Pack of the Day 162: Two Boxes of 2000 Fleer Ultra WNBA

Late last year I went on a little WNBA kick, buying some 1999 Skybox WNBA wax and a few Ticha Penicheiro cards for a PC. Then I saw that Steel City Collectibles had a few boxes of various WNBA products on sale, so I bought a few WNBA boxes from them.

One of the exciting offerings was 2000 Fleer Ultra WNBA. I picked up two boxes of this product. This set offers the prospect of autographs and memorabilia cards, as well as low-numbered parallels. That stuff was all pretty wild seventeen years ago.

Here's a scan of a pack. Hmm, that www.FLEERCARDS.com site doesn't seem to be working. It must be down for maintenance. The base set is 150 cards strong, with 25 of them being short-printed rookies. Gold Medallion parallels fall 1 per pack, with one of the Gold Medallions in the box being a Rookie Gold Medallion. Platinum Medallion cards and Rookie Platinum Medallion cards are serially numbered and don't have odds listed. There are also  1 / 1 parallels called Masterpieces.

Based on the listed odds, I am expecting 6 Feminine Adrenaline inserts in a box, 3 WNBAttitude cards per box, and 2 Trophy case inserts per box. Autographs drop about 1 in every 3 boxes, relic cards fall about 1 in 12 boxes, and autographed shoe cards have pretty much impossible odds. 

It's been so long since I busted these boxes that I lost my notes on how the break went. I think I got a complete non-SP base set, with plenty of doubles and triples.

Flipping through a couple stacks of them, it looks like there were plenty of quadruples as well. I tried to pick some of the more interesting photos and famous players for the scans.

I pulled a few Ticha Penicheiro base cards, although I really only needed one for the PC and one for the set.

The card backs have a paragraph about the player, year-by-year and career stats, and the usual height, weight, college name, birth date, and birthplace information. The card backs also get a small photo featuring a different picture than the one on the front of the card.

I didn't pull all of the SP rookies that close out the set. I got cards 126-130, I am missing 131-137, and I have 138-150. I also pulled doubles of every card from 144-150. Apparently these things run in sequences.

I was happy to pull a Ticha Penicheiro Gold Medallion Edition for my player collection. These parallels feature a die-cut top, a shiny gold background, and the parallel's name across the top of the card. They also feature a 'G' at the end of the card number on the back. The Rookie versions are only one per box. I got Edwina Brown, who spent parts of five years in the WNBA, and Tamicha Jackson, who played in parts of seven seasons.

I was lucky enough to get a Platinum Medallion card as well. The Platinum parallels are similar to the Gold, with the die-cut top, the metallic background, and a 'P' at the end of the card number. They are also serially-numbered at the bottom of the card back. This Venus Lacy card is numbered # 05 / 50. She won a State Championship in high school, an NCAA Championship in college, and an Olympic Gold Medal in 1996, but a car accident in 1997 and (probably) her age by the time the league started up limited her time in the WNBA. She played in about half the 1999 season and a couple of games the next year. She did play internationally and in the U.S.-based ABL between college and her stint in the WNBA.

I did pull the expected three WNBAttitude cards per box, but I pulled the same three cards from both boxes. That leaves me well short of completing this insert set. It's nice that at least one of them was a Houston Comets player, Cynthia Cooper.

It's too bad that so many WNBA teams have folded, especially teams like Houston that were 1) so successful and 2) my favorite team. You can't really tell here, but the backgrounds on these are all shiny holofoil.

I got the expected number of Trophy Case inserts in my boxes, with two per box. No doubles this time, which was nice. These focus on players who made the All-WNBA teams.

Cynthia Cooper makes another appearance. These have shiny holofoil backgrounds and are die-cut on top and bottom.

I got the expected dozen Feminine Adrenaline cards in my two boxes, but four of them were doubles, so I am still a couple of cards short on the set.

There are some pretty good names here, like Sheryl Swoopes and player collection favorite Ticha Penicheiro.

I was also lucky enough to get a Fresh Ink autograph card from my break. Yolanda Griffith is a pretty good pull here, as she had a Hall of Fame career. She played in 11 seasons, earning 8 ALl-Star appearances, a Defensive Player of the Year Award, an MVP Award, a WNBA Championship, a WNBA Finals MVP Award, 5 All-WNBA First- or Second-Team spots, and spots on the WNBA All-Decade Team, the WNBA's Top 15 Players of All Time, and the WNBA Top 20@20. She also has a couple of Gold medals and was elected to the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame.

Overall I was pretty happy with this break. I was really hoping for a shoe relic card, but the odds on those are pretty long. I did wind up with a pretty nice autograph and a Platinum Medallion parallel, so I like to think I still bucked the odds a little bit. I'd like to complete the set some day, but I haven't been pushing too hard on that.