My journey is close to ending with my 1986 Sports Illustrated Test Sticker Set

BPorter26

I started building this set of 20 cards about 5 years ago and got very frustrated because a lot of these cards would never came up on eBay nor could I find them at shows. I was like I'll never finish this set so why bother. I sold everything but one card 2.5 years ago, but I regret selling the Michael Jordan. I still kick my self for selling it. That's the one I should have kept.

If you reading this and your asking yourself what the hell is this clown talking about a sports illustrated test sticker card. These were produced in 1986 as a 3"x5" sticker that the poster / sports stores would placed on a metal poster holder next to the bin that kept the posters in. You can look at this small sticker to see what the poster actually looked like. As a kid growing up in the 80's my bedroom was covered in these sports illustrated posters. I have to say my favorite poster during that time was the Dwight Gooden poster.

Back to why I started collecting these again, I stumbled across 3 of the test stickers at the National (Bird, Magic and Dominique Wilkins) Mind you the Dominique I've never come across until that day. I got a great price and purchased them. As I'm driving home from the natty a buddy of mine who was still there called me and said he found a John Elway already in a PSA slab. The Elway is another one that I never seen, so I asked him to pick it up for me. Since the National I've been able to find 8 more to bring my total to 11. I'm down to 9. The only two I've never had in hand are the Dale Murphy & Wade Boggs.

Here's the remaining stickers / cards I need
Football
Lawrence Taylor
Herschel Walker

Basketball
Michael Jordan

Baseball
Gary Carter
Wade Boggs
Roger Clemens
Dale Murphy
Andre Dawson
Rickey Henderson

mrmopar

I have something very similar, but no numbers or logos on them. I wonder if maybe they were cut from a larger promotional poster that showed what the full size posters looked like, similar to what you describe.

erikthredd

Finding that Jordan might be tough. One of my daily searches had been to find one not knowing what the cost would be and the only MJ i've come across was a PSA 9 that was way out of my price range.

BPorter26

@erikthredd said:
Finding that Jordan might be tough. One of my daily searches had been to find one not knowing what the cost would be and the only MJ i've come across was a PSA 9 that was way out of my price range.

Erik that was mine.

bishop

Neat items

erikthredd

@BPorter26 said:

@erikthredd said:
Finding that Jordan might be tough. One of my daily searches had been to find one not knowing what the cost would be and the only MJ i've come across was a PSA 9 that was way out of my price range.

Erik that was mine.

Wow that must have been a tough decision to let that one go. That sticker has been high up on my White Whale list.

BPorter26

@erikthredd said:

@BPorter26 said:

@erikthredd said:
Finding that Jordan might be tough. One of my daily searches had been to find one not knowing what the cost would be and the only MJ i've come across was a PSA 9 that was way out of my price range.

Erik that was mine.

Wow that must have been a tough decision to let that one go. That sticker has been high up on my White Whale list.

Erik... At the time it really wasn't that tough of a decision, because these kind of cards sometimes are tough to sell because they're such a niche. I look back now and see how difficult this card really is.

BPorter26

I was able to pickup this Clemens the other day, but missed out on two others. I'm down to 8 test stickers remaining Lawrence Taylor, Herschel Walker, Michael Jordan, Dale Murphy, Wade Boggs, Andre Dawson, Gary Carter and Rickey Henderson.

BPorter26

A journey that I thought would take me years to complete has remarkably come to an end. I was very fortunate enough to stumble across a complete raw set about a month ago. I was completely shocked when I saw a complete set for sale. I made the purchase and once those babies hit my mailbox 15 of the 20 cards were on there way to the west coast. The five that were not sent, stayed with me because I have those same five in another sub. BTW that sub has not popped yet. I'm very happy overall with my results with the 15 I subbed especially the Michael Jordan. Here are the highlights.

Kid4hof03

Congratulations! I've always loved this set.

lawnmowerman

Awesomeness! They look excellent slabbed. Congrats!

maddux69

Very nice! Congrats Bobby!

erikthredd

Those are all some great looking stickers. That poor guy getting dunked on by Dominique must have hated that poster lol.

ldferg

Wow! A few are on my watch list. Good snag on the complete set. I’m looking for a Murphy.

Estil

I once had the Mattingly poster! You guys think I should get another one at some point?

Estil

@Kid4hof03 said:
Congratulations! I've always loved this set.

https://youtu.be/6B6bXWuKWW0
https://youtu.be/z6dSk7hhv5M

Sorry I couldn't resist

krisd3279

@Estil said:
I once had the Mattingly poster! You guys think I should get another one at some point?

Now I have to search for one.

csakers

Are there two versions of these: a sticker (either with a peel off or some type of adhesive); and a mini poster?

craig44

Just an observation. Wouldn't these actually be from 1987? Andre Dawson played the entire 1986 season with Montreal. A picture of him playing with the cubs couldn't have been taken before 1987.

brad31

@craig44 said:
Just an observation. Wouldn't these actually be from 1987? Andre Dawson played the entire 1986 season with Montreal. A picture of him playing with the cubs couldn't have been taken before 1987.

Good point just looked up when he actually signed with the Cubs and it was March of 1987. At least the Dawson cannot be from 1986.

Donyoguy

The Puckett is also 1987 or later, as the Twins didn't introduce those uniforms until the 1987 season. I have my suspicions about the Mattingly (length of his hair) and the Sandberg (same ball girl (?) in the background on Dawson's photo), but can't prove either. I wouldn't be surprised if this is a 1987 release mislabeled as 1986. The Murphy photo is really odd. That one appears to be from 1980 which was the last year the Braves used those white batting helmets.

Yeah yeah, first post, longtime lurker and all of that.

BPorter26

@csakers said:
Are there two versions of these: a sticker (either with a peel off or some type of adhesive); and a mini poster?

There is no peel off with these stickers. You would have to wet the back and it would adhere to whatever you were sticking it to, but these stickers were used to show what the actually full size poster would look like before you purchased it on the poster rack.

@craig44 said:
Just an observation. Wouldn't these actually be from 1987? Andre Dawson played the entire 1986 season with Montreal. A picture of him playing with the cubs couldn't have been taken before 1987.

Great eye, you're right about these SI stickers being from 1987 or even 88. I do remember buying the Dwight Gooden poster in the summer of 1986, but some of the other posters might not have been available until 1987.

BPorter26

Here's Rickey, Carter, Gooden and Boggs

Eddiecol

Hi I was wondering if anybody knew anything about this Jordan card/sticker having a replica known or a fake. It seems very rare and auctions on ebay have been high..but I see two versions one on ebay shows some psas and centered unmarked on bkrder..but then in a couple places I saw an OC version with a small yellow dot on bottom border. (Seen below) I cant find a single blurb of any reprints or fakes anywhere to be found...any help would be appreciated! Not sure if the picture worked, just joined here. Thank you in adavnce

LarkinCollector

Some red flags:
Font on the 4465 doesn't match the example above
Doesn't seem there is enough total R/L border
Seems there is too much T/B border

I don't know these well enough to comment if these are possible within legit standards, but I would pass.

erikthredd

That one is definitely a fake. Contact this ebay seller: all.ready.dead and he can give you more info on it. just in the past month he had sold his real copy and he also set up a 2nd ebay listing pointing out that there are fakes of this sticker that have yellow dots on the bottom border. I've seen some of these with pretty bad centering but where yours has the yellow dot I'd definitely try contacting that ebay user.

Eddiecol

Thank you very much I really appreciate it!