Group Break Recap: 2003 Fleer Authentix

 Last week, I finished off my Breaker's Club with a pair of boxes but I also did a third box break for the week - a non-Breaker's Club group break if you will.  This was a box of the lovely (yet underrated) 2003 Fleer Authentix.

The box promises 24 packs (5 cards per pack) with the odds of memorabilia cards falling 1:8 packs (or 3 per box).  In addition, there are a few parallels and insert sets to chase - and those all go along with a neat, thematic base set design!

Speaking of base cards, let's begin with a sampling of those:  

I always loved the theme of the set - the ticket idea seems so obvious (at least back when tickets were still printed on cardboard) yet I feel that there aren't that many sets in history that have embraced the theme of tickets!  Fleer did that part well - at least for the front of the cards.

On the back, Fleer could have had a true masterpiece had they used the correct stadium blue prints for each team - instead, they were lazy and used the same stadium schematics for all cards.  This was kind of made even worse because they acted like the stadium image was correct since the name of the stadium is printed on the card...but alas, if you look a bunch of cards of players from different teams you'll see that Fleer didn't take that final, vital step to creating the perfect, thematic card back!

Moving on to the inserts, parallels, and hits we begin with our lone "Club Box" parallel.

The Scott Rolen card is numbered 006/100 on the back - a nice hit for the Cardinals from the box!  

We pulled on "Ticket to the Majors" card:

The Pete LaForest is numbered 0495/1850.  The final parallel was of Josh Willingham and it's one of the "Balcony" parallels:

That one is numbered 047/250 - making for three serially numbered cards in total from the box (not bad for a box from 2003)!  I also have to say that I like the replica tickets that are embedded in two of the above cards - again, Fleer (mostly) knocked the theme out of the park on this set!

Moving on to the inserts - we found four of the "Ticket Studs" which again is a wonderful thematic set name (and design).

The only downside here was trying to get the cards to lie flat on my scanner bed - the cards are all long rectangles that come folded in half in a pack.  

The other insert set we pulled cards from was the wonderful Ballpark Classics set.

I love the die-cutting here - and the set design is top-notch (again, love the scoreboard in particular in the background).  Such good stuff from Fleer!

And finally, last but certainly not least, our three hits!

A replica ticket stub, a bit of die-cutting, and game-used jersey swatches...not much more you can ask for in a relic card, right?!  Oh yeah, the checklist of players we pulled was also pretty darn solid!

This was definitely a fun rip - and one that I wouldn't mind doing again sometime in the future!  

Speaking of the future, the next group break thing happening here is going to by my free player break giveaway for the box of 2020 Topps Tier One (which I posted about a couple of days ago).  I'm also going to be starting my second Breaker's Club soon - stay tuned for more details on that!