1990 Donruss Todd Benzinger Grand Slammers Red Star Variation
WFC2008
Posts: 100 ✭✭
Just wondering if anyone has any information on this card. I just opened a box of cellos and pulled two of the red star variations. The confusing thing to me is that I also pulled 8 yellow star Benzingers from the same box. I have never opened a box of anything before where both the error/variation and the corrected card are both packed together. The box had the Morris/Hickey variations but the actual error cards were all the corrected versions.
Almost every cello had two of the Grand Slammers instead of just one and each time I pulled a Benzinger it was also paired with Mike Scioscia in the same pack.
Does anyone know how these were laid out on the uncut sheets or what caused this variation. Just find it odd that both the red and yellow star were in the same box.
Any information is appreciated. Thanks!
Comments
Did your 1990 Donruss cello boxes come from one of the grocery floor stand displays?
I have zero experience with the 1990 Donruss cellos. However, about 18 months or so ago, I opened about 6 1989 Donruss cello boxes from a factory sealed grocery floor stand display. The packs state "39 picture cards", but a great majority of the packs had a number of cards that was different, with counts within each box as low as 37 and as high as 42 per pack, with almost none having the stated 39.
The standard pack should also have 2 of the 3-piece puzzle inserts, also. The actual number would range between 1-3. Some boxes would have packs that would have ALL of one color bordered card (i.e. red) on the top half of the pack, and then ALL of another color on the bottom (i.e. green), with even some packs that were entirely made up of only one color. I routinely hit packs with multiple repeating runs of the same 3-5 cards, and some of those repeating cards within the same packs would actually be of the different variations with 1 star/2 stars by the "Denotes Led League", as well as the period/no period after the "Inc". To get variations of the same card within one pack was confounding, to say the least.
Some boxes would have packs that would also be perfectly sequenced, but alternating 5 or 6 card numbers apart (i.e. 305, 311, 316, 322, 327, 333, 338, etc.). I would also pull several severely miscut cards per box, like 1/3rd of a card present, cleanly cut, with the other 2/3rds nowhere to be found.
All of these completely different irregularities were found within boxes from the same sealed case. I didn't know what to make of it. It was really weird, and I came to the conclusion that grocery store floor stand display product was likely just produced and packaged with a bunch of random rejected sheets and overstock, for whatever reason, perhaps rather than just throwing the stuff away at a loss. They maybe then sold that lower quality stuff at a much lower price point and in great volume to that part of their supply chain vs the hobby and big retail stores. I don't know...
I know that none of this directly relates to your question about 1990 Donruss, but I just wanted to let you know that quirky distribution stories with Donruss product is pretty much routine and expected.
Thanks I appreciate the info. I am not sure if these were grocery cellos or not. A friend recently went to a show and picked up the boxes for me. Is there a way to tell?
I did have some packs where I got the same card twice and also had the same occurrence with the puzzle pieces where I was getting 1 to 3 puzzle pieces. Even had the same runs in two packs that were on top of each other but at least one of the times Griffey was in it.
I have opened cello boxes of 88 and ran into the same exact sequencing of the closely numbered cards. I felt like some boxes were 80% were roughly sequenced and then some other randoms mixed in so you didn't feel like you were just opening up a factory set in individual packs.
The fact that you were able to pull the different variations of the same card from the same box does help answer the question. I might be looking at this the wrong way. Maybe it is not so much a card that was corrected, but for reasons unknown on some sheets, X amount of spots on that sheet had the red star. With only 12 cards in the set, the cards are going to repeat quite often and I am sure the sheets for the Grand Slammers were separate. So its possible that only on a certain percentage of sheets, a certain percentage of all the Benzingers on that sheet were effected so it is not like a typical error and correction run but instead both variations live together on the same sheet.
I always find these stories about different variantions of same card in same box intriguing. I’m not a religious board reader, but a fairly regular one, and don’t think I’ve ever seen an explanation. I’ve nothing to help with your story, all I’ve got to add is that a few years ago out of an 89 Fleer box I pulled a black box FFace corrected Ripken, and the very next card in the pack was a saw cut black scribble FFace, which absolutely thrilled me for some reason. Thanks for sharing, interested to hear any theories.
I'm not sure if you can tell by looking at the individual cello box. The outside brown box will be clearly marked, though. I will say that the 1990 floor stand displays seemed to be much more elusive to me than the 1988 or 1989 displays. I was able to buy 2 of each of those rather easily, and rather cheaply. I've only seen one 1990 cello floor stand display ever listed for sale, and the price was excessive, so I passed. I was thinking to myself, it's 1990 Donruss for crying out loud, how hard can they be to find, and for that reason, I'm NOT paying THAT!...After several years of looking and never seeing one again, I just bought a wax case floor stand display and called it good. I haven't looked hard for a cello case since then, but do randomly search for one on eBay, still with nothing popping up in the results.
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I believe this happened to @AFLfan with his box. I think he pulled both the red and the yellow stars.
I mean, the only thing I can think of is that they were using multiple printers but cutting and packaging at one location.
Arthur
Those displays are incredible. Thanks for sharing the pics and good luck with your search for the 90 cello display.
I was looking a little further into this. I had opened three total cello boxes and got 14 Benzingers. Out of those 14, there were 9 unique splatter patterns. The red star variation was a different splatter pattern than any of the yellow stars and the two red star ones had the same pattern. There are only a few other examples I can find on line but all the red star variations that I can find pictures of, all have the same exact splatter pattern.
What I do not see, are any of the yellow star cards with the same splatter pattern as the red star one. I think this explains why the red star and yellow star variations can be found in the same box. It is not so much an error and correction as most likely the red star has its own spot on the sheet.
If an uncut sheet of 90 Donruss has a 132 cards and the Grand Slammers set has 12 cards, then each sheet should produce 11 sets and then my guess would be that it would also produce 11 unique splatter patterns per card. Then we may be able to expect that for every 11 Benzinger cards, there would be 10 yellow star and 1 red star.
If this was consistent for each sheet made, I would still expect to see a lot more examples of the red star out there unless there were more than variation of the lay out on these sheets. Quite possibly the answer is that there are a lot more of them out there
The more likely answer is though is that the red star is one per sheet and I am just one of a very small group of people that are even looking for it or we would see more available.