Fleer

Many popular Fleer sets (like "Ultra"), have continued without skipping a year or dramatically changing their design. The garnet is the official mineral and color of Bates College. In late 2005 Upper Deck began producing basketball and football cards under it's acquired Fleer name. Garnets are very abundant in the lower crust and mantle and thus play an important role in geochemical understanding of the Earth. In 2004, Fleer announced that it would cease all productions of trading cards. Pyrope varieties are used as kimberlite indicator minerals in diamond prospecting. Fleer and another company, Donruss, were thus allowed to begin making cards in 1981. Garnet sand is a good abrasive.

After several years of litigation, the court ordered the union to offer group licenses for baseball cards to companies other than Topps. Pure crystals of garnet are used as gemstones. Topps refused, and Fleer then sued both Topps and the MLBPA to break the Topps monopoly. When doped with neodymium (Nd³⁺), these YAl-Garnets are useful as the lasing medium in lasers. In April 1975, Fleer asked for Topps to waive its exclusive rights and allow Fleer to produce stickers, stamps, or other small items featuring active baseball players. Yttrium aluminium garnet (YAG), Y₃Al₂(AlO₄)₃, is used for synthetic gemstone. The union, also fearing that it would cut into existing royalties from Topps sales, then rejected the proposal. One example for this is gadolinium gallium garnet, Gd₃Ga₂(GaO₄)₃, which is synthesized for use in magnetic bubble memory.

Topps passed on the opportunity, indicating that it did not think the product would be successful. By substituting specific sites with rare earth elements, for example, interesting magnetic properties can be obtained. By now, the MLBPA had settled its differences with Topps and reached an agreement that gave Topps a right of first refusal on such offers. The iron ions in the two coordination sites exhibit different spins, resulting in magnetic behaviour. Fleer returned to the union in September 1974 with a proposal to sell 5-by-7-inch satin patches of players, somewhat larger than normal baseball cards. In yttrium iron garnet (YIG), Y₃Fe₂(FeO₄)₃, the five iron(III) ions occupy two octahedral and three tetrahedral sites, with the yttrium(III) ions coordinated by eight oxygen ions in an irregular cube. Since this was so far in the future, Fleer declined the proposal. It is used as an indicator mineral in the search for diamonds.

The MLBPA was in a dispute with Topps over player contracts, and offered Fleer the exclusive rights to market cards of most players starting in 1973, when many of Topps's contracts would expire. Knorringite is basically pyrope with a very high chromium content and is often found in kimberlites. In 1968, Fleer was approached by the Major League Baseball Players Association, a recently organized players' union, about obtaining a group license to produce cards. Garnet with high knorringite content may be generated only under high pressure. The decision gave Topps an effective monopoly of the baseball card market. Pure knorringite never occurs in nature. However, Fleer chose not to pursue such options and instead sold its remaining player contracts to Topps for $395,000 in 1966. Knorringite is a magnesium chromium garnet with the formula Mg₃Cr₂(SiO₄)₃.

The Commission concluded that because the contracts only covered the sale of cards with gum, competition was still possible by selling cards with other small, low-cost products. It is found in crystalline marbles and schists in the Ural mountains of Russia and Outukompu, Finland. A hearing examiner ruled against Topps in 1965, but the Commission reversed this decision on appeal. This is a rather rare garnet, bright green in color, usually found as small crystals associated with chromite in peridotite, serpentinite, and kimberlites. The complaint focused on the baseball card market, alleging that Topps was engaging in unfair competition through its aggregation of exclusive contracts. Uvarovite is a calcium chromium garnet with the formula Ca₃Cr₂(SiO₄)₃. The company now turned its efforts to supporting an administrative complaint filed against Topps by the Federal Trade Commission. This garnet was discovered in the 1960s in the Tsavo area of Kenya, from which the gem takes its name.

This left Fleer with no product in either baseball or football. One of the most sought after varieties of gem garnet is the fine green grossular garnet from Kenya and Tanzania called tsavorite. In 1964, however, Philadelphia Gum secured the rights for NFL cards and Topps took over the AFL. Grossularite is found in contact metamorphosed limestones with vesuvianite, diopside, wollastonite and wernerite. The next year reverted to the status quo, with Fleer covering the AFL and Topps the NFL. Because of its inferior hardness to zircon, which the yellow crystals resemble, they have also been called hessonite from the Greek meaning inferior. In 1961, each company produced cards featuring players from both leagues. Other shades include cinnamon brown (cinnamon stone variety), red, and yellow.

Fleer produced a set for the AFL while Topps cards covered the established National Football League. The name grossularite is derived from the botanical name for the gooseberry, grossularia, in reference to the green garnet of this composition that is found in Siberia. Meanwhile, Fleer took advantage of the emergence of the American Football League in 1960 to begin producing football cards. Grossularite is a calcium-aluminium garnet with the formula Ca₃Al₂(SiO₄)₃, though the calcium may in part be replaced by ferrous iron and the aluminium by ferric iron. However, Topps still held onto the rights of most players and the set was not particularly successful. Topazolite is a golden yellow variety and melanite is a black variety. Wills and Jimmy Piersall served as player representatives for Fleer, helping to bring others on board. Demantoid has been called the "emerald of the Urals" from its occurrence there, and is one of the most prized of garnet varieties.

This 67-card set included a number of stars, including 1962 National League MVP Maury Wills (then holder of the modern record for stolen bases in a season), who had elected to sign with Fleer instead of Topps. Andradite is found both in deep-seated igneous rocks like syenite as well as serpentines, schists, and crystalline limestone. The company did not produce new cards the next year, but continued selling the 1961 set while it focused on signing enough players to produce a set featuring active players in 1963. The recognized subvarieties are topazolite (yellow or green), demantoid (green) and melantite (black). One set was produced in 1960 and a second in 1961. Andradite is a calcium-iron garnet, Ca₃Fe₂(SiO₄)₃, is of variable composition and may be red, yellow, brown, green or black. However, Fleer continued to produce baseball cards by featuring Williams with other mostly retired players in a Baseball Greats series. Violet-red spessartites are found in rhyolites in Colorado and Maine.

Williams was nearing the end of his career and retired after the 1960 season. Spessartite of a beautiful orange-yellow is found in Madagascar. Fleer was unable to include other players because another company, Topps, had signed most active baseball players to exclusive contracts. It occurs most often in granite pegmatite and allied rock types and in certain low grade metamorphic phyllites. It began by signing baseball star Ted Williams to a contract in 1959 and sold an 80-card set oriented around highlights of his career. Its name is derived from Spessart in Bavaria. Well-established as a gum and candy company, Fleer followed some of its competitors into the business of selling sports cards. Spessartite or spessartine is manganese aluminium garnet, Mn₃Al₂(SiO₄)₃.

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. The garnets from mantle derived rocks, peridotites and eclogites, commonly contain a pyrope variety. Competitor Upper Deck won the Fleer name, as well as their die cast toy business, at a price of $6.1 million. Pyrope is an indicator mineral for high pressure rocks. The move included the auction of the Fleer trade name, as well as other holdings. The color of these blue garnets is not like sapphire blue in subdued daylight but more reminiscent of the grayish blues and greenish blues sometimes seen in spinel However in white LED light the color is equal to the best corn flower blue sapphire or D block tanzanite this is due to the blue garnets ability to absorb the yellow component of the emitted light. By early July, in a move similar to declaring bankruptcy, the company began to liquidate its assets to repay creditors. Another intriguing find is the blue color-change garnets from Madagascar, a pyrope spessatine mix.

In late May 2005, news circulated that Fleer was suspending its trading card operations immediately. Pyrope has nicknames of Cape ruby, Arizona ruby, California ruby, Rocky Mountain ruby, and Bohemian garnet from the Czech Republic. In 1998, 70-year-old Dubble Bubble was acquired by Canadian company Concord Confections and Concord, in turn, was acquired by Chicago-based Tootsie Roll Industries in 2004. A variety of pyrope from Macon County, North Carolina is a violet-red shade and has been called rhodolite, from the Greek meaning "a rose." In chemical composition it may be considered as essentially an isomorphous mixture of pyrope and almandite, in the proportion of two parts pyrope to one part almandite. In 1995, Fleer acquired the trading card company SkyBox International and it closed its Philadelphia plant(where Dubble Bubble was made for 67 years). Transparent pyropes are used as gemstones. Fleer became known as a maker of sports cards, and has also produced some non-sports trading cards. The color of pyrope varies from deep red to almost black.

Its pink color set a tradition for nearly all bubble gums to follow. It is ruby-red in color and chemically a magnesium aluminium silicate with the formula Mg₃Al₂(SiO₄)₃, though the magnesium can be replaced in part by calcium and ferrous iron. In 1928, Fleer employee Walter Diemer improved the Blibber-Blubber formulation to produce the first commercially successful bubblegum, Dubble Bubble. Pyrope, from the Latin pyropos, means similar to fire. Unfortunately, while this gum was capable of being blown into bubbles, in other respects it was vastly inferior to regular chewing gum, and Blibber-Blubber was never marketed to the public. Almandite has nicknames of Oriental garnet, almandine ruby, and carbuncle. Fleer originally developed a bubblegum formulation called Blibber-Blubber in 1906. Almandite occurs in metamorphic rocks like mica schists, associated with minerals such as staurolite, kyanite, andalusite, and others.

Bought out by comic-book empire Marvel in 1992, it is now a part of Upper Deck. Chemically, almandite is an iron-aluminium garnet with the formula Fe₃Al₂(SiO₄)₃; the deep red transparent stones are often called precious garnet and are used as gemstones (being the most common of the gem garnets). Fleer in the mid-19th century, was the first company to successfully manufacture bubblegum. The term "carbuncle" is derived from the Latin meaning "little spark." The name Almandite is a corruption of Alabanda, a region in Asia Minor where these stones were cut in ancient times. The Fleer Corporation, founded by Frank H. Almandite, sometimes called almandine, is the modern gem known as carbuncle (though originally almost any red gemstone was known by this name). .

Garnet is the birthstone for January, and has been used since the Bronze Age. uvarovite-grossularite-andradite. pyrope-almandine-spessarite and 2. The garnets make up two solid solution series; 1.

They are pyrope, almandine or carbuncle, spessartite, grossularite (varieties of which are hessonite or cinnamon-stone and tsavorite), uvarovite and andradite. Six common varieties of garnet are recognized based on their chemical composition. The blue color-change type is mainly caused by relatively high amounts of vanadium (about 1 wt.% V₂O₃). It is expected that blue color-change garnets will match Alexandrite prices or even exceed them as the color change is often better and these garnets are much rarer.

The color change of these new garnets is often more intense and more dramatic than the color change of top quality Alexandrite which is frequently disappointing, but still sells for many thousands of dollars (US) per carat. By composition, these garnets are a mix of spessartine and pyrope, as are Malaya garnets. In daylight, their color can be shades of green, beige, brown, gray and rarely blue, to a reddish or purplish/pink color in incandescent light. Color-change garnets are by far the rarest garnets except uvarovite, which does not come in cuttable sizes.

The lack of a blue garnet was remedied in 1990's following the discovery of color-change blue to red/pink material in Bekily, Madagascar but these stones are very rare. There is a misconception that garnets are only a red gem but in fact they come in a variety of colors including purple, red, orange, yellow, green, brown, black, or colorless. The name "garnet" comes from the Latin granatus, a grain possibly in reference to malum garanatum (pomegranate) a plant with red seeds similar in shape, size and color to some garnet crystals. Hardness is 6.5 - 7.5, specific gravity is 3.1 - 4.3, luster is vitreous to resinous, and they can be transparent to opaque.

Fracture is conchoidal to uneven; some varieties are very tough and are valuable for abrasive purposes. Garnets show no cleavage and a dodecahedral parting. The chemical elements in garnet include calcium, magnesium, aluminium, iron²⁺, iron³⁺, chromium, manganese, and titanium. They are nesosilicates with the same general formula, A₃B₂(SiO₄)₃.

The garnet group of minerals show crystals with a habit of rhombic dodecahedrons and trapezohedrons. Anthony, Gemologist. Lets Talk Gemstones by Edna B. Mineral Miners Garnet Info.

USGS Garnet locations - USA. Mineral galleries. Minerals.net. Mindat.org.

Color Encyclopedia of Gemstones ISBN 0442203330. Hurlbut, Cornelius S.; Klein, Cornelis, 1985, Manual of Mineralogy, 20th ed., Wiley, ISBN 0471805807. Calderite: Mn₃Fe³⁺₂(SiO₄)₃. Majorite: Mg₃(Fe,Al,Si)₂(SiO₄)₃.

Knorringite: Mg₃Cr₂(SiO₄)₃. Magnesium or manganese in A site