Question about 1981 Donruss

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Bigdaddy

To me, the big mystery surrounding 1981 Donruss was the collation, or better yet, lack there of. You could easily pull two or three of the same card out of a single
wax pack.

1981 was a good year if you were a kid collecting baseball cards.

One batch the local dealer got had 11 of the same card in every pack.
After a handful of packs sold he returned the whole batch to Donruss for a different one.

[JustinD]

I think it’s easy to guess if you assume they used similar equipment and lackadaisical inexperienced operators that had not done a similar order. If they cut tall stacks of the same sheets and then took those strips to the splitter as shown. Then running those same position cards stacked one over another would result in multiple copies being stacked together.

An experienced operator would pull differing sheets or cut a small quantity and stack those strips as they cut to make a mixed stack. Just a guess, but seems very likely to me.

[HittinLikeCarew]

Yeah the box I’ve been opening have a lot of similar cards. Gotten triples of Raines, M Wilson, Brett/Carew. Only 1 Ryan and 0 Carews which are a couple I’ve been looking out for

[Exhibitman]

The box I busted about ten years ago had a decent collation, but as a kid I remember getting a pack with multiple Pete Rose cards in it.

I also recall that in my neighborhood of LA, the Donruss issue was not to be found. Topps was everywhere and Fleer was in many stores, especially mini-marts, liquor stores, and convenience stores, but no Donruss. I actually got my first Donruss packs in November 1981 on a visit to NYC. I found a partial box and bought all of it. That's when I found the stacked Pete Rose pack.

[chaddgar]

The first current year pack I ever bought was '82 Donruss (pulled a Ryan!). I didn't get to experience the first year joy of 1981!

[philliesfan]

Those 81 Donruss and Fleer bring back a lot of memories.