I remember an ad run by a dealer in a coin newspaper in early 1989, saying something about not being able to print the "immoral" message on the card, but that they were buyers and sellers. The fact that most outlets couldn't explicitly report the "error" certainly helped with its hype. I think the way that Fleer chose to correct the error may have been carefully chosen to boost sales; if they simply airbrushed the bat handle, people may have forgotten about it. The "black box" version is what you'll find in a factory set. When I was collecting sets I replaced the black box with a Rick Face, and it's still part of the 1981 - 1989 run of Fleer sets that I've kept together.
I remember an ad run by a dealer in a coin newspaper in early 1989, saying something about not being able to print the "immoral" message on the card, but that they were buyers and sellers. The fact that most outlets couldn't explicitly report the "error" certainly helped with its hype. I think the way that Fleer chose to correct the error may have been carefully chosen to boost sales; if they simply airbrushed the bat handle, people may have forgotten about it. The "black box" version is what you'll find in a factory set. When I was collecting sets I replaced the black box with a Rick Face, and it's still part of the 1981 - 1989 run of Fleer sets that I've kept together.