The theme to this week apparently is completing sets because here comes another one.
Yesterday I wrapped up 1985 Donruss. I wrote a couple of weeks ago that all I needed to acquire was the Kirby Puckett and Roger Clemens rookie cards. The Puckett showed up like the next day and the Clemens arrived yesterday as the final card.
A bit off-center but I didn't pay double figures for it and it's still a sharp card. 1985 Donruss really looks good in some situations with the black borders and mid-1980s Donruss' fondness for shadows.
I would have rather had someone else to chase down as the final card than Clemens but at least it didn't take me months of searching for someone I find unpleasant. It occurred to me as I was tracking Clemens, Puckett and Gooden at the end that some of the biggest stars of the mid-to-late '80s were also some of the most flawed. That doesn't make me feel good as this is my generation. If I was good enough to play major league baseball, I'd be starting out in the mid-1980s like these guys were ... and abusing drugs and women, apparently.
Anyway ...
1985 Donruss is finished and wraps up the first half of the 1980s Donruss sets. As I've said before, I didn't care much for Donruss during the time but have grown interested enough to finish 1981 through 1984 (the only Donruss set that matters I said way back once upon a time).
1985 Donruss though I admired immediately. I bought only three packs that year as I was exiting the hobby but I liked what I saw and thought Donruss had finally found its stride with 1984 and then 1985.
But there were still elements that I just didn't understand. For example, starting with the Diamond Kings is not a strong opener, at least that's how I viewed it at the time. Those babies should be in the back of the set!
Then, if you organized your binder by set number, the first few pages would be packed with stars, giving a top-heavy vibe (the stars show up right after the Rated Rookie subset). As a collector of Topps in the '70s and into the '80s, I was used to a more well-distributed selection.
I suppose this is a good argument for organizing this set by team, which I might do someday.
This page includes one of the first '85 Donruss cards I pulled out of packs, the Cal Ripken card. It's the first card I think of when I think of 1985 Donruss.
You may have noticed from the pictures that the pages are double-bagged, which I do with virtually every set. It's particularly useful with 1985 Donruss (and really any Donruss set from the rest of the decade), because the backs were virtually the same every year and this year marks the return to thinner stock -- though not as thin as '81 -- which makes it easier for dedicating two to each sleeve but also makes Donruss as a card brand rather lightweight.
The last full page in the set. I stuck the Diamond Kings checklist in the back, although it could go with the rest of the DK set. I was trying to preserve "divisible by 9".
One of the very best parts of this set, as I mentioned earlier, is the black borders. At the time of its release, the only other set I knew with black borders was 1971 Topps (I wasn't aware of the 1962 Topps football set back then). So it immediately appealed to me.
I'm calling this complete, though I still need to add the corrected Terry Pendleton card. And now I need to decide whether Donruss is fading to black as far as pursuing it ever again.
Nothing Donruss made after the 1980s appeals to me enough to complete a full set. So that leaves 1986, 1987 or 1989 Donruss.
1986 and 1987 Donruss are out. I don't like either set. Attempting to complete 1986 Donruss may screw up my vision forever. So the only other set is 1989, which I do like. It is so plentiful that it seems pointless to traditionally collect it (I have like two-thirds of the set already). I'm sure a line is forming to send 4000 duplicates of the stuff to my home.
But if I finish '89 then I will definitely be done with Donruss forever.
Comments
Dear god, no.