1989 Fleer #616 Bill Ripken "F**K FACE" Factory Destroyed Famous Error Card!

The infamous 1989 Fleer #616 Bill Ripken "F*** Face" card is as much legendary as it is notorious. The card shows Ripken, in the only year he wore his father's #7, holding his bat on right shoulder with the nefarious inscription on the knob of the bat. The unedited version of the card made its way into packs as the swear word was apparently missed by Fleer's quality control. Once it was discovered Fleer then released several different versions of the card with the vulgarity edited out. One of the more common versions has a black box over the bat knob; others have it simply scribbled out. The rarest version of the card has the knob of the bat whited out completely.

At the recent National Sports Collectors Convention in Cleveland, Dave & Adam's purchased ten Ripken cards with a slit cut in each of the cards. In the uncut sheets of the 1989 Fleer baseball set, the Ripken card was located at the very bottom of the sheet. This aided Fleer when they set out to destroy some of the remaining inventory. Fleer took the sheets and used a lathe to cut a slit in the card and it was supposed to be destroyed. Some of the cut cards, however, made it out of the warehouse as some made their way into packs and others were smuggled out by factory workers who sold them to collectors. The inscription is visible on the bat knob but each card has a slit cut in various locations and sizes.