I Know It's Only the 80's Special, But...

dom

I GOT MY FIRST TENS!!!! Woo Hoo!

This invoice was actually the second that I sent in, and it got an eight day turnaround. For some reason, the first invoice hasn't reached the graders yet. Go figure. This invoice contained 78 1984 Donruss (mostly) commons. OK, OK, I've got a crew loose. And I didn't think these cards were as good as the ones I sent in earlier. The breakdown is five 10's, sixty-three 9's, and ten I'm too embarrassed to mention.

Can't wait for the others to come back.

boggs301012

In the profound words of Homer ...Whooo HOOOO Congrats!!


Any uhhh Boggs 10?

FB

Dom,

Great job!!!! If my finances were better I might give you a run for the plaque!! But, for now, I'll settle for falling down the 84 Donruss ranks! And for some reason I don't seem to mind nearly as much when its one of the board's good guys!

Again - congrats!!!

dom

Thanks guys,

I've also got a screw loose as well as that crew. I should do a better job of proofreading my posts.

Boggsy, if you want that rookie Boggs on top of the rack pack, PM your address.

JH

Dom - Congrats on the grades... particularly the 10's... I've got a 84 Donruss hand-made set somewhere, and the results of a lot of packs I opened in the mid 90's.....I guess I should probably pull those out and look through them.

Fabfrank

That's great Dom. This was the set that brought me back to collecting. I remember buying packs at Walgreens and wondering "What's this Donruss stuff?". But man were those cards nicer than Topps. When I went back to buy more, they were sold out. That's when I found out that the product was limited and tough to get. I searched every card store, Woolworths, Walgreens and Caldors in the Bronx and Westchester and bought every pack. This helped me build my "store manager" network. It seemed very few people knew these stores sold this product (or Fleer). The store mangers would hold the cases for me and sell them to me at 25-50% off! I knew I should have taken those 86 Fleer Basketball boxes, but that's another story.
Aside from some of the football sets I'm going to post on the Registry, I think this will be the first baseball set I'll work on.
Thanks for the memories.

dom

Good Luck, Fab. Anyone who puts together a set like this is truly collecting for the sheer enjoyment of the hobby, 'cause we certainly ain't gonna get rich.

I'm on a roll. Better, I'm on a bagel. Just got back my second invoice on the 80's Special. Of the 96, there were 14 tens, and 65 nines. The cards were all sharp, but the graders seem to key in on centering. That's got to be the key. Just a scoche off, and I mean an RCH, and that ten becomes a nine or that nine becomes an eight.

Still have two invoices out. On one, all the cards came from a factory set. The corners from these sets are not sharp; they are rounded. I've been assured that the graders know that, but I'm guessing there will be more eights than I will want to see. Will keep everyone informed.

I'm like a little kid again.

FB

So Dom...

Let me get this straight.... Does this mean that you'll have more than 4% of the 84 Donruss set completed?????? THERE GOES MY #1 SPOT!!!!

How am I going to break this to my wife (or the dog for that matter)???

NickM

Frank, whatever you do, DON'T TELL THE DOG. He'll never forgive you.

Nick

dom

I can't believe this. The last 80's Special invoice I sent was logged in on Monday, the 24th. They've been graded already and the grades are listed! Invoice #8012550 This group contained cards that came exclusively from a factory set. The corners on them are different from cards that come from packs. Except for the first three which I knew weren't as good as the others, the results are not too strong. There were only three tens from a group that I carefully selected. IMHO, the graders are affected by the rounded corners of the factory sealed cards. I could be wrong, but that's what I think.

What is really strange is that my first invoice, logged in on June 5th, has not yet been graded. I haven't gotten a definitive answer from customer service yet as to why, but I'm going to try one more time.

JH

Dom - based on your results, I would have to agree... it's seems like at some level, they adjust for the rounded corners....

mcastaldi

Dom> I just looked at invoice# 8012550. If you felt this invoice "wasn't too strong", I guess I have to ask what were you expecting?

When I look at the invoice, this is what I see-

65 cards total

51 PSA9s - 78.5%
3 PSA10s - 4.6%

Now. . .I would argue that any invoice with over 83% in PSA9 or better - that has any 10s on it - is a highly successful invoice. If the graders were affected by the differences in the corners, the numbers don't seem to show it.

Also. . .if you look at your 78 card invoice with 5 10s and 61 9s and compare the percentage of PSA9 or better, it's only 1% better than 8012550.

Mike

dom

Hi Mike,

I understand what you're saying. My only point here was that these cards were exclusively from factory sets without the sharp corners. I thought I was especially careful in selecting the ones I did...excluding the top three. The graders are trained to look for razor tipped corners, so perhaps there was a subconscious bias to giving these factory cards tens because of the corners. I guess I was a little greedy because I thought the invoice would definitely produce more tens. That's it. I am very happy with the nines, of course, but I put a whole lot more effort into 8012550 than I did the other one.

riccaboni

Dom,

Although I am young at 15, I have been around long enough for the grading boom, and have had mixed results from factory sets, especially Donruss. I know exactly what you mean about the rounded corners, and PSA does too, but the highest I have had from a card the way you describe was a 9, infact I have had multiple 9s from the 1987 Donruss factory set, same with the 1986 Donruss factory set. But with another 1987 Donruss factory set, on a more recent submission, the corneres seemed the same, yet the cards that looked like previous 9s became 8s, with one PSA 7 Barry Larkin. Also on the 1987 Opening Day set, I submitted a few of the keys, Bonds, Larkin, ... Joyner..., and I got straight 7s with those rounded type corners. So all I can tell you is cross your fingers when you click submit to check your order status

Ian

dom

Thanks Ian. It may only be a perception on the grading or maybe not, but I'm glad I've got company.

crazysc

PSA regularly 10s cards from Donruss factory sets - I've had tons of Gwynn/Boggs/Sandberg RCs from 83, Clemens from '85, and all the guys from '87. '89 though is nearly impossible to get Griffey 10s out of factory sets (more so due to PD - I've opened and graded A LOT of them, maybe thousands) but Johnson isn't that tough. Same with Sosa, fairly easy 10 from factory sets in '90.

dom

Hey crazy, I appreciate your POV. I'm not down by any means, and your post will spur me to look at more factory sets.

riccaboni

Crazy,

Funny you should mention 1989 Donruss Griffeys... a while back, I bought 3 factory sets for somewhere around $50 after shipping costs. 1 8 and 2 7s... A tough card from factory sets. What I am wondering though, is why Donruss 1988s aren't valuable graded mint and above. They are real tough condition wise, but is there really THAT many of them that they aren't worth that much graded?...

Ian

mikeschmidt

Ian:

1988 Donruss wax boxes can still be had in the $5 - $8 range. At less than $0.25 a pack, I think it will be a long time before anyone counts these as "hard" to find high-condition cards. An entire case of 1988 Donruss can be had for less the the current selling price of many single boxes of new product. Yes -- they are hard to find in tough condition, but, no, it is not uncommon to find 100, 500, or even 3,200 card lots of any single star player from 1988 Donruss.

riccaboni

Mike,

I've realized that, as the first wax case I ever bought was a 1988 Donruss wax case, mainly because it was cheap. They are really tough to come by in 9, yet alone 10, but I do understand that these cards may have been over printed or something because of all the different varieties of unopened material at the time. I think of it as a sleeper set kind of though, I mean, it's a tough set for high grade but there is little interest because of the accessability I suppose. I say in 50 years, when these cards dry up, I'm going to be laughing my way to the bank with the $10 I make off the one of one Roberto Alomar, and then you'll all see!