80s/90s Review

[ALR-bishop]

What would be your definition of a master set for that period ?

[deweyinthehall]

Originally Posted by ALR-bishop

What would be your definition of a master set for that period ?

Generally speaking:
1) All Base cards
2) All insert sets to include the "every pack" run of the mill logo stickers, holograms, puzzles and magic motion cards.
3) Wrappers
4) Send-aways (where purchase of some sort of pack was necessary)
5) Contest/Advertising inserts
6) Traded/Update sets
7) Bonus cards or inserts from factory sets
8) Variations: my own delineator here is to NOT include print defects.
So, for example, I DO have: 1990 Upper Deck Jamie Weston, 1981 Fleer
Craig Nettles and 1982 Fleer John Littlefield reverse negative, but NOT
for example, 1990 Fleer Dave Martinez with the yellow "'90", 1990 Topps
Frank Thomas NNOF or the 1982 Topps blackless.
9) Box bottom cards
10) No parallels - so, I have the 1991 Donruss Sandberg Elite Signature because there's no version without a signature, but NOT the 1991 Mantle signatures because they are basically a parallel of the unsigned version.
11) Single exemplars of large-scale variations: Donruss Factory Set border changes, missing "." after "INC", 1991 Fleer jumbo pack variations.

[ALR-bishop]

I think that is the most inclusive master list I have ever seen. Congrats.

While I collect any recurring print defects my variations list was whatever was listed in SCD, Beckett and the PSA master checklists

[deweyinthehall]

It was fun - and relatively cheap -putting it together. The most expensive things generally were the Donruss Elites, particularly 1992, and of course of couple of the Fleer Updates - 84, 92. The 1992 Donruss Updates, which came 4 per factory set, are surprisingly hard to find and pricey when I do see them. The most tedious part was putting together the variations in 1991 Topps and all the Fleer Logo Sticker variations - some of which I still need.

[Bigdaddy]

Wow, that was a nice run through history.

I generally agree with all your ratings, except that imo, nothing beats the early UD sets. Not even close.

I liked that you rated the 1988 Score as the best that year. I thought they really had something that season with the color backs and great writeups. But repeating the same mistake as Fleer in 1982, they hit the sophomore jinx the next year. I never cared much for Score after that.

For me, the best year all around was 1984 with Donruss just edging Topps. Both were very nice sets. I've recently pulled out one of my 1984 Donruss sets and put it in a binder and am slowly working on a signed version.

And as one poster above said, the 1990 Leaf cards were top-notch.