1986 Donruss Baseball PSA Grading

RayBShotz

Has anyone ever tried submitting cards from the 86' D Baseball set?
Seems to me it would have to be tough scoring high grade cards. With that dark blue front and solid light blue reverse it must be tough to avoid the edge chipping that is common on dark border cards. Combine that with the usual Donruss centering issues I would imagine this set to be a bear in PSa 9 or better.
The set is pretty soft, value wise these days. With plentiful raw at reasonable prices and no high dollar star rookies it seems to be in disfavor.
Lastly I thought I would say that Donruss had a killer run of really nice sets in the mid 80's from 84' thru the 86' set.
Thoughts?.
RayBShotz

jackstraw

Go ahead Ray get me hooked on another set!!!! Its kind of 86 Donruss related but when I first learned of PSA it was through SBC. There was dealer in Enfield that had a few older cards graded by SBC(1993 or so) well I fell in love with the idea and asked a ton of Questions. Come to find out they went out of business. I picked up the SCD and saw and ad for PSA well by 1994 I had my first PSA graded card an 86 Donruss Fred Mcgriff PSA 10(bought from Kris Keppler in White Plains) . I also sent in 20 cards for grading and have been hooked ever since!

ArnyVee

NO! Not another set that I'd be tempted to start ....((covering his ears))....la, la, la, la.....I can't hear you.....

5STAT

Ray,
I'm with you here...rack cases are the way to go for opening though....
My idea...I have put together 3 MINT MINT sets..that if graded should be 9's and hopefully 10's...and that's the way they will stay until I suddenly come into alot of disposable green stuff. So it looks like the closet for the next few years..

theplasticman

yeah - this is a toughie. I do have a PSA 10 Eddie Murray and an extra PSA 9.

Want an even tougher one? 1986 Leaf

fur72

I am sending 3 in today, I will let you know how it turns out.

Stingray

Up on Ebay, not mine, but someone mentioned Leaf.

Stingray

BugOnTheRug

Oh no! Not this!!!!!!!

I really like the donruss sets from 84 to 86. 1984 is by far my favorite, but I really like the 86 set, then the 85. I've toyed with the idea of doing all 3 sets in psa 9/10, but the grading costs prohibit it. It's bad enough with the 84's but they are in a class all to themselves IMO so worth the time and money. 85 and 86 are another story, but if the big dealers bust a boatload of cases, who knows? Maybe, just maybe I'll try it.....

Oh no! Not this.................

mcastaldi

Plasticman> Was 86 Leaf issued only in wax? I have some experience with 85 Leaf and know those only came in wax packs. 85 Leaf are damned tough - partly because they only came in wax, but mostly the stock is so thin and the cuts are so rough they're infinitely more prone to chipping than the Donruss version.

Mike

RedHeart54

Man, '86 Donruss. I remember I was so proud that I paid only $10 for Canseco and then it hit $125 for a while. I paid $5 for McGriff and it hit $30+. And while I wasn't fortunate enough to pay 12 cents for Fielder (I think I paid $10 or $15) I was nonetheless the happiest kid when I finally got it during that summer of '90 when he hit 51 HRs. Weren't packs getting about $10 each then?

Man, the memories.

jradke4

if i remember correctlly all leaf 85-88 were issused in wax only

ArnyVee

I remember buying a box of 86 leaf looking for the Canseco....heh....no Canseco in that set! Doh! I did pull like three McGriffs though if I remember right.

qualitycards

<< <i>if i remember correctlly all leaf 85-88 were issused in wax only >>


If my memory serves... I remember buying a collection 10+ years ago and in it was an '87 Leaf factory set. Not a 100% sure, but pretty sure! ...jay

theplasticman

Almost certain those years are only in wax packs.

RayBShotz

Time on my hands again.
I busted a 1986 Donruss factory set tonight. On centering and corners there were an amazing 75 submittable cards out of 660. All in all the set was pretty nice. (Better quality for sure than an 84'D Factory set I busted up a few weeks ago.)
Many stars included in the lot as well.

Question for modern collectors who have done a lot of submitting. Some of these cards have microscopic fibres of paper (look more like tiny white hairs) projecting off the side or top edges of the card. An obvious trait of the paper quality and the cutting process. Has anyone noticed this with 80's cards before and what have you found the net result of sending these types of cards in for grading?. The cards are virtually perfect otherwise.

If you get a nice centered (and not diamond cut) 86' Donruss these things are sweet! The deep blue venetian blinds borders look surreal at arms length.
Real tempted to grade these but don't want to get hammered.
Comments?
RayBShotz

downgoesfrazier

Ray,
As long as the surface enamel is in tact and the stock isn't compromised, you should do just fine. I will say that different graders react differently sometimes. I broke an 82 Football case a couple years ago that yielded the best cards I've ever seen. Many copies had fibers along the top edge along with some pulling at the edge of the stock (extra paper). As long as the corner was all there I did really well. I only submitted 16 cards the first time, 7 of them graded 10's and the rest graded 9 with one 7. Upon further inspection, the NM 7 had a slight "lift" in the top edge. You'll want to look for that as well as "cracking" in the shiny surface on those things. They're tightly wrapped so, well, you know.
Try two seperate invoices and test the waters. Send in Vince Coleman and Eric Davis for me, will ya? How 'bout Lou Whitaker while you're at it.

dgf

bri2327

I busted an 86 donruss factory set over the weekend & got a good 35-40 worthy of sending in, I was pleasantly surprised. Definately was better than any wax ive busted from that yr. I have head a problem with factory busted cards being graded though. It seems donruss cut the cards slightly smaller for factory, thus PSA is sending them back trimmed.

digicat

Donruss seemed to make their factory set cards a little shorter than their regular ones as a rule. I've seen that with 85, 86, and 87. I haven't had anything sent back as trimmed though, but then again, I've only submitted one card like this. :-) It was short t/b and l/r.

One thing to watch out for is the corners. Under magnification, the corners are sometimes ever-so slightly rounded, as opposed to sharp 90 degree angles. It looks like they were made like that, but it's probably a result of being in those cello wrapers all these years. It's very, very subtle. I submitted a Puckett that looked PERFECT, fresh out of a 1985 Donruss factory set, and it came back a 9. Sigh.

RayBShotz

Submitted 4 cards from an 86D' factory set to round out a 25 card November Special submission (the rest were 84D's) and got back 3 10's and 1 9. There were perhaps 75 9/10 cards in that set that I may submit at a future date. I like this set as well.
The 86' Donruss set gives you one really neat guideline for T/B centering in that those horizontal blue lines can be counted on top and on bottom to judge for centering. Right to left by eye is always a little easier to do, so grading these for centering is a bit easier at first glance.

I've said it here already, but I love this set too.

Can't wait for the next 80's Special.
RayBShotz