1981: Topps, Donruss or Fleer?

[JustinD]

I remember my small town convenience store “the quik stop” had no topps I can remember that year. I could only get fleer and donruss cards in my little farm town, I had to go into the city to toys r us for Topps.

The distributor must have gave them a good deal as I remember them having all the fleer and donruss non sports and fleer candies as well. Topps worked its way back into the store a year or two later.

[Zach Wheat]

Topps was always king for me.

[UKCardGuy]

All me and my friends could talk in Dallas in 1981 was the error cards. I remember buying a lot of 1981 Fleer packs to get the Graig/Craig Nettles error card.

I think that the 81 Fleer is the best looking cards that year. I really liked the look of the Donruss too but their cardstock was just sooooo thin.

[mortimer brewster]

The only good thing about Donruss was the gum. I remember walking into the corner store and buying a full 36 pack box. Collation was terrible. All the cards were Yankees, Royals or Tigers. In all I had 25 John Wathan cards from that one box.

In my opinion, all 3 card designs were Meh.

[Steve D]

I grew up about 20 miles east of San Diego, and remember buying all three companies' cards at the local Price Club (it was later bought out by Costco). I vividly recall going into the Price Club and seeing literally shrinkwrapped pallets of all three waxboxes there.

My favorite was Fleer because of all the variations, the fact that the photos were so clear...Rod Carew!! (and so many were portraits), the great collation, and the numbering of the cards by team. Donruss was my least favorite, due to the lousy collation (multiples of the same card in a pack), and bad quality (thin stock, off-centering, damage). 648 cards in a Donruss box (and 600 cards in the set), and after two boxes, you'd still be missing over half the set.

I put together multiple (8-10) Fleer sets just from wax packs. With both Donruss and Topps, I had to take my wantlist and buy/trade the cards at the local monthly card show. I think I only completed one Donruss set, and two or three Topps sets.

Steve

[Harliduck]

Thirty miles north of Seattle and the two c-stores where I was used to buying my cards only carried Donruss. As an 11 year old, I was ticked. I bought a few boxes and remember all the doubles in the same pack, and I also remember there were multiple cards of the stars, like Pete Rose and Reggie, and for some reason I hated that.

Made my mom look elsewhere for Topps and she found some and bought me enough packs until I completed the set. Topps was still king. I couldn't find Fleer anywhere and had heard about all the errors. I remember buying the complete set at the card shop in 82 and bummed that I didn't get one error.

Those two c-stores sold 81 Donruss for like two more years to get rid of all that wax no kids wanted. I reluctantly bought enough to put a set together. I think the stores were scorned as I could never find Donruss again locally for years, had to get complete sets at the shop in Edmonds each year (great Christmas presents). 82 and after Fleer and Topps were everywhere...