Topps & Donruss picture duplication

CubsKiller99

I'm not very familiar with early 80s Donruss sets, so I was surprised to see so many pictures from
their 1983 set were duplicated from the 1981 Topps set.

Anybody know the story behind this? Examples are Bruce Kison, Lenny Sakata, Willie Hernandez, etc.

mlbfan2

The Kison cards are similar, but they are clearly different photos. The other two are quite different. Are you talking about their regular cards from the base sets?

CubsKiller99

I stand corrected. The three I mentioned are subtly different but probably at the same photo shoot.

They aren't different enough to be interesting so you can see that the Donruss photo budget
for their 1983 set probably wasn't much.

jackstraw

82 Fleer and 82 Topps IA Carews are the same..

chouser

wouldn't there be restrictions against a photographer or company to sell the same photos to competitors ?

CubsKiller99

The photos in question lead me to believe what I've always thought -- that Topps, Donruss, Fleer -- contracted
their photography and were limited to what they could get that way and also by the limits of MLB and MLBPA.

Some of the photos in the 1982 and 1983 Donruss sets are cropped or just slightly different from photos that
Topps already used, so although they are technically different shots they're really the same picture. Taken at roughly
the same time for poses, or for action shots at the same game and the same camera angle (i.e. 1981 Topps, 1982 Donruss Milner).

This was evidently a cost-saving practice over an entire set that they didn't use for the star players.

I guess they didn't care if anyone noticed a year or two later for a non-star player.

vols1

Looks like the same pic used for Bo Jackson rookie by Topps & Donruss. All the teams have their own photographer on staff, so I would assume thats where a lot of these pictures come from.

Stingray

LINKY

This is not the exact same image, but must have been taken seconds apart.

handyman

Not sure of the story. But this also happend a lot in the 1960s.
Check out the 1965 Topps Willie mays and put it next to a 1968 Topps Willie Mays.
As bad as it is I think its cool to have them together.

ssollars

61 Topps and Fleer football share many photos as well.

Dboneesq

There are quite a few cards from the 60s that used the same pic, including the Mays that was mentioned above.

dontippet

<< <i>Looks like the same pic used for Bo Jackson rookie by Topps & Donruss. All the teams have their own photographer on staff, so I would assume thats where a lot of these pictures come from. >>



I've always wondered about the Bo cards. Never have been able to confirm that these are the same picture.

sdsalezman

My favorite example of Topps reusing the same image over and over again is Bubba Smith.

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