, but he’s not. Given how much interest it garnered in such a short period, I presume bidding would be intense.

I’m unsure how you’d price such an item, though. However, one collector shared that there was one on eBay many years ago, and he thought it was for $500, or maybe $338, but acknowledged it would go for much more these days. Another collector thinks he saw one around 2004.

The owner later shared three more photos of the box with me.

1964 Topps Baseball Gift Box – Angle 1
1964 Topps Baseball Gift Box – Angle 2
1964 Topps Baseball Gift Box – Angle 3

An interesting thing about the box is that that’s not Whitey Ford’s 1964 Topps baseball card printed on it; it looks like a 1964 design, but with his 1963 Topps photo. 

1964 and 1963 Topps Whitey Ford Cards

Some collectors surmised it could have come out as early as December 1963, given the difference in Ford’s card design. And maybe the low item number of 400 (on the sell sheet) indicates an early release, along with the image of the smiling kid being the same as the one on the 1962 Topps Baseball Bucks dealer sell sheet?

1962 Topps Baseball Bucks Sell Sheet

Funny enough, Topps did something similar with the 1964 Topps Giants set; the picture of Whitey Ford on the box isn’t identical to his card.

1964 Topps Giants Box and Whitey Ford Card

If you have more insight into this unique Topps product, please leave a comment or e-mail me.

Check out The Unopened Archive for more!