Friday, February 19, 2016

What the Frac?



Leaf was hard to keep track of in the late ‘90s. They had a bunch of different parallels, die-cuts, and axis cards. I don't know either. Many of these fell under the name Fractal Matrix, which I still don’t know the meaning of. Then there were Fractal Foundations…what the frac, Leaf?

Although confusing, many were, and still are, very nice looking. They certainly must’ve been one of the first brands to go all-in on parallels upon parallels. Sure, there was Topps Gold and Ultra Gold Medallions and whatnot, but this really started to show a trend in the industry when you had Gold, Silver, Bronze versions, as well as axis and die-cut versions. We then saw a lot of variations, with Topps Finest using Common/Uncommon, Flair using Row 1/2/3, Bowman producing every color of the rainbow, and so on.

According to baseballcardpedia, this gold z-axis die-cut is one of 100 made, although I can’t find any serially numbering on the card. I’ll just have to trust that’s the print run. It’s a nice looking card for sure.

It popped up on eBay and I pounced quickly. I know I hadn’t seen it, and it had a cheap BIN, so I was all over it. Nice to add this to growing (ever so slowly) Tino collection.

4 comments:

  1. Based on what I've read and heard, the 90's must've been a hellish time period to keep track of cards.

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  2. Try Pacific cards (flagship, revolution, paramount,etc.....) from the 90's and their parallels. And some of very nice looking and cool cards too.

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  3. Fractal Foundations? And I thought the card names now were ridiculous... Nice card!

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  4. It's been almost twenty years... and I still haven't figured out the 1997 or 1998 Leaf Fractal Matrix parallels. They needed to issue an instruction manual when they produced those sets.

    P.S. Congratulations on the new addition to your Martinez PC.

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