Set Description:
This 330-card standard-size set was issued by Fleer for the French, Spanish, Italian, Portugese, German, Japanese and Chinese markets. The cards were distributed in 8-card packs, in two series, with 36 packs per box. The set closely parallels the American 1996-97 Fleer issue. The series one set contains 150 cards, as does the series two. But, a 30-card translation set, featuring team logos, was inserted in both series one and series two packs. Thus, a separate set line has been established for that set and each series has 150 cards. Unlike other U.S.-based foreign issues, these cards contain no foreign text, but the wrapper and box are multilingual. A selection of cards share common numbers with the American version, making them almost impossible to separately identify. Everything is identical, even the trademark lines. Most of those cards are from series one. Series two, for the most part, contains different card numbers. The main difference in the sets is the European also contains a Team Logo Translation subset, which the American version does not have. The backs of these cards have the basic American descriptions translated into the various languages. The following inserts were also available: Rookie Rewind and Stackhouse's All-Fleer in series one and Swing Shift in series two. Because these inserts are identical to the regular American inserts, they are priced the same. Please refer to those American inserts for values. The cards were distributed by Panini.
