1981 Donruss meeting room. No Topps allowed!

MintMoondog · October 22, 2013 6:42AM

Hey guys,
I have always had a soft spot for 1981DR because of how horrible the cards were and how exciting it was to have a "different" card company to buy outside of Topps as a kid. I was thinking of putting together a high end set because it seems like a huge challenge (anyone who ripped a waxbox knows

)but then noticed a large number of uncut sheets for sale on ebay. There is no reason for me to invest money in PSA 10s if certain pristine dealers can get their hands on sheets so easily. Anyone know the story behind this? I did not find similar sheets for other years (some small promos mostly) and why are so many coming from Canada?

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3

Since I mistakenly duplicated this thread on the memorability forum. I figured we can use this thread for any/all collectors of 1981 Donruss. The cards are so ugly, they are actually attractive to me, and I am sure there are others who collected these cards with excitement because they weren't Topps!

Stingray · October 22, 2013 7:51PM

Did this thread get moved?? I remember buying this set in sheet form back in the early 80s from an ad in Baseball Digest.

ldferg · October 23, 2013 11:41AM

I made an offer on a sheet a couple if weeks ago and never pulled the trigger on the counter offer.

Agree on the pristine comment. Smh.

Justintime · October 25, 2013 4:31AM

Stingray · October 25, 2013 7:36AM

I bought a pack last year and a third of the cards were fused together from the gum. Too bad they did not do rack.

Bkritz · October 25, 2013 10:50AM

I have a psa 10 1981 Donruss Dale Murphy for $30. PM me if interested. Dale was the MAN in 81!

ddfamf · October 26, 2013 12:40AM

Finally a 1981 Donruss "ugly club"!

I remember buying packs chasing those errors in '81 - '82 while watching that new thing called MTV on the weekends!

carkim · October 27, 2013 12:18AM

Glad to see 1981 Donruss has somewhat of a following. I have been upgrading my 1981 Donruss Master Set for some time now.

ddfamf · October 27, 2013 5:57AM

Very nice - thats a project of pure love!

mrmopar · October 27, 2013 12:26PM

Among all the crappy portraits and grainy photos, this set has a few surprise action shots that really look great. I have always enjoyed those game action shots that Topps made so common in the 70s.

for example...

[URL=http://s9.photobucket.com/user/mrmopar/media/Photos/83-501Fr_zps07c11edd.jpg.html]

[/URL]

MintMoondog · October 27, 2013 8:08PM

<< <i>Glad to see 1981 Donruss has somewhat of a following. I have been upgrading my 1981 Donruss Master Set for some time now. >>

Nice set carkim! I'll work on mine for the next 1/2 decade I am sure. I am really excited about building the set from ripping waxboxes, but we'll see how it goes.

sayheykid54 · October 27, 2013 8:32PM

I opened a TON of 1981 Donruss packs back in the day. I was thinking about putting together an all Psa 10 set.

MintMoondog · October 27, 2013 11:19PM

<< <i>I opened a TON of 1981 Donruss packs back in the day. I was thinking about putting together an all Psa 10 set. >>

Same here!

In 1981 I had a paper route and blew all my money on Topps and Donruss...for some reason I did not buy Fleer. BTW, I checked the population reports and those are CRAZY!! I have never seen such divergence/variance in populations. I understand that stars are graded more often but there are a large number of very low pop commons. Can some of the set experts start informing us on what is what in this set?

MiniDuff · October 28, 2013 1:02AM

Very easy to explain Henry. Not easy to get high grade cards and zero market to make it worth trying. There is literally one complete graded set. I graded a handful from the boxes I broke before selling you the rest of that case. One example was a pop 4 psa 10. It took the better part of a year to sell it for $12 with free shipping. I'll never sub another common from the set again.

mmsportscards · November 9, 2013 3:28AM

Duffs correct not worth the dime to sub. I subbed a few of mine with buyers in line already but that's that....I wont get back into the stash till its worthwhile....There are some tough commons...With this set its all centering and snow...If your looking to do it subbing yourself I suggest getting raw from different sources otherwise you will end up with the same cards and centering....I purchased 60 raw first series sets which were pack fresh from one source which the sets were probably from 2 locations so I ended up with 30 of each card in same centering to the tee almost....It wasn't bad in the profit area the roses were all gems...Landed well over 40 gem roses....In the rest of the quest Ive never seen sets in that great of shape. But Id bet most of the sets I've scoured (120) id bet 85 percent of each set is oc...

jackstraw · November 9, 2013 3:50AM

Do I remember collecting till my heart was complete the summer of 81... Those were the days *sigh*

Stingray · November 9, 2013 7:34AM

<< <i>Do I remember collecting till my heart was complete the summer of 81... Those were the days *sigh* >>

+1

BPorter26 · November 9, 2013 11:26AM

I loved this set as a kid. Here's my only PSA 10

carkim · April 11, 2015 12:03PM

Looking to upgrade my 1981 Donruss Master Set .

PM Me if you can help...

ldferg · April 11, 2015 11:48PM

Glad to see you complete this set.

I heard that when dealers ordered sets when this set was released (ex: ordered 100 sets), donruss sent 100 of each card in a stack (or stacks) wrapped in a rubber band. The dealer had to collate these into sets with several damaged cards due to rubber band marks.

MintMoondog · April 13, 2015 1:33AM

Nice! I still have a mess of waxboxes that I hope to start working on. I think I sold off around 20 or so. Congratulations on your set

yankeeno7 · April 13, 2015 12:29PM

Here is a one question quiz for you all...maybe you all already know....

What company printed the 1981 Donruss?

yankeeno7 · April 14, 2015 12:29AM

No guesses?

Ok, it was TCMA who actually did the printing for 1981 Donruss. The same TCMA that did all the minor league sets and specialty sets. From what I understand, it was only in 1981 that Donruss had TCMA print for them.

MiamiTomTom · April 14, 2015 2:24AM

>>

since I mistakenly duplicated this thread on the memorability forum. I figured we can use this thread for any/all collectors of 1981 Donruss. The cards are so ugly, they are actually attractive to me, and I am sure there are others who collected these cards with excitement because they weren't Topps! >>

Was wondering what answer you got on the uncut sheet issue? I do remember these cards being all kids of crazy cuts and off center...I can't imagine investing much money in Gem Mint cards if there are uncut sheets out there by the truck loads. Or is there a way for PSA to tell a card was cut from a formerly uncut sheet? (Can't imagine there is).

Panama Mutiny (Formerly lawyer05) · March 31, 2018 3:00PM

anyone selling a Sanguillen 1981 ? thanks

bishop · April 3, 2018 6:53AM

Crowded room

From my only Donruss set

Panama Mutiny (Formerly lawyer05) · April 3, 2018 10:24AM

@bishop said:
Crowded room

From my only Donruss set

Sell me

bishop · April 4, 2018 7:32AM

There are several on COMC and EBay

craig44 · April 4, 2018 4:58PM

Whatever happened to mintmoondog anyways?

NGS428 · April 5, 2018 9:11AM

I actually bought a complete set of 81D back in the early 90’s, not sure why. Guess it was so bad I loved it too! Still have it.

krisd3279 · January 16, 2019 2:26PM

I have been wanting to get a complete 81D set for a while now. I have had a few unopened boxes from BBCE in my cart several times and always stopped, mostly due to the horrible collation and other issues I have read about in this forum and others. Given the collation I'm guessing it would take several boxes to get the complete set and at $69 a box that gets pretty steep for just a side thing to do for fun. I have decided to just buy a set on EBAY since they can be had for less than the cost of a single unopened box. I'll inherit someone else's problems that way, but at least I will have the complete set which is the main goal. I may still buy a box or two of unopened just for the fun of ripping old wax. It certainly sounds like an interesting break.

PROMETHIUS88 · January 21, 2019 12:51PM

Man, I still remember ripping those packs when they came out at a kid. While they were a bit cheap looking and feeling, it was cool having a different company putting out cards. Loved that there were multiple Rose cards in the set. I will never forget....they just smelled different opening the packs. Weird, I know.

Panama Mutiny (Formerly lawyer05) · January 21, 2019 12:56PM

@krisd3279 said:
I have been wanting to get a complete 81D set for a while now. I have had a few unopened boxes from BBCE in my cart several times and always stopped, mostly due to the horrible collation and other issues I have read about in this forum and others. Given the collation I'm guessing it would take several boxes to get the complete set and at $69 a box that gets pretty steep for just a side thing to do for fun. I have decided to just buy a set on EBAY since they can be had for less than the cost of a single unopened box. I'll inherit someone else's problems that way, but at least I will have the complete set which is the main goal. I may still buy a box or two of unopened just for the fun of ripping old wax. It certainly sounds like an interesting break.

me too. i have stopped myself 3 times... lol

Panama Mutiny (Formerly lawyer05) · January 21, 2019 12:57PM

@bishop said:
There are several on COMC and EBay

not in good condition

JRR300 · January 27, 2019 5:17PM

I really wanted to collect this set, as I was tired of Topps, but they were just awful. I didn't buy enough to check on the collating in a box, but the centering was just terrible. It was so difficult to get a nice looking card that I just gave up. I have recently bought some boxes that I have not opened yet...maybe when I'm feeling a bit lucky.

1981 Donruss meeting room. No Topps allowed!

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