Saturday, April 10, 2021

Group Break Recap: 2002 Fleer E-X


Last Friday night (04/02/21) our weekly Affordable Group Break just consisted of one box. I was headed out on a little vacation trip the following Saturday morning so I needed a little extra time to get ready. The box we opened was 2002 Fleer E-X, a product we opened earlier in the year, but this time we had a full on hobby box to rip. Hits were promised at 1:8 packs so that meant we had 3 expected hits to pull.

If you're not familiar with this product, all the base cards are printed on clear acetate which gives the cards a unique look. The player's name, team and jersey number are printed on the card in silver foil. The last box we opened the silver foil wasn't in the greatest shape, flaking off a bit in areas. This time however the cards were in much better shape which let me breath a sigh of relief.

Below is the actual video of the live break if you prefer to watch the cards pulled from the pack, otherwise keep scrolling for a complete breakdown of the highlights of the box.


The rookies/prospects in the base set were short-printed with the majority of them being serially numbered to either 2999, 2499 or 1999. Cards 126-140 were not numbered however.


We pulled two numbered SPs, Jorge De La Rosa (Red Sox, 2498/2999) and Luis Martinez (0131/2499)


There were several different insert sets to chase including Hit & Run. Darin Erstad (Angels) and Normar Garciaparra (Red Sox). I swear I seem to pull a lot of Nomar inserts in these breaks!


Hit & Run also came in memorabilia version featuring a piece of game-used bat or base. I was personally hoping for a game-used base card, but this bat card of Roberto Alomar (Mets) wasn't too shabby.



Behind the Numbers features one of those designs that was meant for a piece of game-used material so the non-game used versions just look odd...well at least to me. We pulled 3: Ichiro (Mariners), Roger Clemens (Yankees) and Albert Pujols (Cardinals).


Like with the Hit & Run inserts, Behind the Numbers also featured a memorabilia version. In this case we pulled a Brian Giles (Pirates). The glare makes it hard to see, but the white jersey piece is sitting behind a die-cut "24". Good hit for the Pirates since they don't always get much outside of base cards in the breaks.



Both Barry Bonds and Derek Jeter were the subject of their own insert set called 4X Champ. A small set at just 4 cards, these were serially numbered to 1999. I believe this was the first time I've even seen one of these cards before.


The third and final hit of the box was this Game Essentials game-worn jersey card of Robin Ventura (Yankees). The team from the Bronx was well represented yet again in this break.

Side note, according to TCDB this card of Ventura also comes in a batting glove form, however the image scanned was of this card. I submitted a discrepancy notice and uploaded my scans of this card.

This was a quick break, but if I'm being honest it was nice not having a ton of work to do after the break...even though as of this post I've yet to sort and put away these cards. I love hosting these breaks and after a short one week off, I'm ready to gear things back up and get back to our regular schedule. That said, I'll be posting two boxes in the FB group on here on the blog this Monday evening, 04/12/21. Both boxes however will be counted as one break so each team should have a good chance at getting a nice stack of cards. What are these boxes? Well they are from the late 90's and one of the boxes I've recently realized has gotten extremely expensive. Make sure to check by around 9 PM Eastern on Monday for a chance to grab your favorite team(s).

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