Box Review: 2000 Fleer Showcase (hobby) baseball

Last week, I ripped a box of 2000 Fleer Showcase as part of a group break that I hosted.  Today, I'm here to review that box on my birthday no less!

2000 Fleer Showcase hobby boxes contain 24 packs with 5 cards in each pack.  The base set contains a total of 140 cards (100 regular cards, plus 15 Prospect Showcase cards #/1000 and 25 Prospect Showcase cards #/2000).  There are also two parallels of the base set:  Legacy 2000 (#/20) and Masterpiece (#/1).  

In addition, there are 10 insert sets to chase:

• 40 Prospect Showcase Firsts (#/500)
• 15 Consummate Prose (1:6 packs)
• 10 Noise of Summer (1:10 packs)
• 10 Final Answer (1:10 packs)
• 10 License to Skill (1:20 packs)
• 10 Long Gone (1:20 packs)
• Fresh Ink (1:24 packs)
• Sweet Sigs (1:250 packs)
• Feel the Game (1:72 packs)
• Club 3,000 (1:24 packs)
• Club 3,000 Memorabilia cards 

Now, let's get to our box rip!

Our box yielded 98 unique base cards out of the 100 regular base cards plus 5 duplicate base cards.  The only regular base cards missing from our box were #12:  Pedro Martinez and #66.  Preston Wilson.

I like the base card design of this set a lot - nice and shiny with a clean design.  The card backs are standard typical Fleer fare for the era but they are nice enough as well.

Obviously, I had to show off the Barry Larkin card!  I must give major props to Fleer for the super large card numbers on the back.  They are color-coordinated for each team and yet still super easy-to-read.  As a set collector, I appreciate that a lot!

Here's the full set checklist, including the inserts:

Before we get to the inserts, let's look at the short printed base cards that we found.  We ended up with two cards from the "high series" of the set:

The Chad Hermansen card is numbered 0498/1000 while the Paul Rigdon card is numbered 1847/2000.  I do find the eyes in the background kind of creepy but I guess the design is distinct!  

Now, to the inserts.

The only serially-numbered insert in the box was this Prospects Showcase First card of Ben Petrick:

The Petrick is numbered 201/500, a nice pull for sure!  The look that Petrick is giving the camera here makes me laugh...Fleer certainly had a thing for crazy eyes in this set!

At 1:6 packs, we pulled our expect four Consummate Prose cards.

These are fairly standard insert fare for the era.  Nothing objectionable here but nothing overly exciting either.  I guess the pun is fun enough with the scroll in the background - the more I think about it, the more I guess this set is probably in the upper half of insert designs from the era!

Next, a pair of insert sets that are both seeded 1:10 packs:

The Noise of Summer cards are kind of cool with the giant sun in the background while the Final Answer insert set harkens back to the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" rage of the early 00s.  

The next two insert sets are both seeded 1:20 packs so you'd generally expect to only pull one such card in a box of 24 packs.  However, we beat the odds on both sets by getting two of each insert design!

I love the Long Gone set, perhaps my favorite insert set of the entire 2000 Showcase brand...  The cards are die-cut to match the player's home stadium outfield walls.  Such a fun gimmick and one that I'm surprised isn't done more often as it's easy enough to do and also quite cool!  You can also see by now that our box was a Nomar Garciaparra hot box of sorts!

The last of the regular inserts was the one-per-box Club 3000 die-cut card.  We got a good one:

Yep, a sweet Nolan Ryan Club 3000!  I lvoe this insert set as well - so much so that I've actually completed the full thing for myself already (this set was spread across several Fleer offerings from the year 2000).

Finally, our promises Fresh Ink autograph of the box goes to the Angels slot:

Yeah, a nice Troy Glaus autograph.  Definitely a solid player and not someone for whom I see many autographs floating around.  I was quite pleased with this pull!

Overall, I give the 2000 Fleer Showcase (hobby) box the following rating:

Set design:  A

Collation:  A-

Opening thrill:  A-

Overall:  A-

This box was a lot of fun to rip.  I would have liked to have gotten the two missing base cards (and two fewer base duplicates) but otherwise we completely beat the odds for the box!  I was even happy with the autograph!  The inserts were plentiful enough to keep things interesting but rare enough to still feel special - especially those die-cut Long Gone cards.  Top all of that off with a trio of serially-numbered cards and you've got yourself a fun box to rip!