1981-1988 Underrated?

[Chicosbailbonds]

Love the 1988 Score set. Very clean design and always liked backs that had a little blurb or two about the player. Its neck and neck with the 1984 Donruss set for me.

[vintagebaseballcardguy]

So much goodness in this thread! I remember being a kid just dying to have an '84 Fleer Update set but never being able to afford it. What a great decade! As I get older, my appreciation for my own childhood and my own era grows. I have long collected the 1950s, and it was a great time in baseball history. However, it wasn't my era. I treasure my 80s cards, and there are so many more I want! I love having the sets, because I even remember the common players and not only the stars. The only plastic I need for this era are 9 pocket pages and Cardsavers/toploaders. While I want reasonably sharp cards, I don't need my 80s cards to be graded. The '82 Blackless cards are awesome! While I don't have as many as I would like, that's something I'd like to work on. I also very much enjoy '84 Topps encased.

[Blackless Collector]

1982 Topps Hector Cruz Blackless

Originally Posted by Chicosbailbonds

Love the 1988 Score set. Very clean design and always liked backs that had a little blurb or two about the player. Its neck and neck with the 1984 Donruss set for me.

I love that set also. Just finished my custom art for my sets binder

[deweyinthehall]

I just completed putting together master sets from this era, specifically the years during which I collected as a kid (81-91).

My own personal favorite sets, based solely on looks (as opposed to value, rookie cards, variations or anything else):
1981 Fleer
1983 Topps
1987 Topps
1987 Donruss
1988 Topps
1989 Topps
1990 Fleer
1991 Upper Deck

As someone who sorted cards by teams (then and now as I ripped packs) most of the non-Topps issues were maddening because they were hard to sort in this fashion at high speed - nothing much to go on other than an often small team logo. That's one of the reasons 1990 Fleer was such a welcome change of pace.

I've often heard that it was good for Topps to get the competition in 1981 - that they had grown stale. But I think that with the exception of 1979, the sets of the 1970s (and 1980 for that matter) were some of the best ever. By contrast, I count 1982, 1985, 1986 and 1990 as some of their worst looking offerings, and this when they had to compete against 2, then 3 then 4 competitors.

[Mike D.]

Fun era and fun post! I feel like with the price jumps of the last year, the era is finally getting some respect.

I love that the designs are so different and so subjective. 100 people's top 10 lists will be all different.

I really liked '82-87 Donruss, '83 and '84 Topps, '88 Score, and '89 UD. I'm not sure Fleer made a good looking set the whole decade, IMHO...although I think '84 is my favorite.

The other great thing about the 80's is the the regular sets were still the draw...no inserts. But there were a million "small box sets" out there for every taste, from every department store, drug store, etc.

[Mike D.]

Oh, and the last graded 80's card I bought (this week).