In late May 2005, news circulated that Fleer was suspending trading card operations. By early July, in a move similar to declaring bankruptcy, the company began to liquidate its assets to repay creditors. One of the assets including in this sale, was the 'Fleer' brandname itself, which was pruchased by UpperDeck. UpperDeck has used the Fleer brandname to continue to produce cards from many common fleer sets like Ultra and Hot Prospects.

One negative aspect associated with Fleer's bankruptcy is that many sports card collectors now own redemption cards for autographs and memorabilia that may not be able to be redeemed; those fears were somewhat quenched in early 2006 when random memorabilia cards were mailed to the aforementioned collectors. Collectors who turned in RedemptionCards were each compensated with 2 GameWorn and 1 AutographedInsert for every unfulfilled redemption card they submitted. Most of the cards returned for these redemptions were low end cards which did not come close to equalling the value of the cards originally promised by the redemption cards.

Specific Fallout from the Proceedings

01/02 Fleer Greats of the Game Rod Langway Autographs

Fleer apparently did not get them back in time for pack out, and did not use RedemptionCards in their place either. Fleer did get them back some time after pack out though, and on occasion were either given out as compensation for something not available, either at random or by request. Very few found their way on to the market, but enough to where prices could be noted and listed.

Flash forward to when Fleer goes out of business and sells off their backstock. A company buys the entire shot, but is made to fulfill outstanding redemptions. They do so by substituting two game used and one auto per redemption unfulfilled, but were smart/sneaky enough to pull aside everything of value. Redemption holders got schwag, while the majority of the good cards (Langway no doubt being one such card when guiding at $200 a pop) went to the Edgeman company. They in turn post the Langway and other untold goodies for sale on their web site, on ebay, and at big shows. No doubt though with a player who holds little collector interest, Edgeman found the sales to be slow going. The value of the card was only within it's perceived scarcity, and when they started showing up all over, people paying attention knew the prices would dump.

It would appear Edgeman at some point sold the Langways and loads of other cards to "Vintage", who sell those repack items at Target and Wal-Mart. So, now they are all over the place, and in fact are now more easily found than any other auto in the set since they all surfaced at once (and, 5 years after the product came out). In truth, the Langway SHOULD drop to a common auto price if not less, but it likely won't happen.