Fleer began producing their Metal cards in 1995-96. This was their second set here in ’96-97. You’re never going to confuse what season of Metal you have, because they were always good about indicating the season on the brand logo, here in the upper-left corner. 1996-97 was a little larger than the first Metal set, probably because there were more subsets this year. Series I contained 150 cards and Series II contained another 100 for a total of 250, 30 more than the first Metal set that previous year.
This particular Kevin Garnett card, #224, comes from the first subset in Series II, called Metallized. There’s ten of these cards in Series II, but there’s ten in Series I as well. Metal this year decided to spread three of the subsets between the different series, putting some in I and some in II.
For the design in 1996-97, they made Metal more “metal,” and this applies to this subset as well as the base cards. The first Metal set, the backgrounds were “metallized” meaning they took a normal background and applied silver etched foil for a particular effect. But the source of that background still came from a normal photograph. But in this second set, the background actually depicted metal. Here you can see what resembles metal plates and actual structures made of metal in the background. The same items are on the reverse too where we get another photo of the player and some info focusing on Kevin Garnett’s ability to block. Good, specific text mentioning two particular games during the ’96-97 season where he had eight blocks, once against Boston and again against Milwaukee.
There is a “Precious Metal” parallel of this card, but don’t let sellers confuse you. Often people label these cards as “Precious Metal” when they’re really not from that parallel set. The Precious Metals from this year have all silver backgrounds. Really no color. You see here on this base card, it covers nearly the whole spectrum of the rainbow. The Precious Metal has none of this…it’s really all silver. If you’re having to doubt at all, it’s not a Precious Metal.
Before we go, I also want to discuss the small “2” after “Metal” in the copyright info. This clearly means it’s the second series of ’96-97. But the following year, 1997-98 this would cause some confusion among collectors. In ’97-98, there were two sets, Metal Universe and Metal Universe Championship. The Championship cards had this same “2.” But they were numbered as a completely separate set, starting from #1. You will find some who consider Championship a second series, just like how the “2” appeared here in the second series of ’96-97. But the separate numbering and inserts for Universe Championship show that this “2” just means it is the second Metal production of the season. It’s still a separate set.
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