The final third

 

Wow, that's a lot of scuffing on that card. It's still surprising what you see once you scan a card.

 

Before getting into the heart of this post, thanks to reader Casey for taking those cards off my hands from the downsizing post. There will be more posts like that, with (slightly) better cards!

 

OK, now while I'm trying to get rid of some cards, I'm still adding cards at a pretty good rate. Lately I've been swimming in 1980s Donruss, which if you knew me in the early 1980s would certainly make you chuckle.

 

I've written about this several times -- Donruss was my third choice in the 1980s from the very moment I first saw the brand in 1981. Topps first, Fleer second, Donruss third when walking to the drug store or deli to find cards. By 1983, I wasn't even bothering with Donruss. The following year, Donruss produced what I've often called "the only Donruss set that matters" but mostly the reason I bought any in 1984 was because I purchased the entire Topps set at the beginning of the year.

 

But now, to my amusement, I find myself caring about those '80s Donruss sets a lot right now (we're talking about the first half of the '80s here). I've finished '81, '82, '84 and '88. Currently I'm tackling '83 (which I turned my nose up at in '83) and '85 (which I did like a lot but bought only a couple packs).

 

Donruss shouldn't get a big head over this, it's only because I've finished almost all of the '80s Topps and Fleer sets. Donruss comes in third, per usual. But at least it contains those nostalgic players that make me want those sets. You know, it's like how I feel about 1980s pop music now. I'll even listen to "Never Gonna Let You Go" because it's an '80s song -- I'd never do that in the '80s.

 

So I've been closing in on finishing the 1983 Donruss set first. Recently one of the big cards in the set came my way.

 

I've mentioned that I used to own this card as one of the maybe 30 cards from 1983 Donruss I had originally. Then I traded it away because who tries to complete '83 Donruss?

 

I saw the error of my ways and so did Matt of the blog A Most Adequate Collection. (I remember his Cardboard Conundrum blog from back in the day). He actually sent me the '83 Ryne Sandberg from his collection! That's very cool, and a lot better than shelling out 20 bucks for a base card from the '80s.

 

 

A 2024 A&G Chrome card of Mookie Betts came with the Sandberg card. This is the card I requested from Matt, seems a bit inadequate when compared with the Donruss card, eh?

 

So Sandberg and a couple of other recent arrivals get me to the very final few needs.

 

These two needs showed up in a TCDB trade with Mokolai. Once again I sent him a bunch of Dodgers dupes for a decent number of key set needs, I'll make that deal every time.

 

So if you throw the Sandberg in with these two cards, my want list claims that I need five more cards to finish the set.

 

They are: 
 

530 - Whitey Herzog
586 - Wade Boggs
593 - Don Werner
606 - Ozzie Virgil
639 - Ron Jackson (any version)

 

We'll see how official that is. Set collectors know a want list means nothing, you need to confirm it by going through your physical set and find the gremlins. In fact, I just added the Virgil, Werner and Jackson cards to the want list while writing this post. Who knows what other cards are hiding? 

 

Not satisfied with finishing one Donruss set at a time, I'm still questing to get the '85 set completed, too, and those were the most cards to show up from Mokolai.

 

 

So good. It's taken me too long to get that Expos Pete Rose card. And Vic Mata, you don't know how many years I've wondered what he looked like!!

My TCDB list says I need 15 more cards to finish 1985 Donruss now, but, hah, hah, since two of those are Gooden and Clemens -- oh wait, since three of those are Gooden, Clemens and Puckett -- I'm not taking that seriously. I haven't transferred this set to a binder yet.

 

Right now I'm focusing on getting 1983 done and hopefully I can take care of that before the year is finished. Maybe if I hum Lionel Richie's "Hello" while I tackle those final few cards I'll make more progress.

 

I used to hate that song.

 

Wait ... I still hate that song.