One of the things that I have noticed since my return to the hobby is how often I keep stumbling across cards that are new and different.
When I say "new and different," I mean new and different to me. Everyone is coming at this hobby from a different perspective. While I know all about cards from the '70s and early '80s, others know all about cards from the '90s or the insane number of sets during the early 2000s.
A lot of bloggers know quite a bit about cards from the late 1980s. They were kids then and that's when they first started collecting cards. I didn't collect a lot of cards in the late 1980s. My collecting was very sporadic, and even when I did collect a bunch, in 1989, it was Topps and only Topps. So there is a lot I don't know from that time period. But I still get curious.
For example, my interest in 1989 Donruss had been non-existent. Only several months ago did I find out that there were several other Donruss sets in '89, like Rookies and Pop-Ups and Super DKs.
Plus there was the 12-card Grand Slammers set, a set that featured every player to hit a grand slam the previous year. I've received a couple Grand-Slammers in trades, because two Dodgers -- Mike Marshall and Franklin Stubbs -- hit grand slams in 1988.
So, the other day while desperately attempting to updating my team binders with all the Dodgers I have received recently, I came across the Mike Marshall Grand Slammer.
I had forgotten it was there. So that meant the other Mike Marshall Grand Slammer I was about to add was a duplicate. But wait ...
This Marshall has a different-colored border. (Yeah, yeah, I can hear all you late '80s experts now: "Of course it does).
My first reaction was the reaction that everyone had during the 1980s when a card appeared to be different in some way -- it's an error card! How much is it worth? (I actually didn't think "how much is it worth? But we did in the '80s).
But then I went to my old price guide from the early '90s that lists sets like this, and there was the Grand Slammers set. In the description it says: "Each card in the set can be found with five different colored border combinations, but no color combination of borders appears to be scarcer than the other."
In other words, this was a rainbow set. Now, I thought rainbow sets began in the 1990s sometime, when I wasn't collecting. I never heard of collecting different-colored variations of a base card until I came across Baseball Heroes a couple years ago. And there are a whole bunch of sets out there now that try to sucker you into getting every different pretty color of a single card. I admit it's tempting, but I've never been able to justify spending the money it takes to chase stuff like that.
My question, I guess, is: "Did Donruss Grand Slammers spawn the rainbow trend?" Or was there some other earlier set out there?
Sorry if someone has addressed this before. I get busy and stuff.
When I say "new and different," I mean new and different to me. Everyone is coming at this hobby from a different perspective. While I know all about cards from the '70s and early '80s, others know all about cards from the '90s or the insane number of sets during the early 2000s.
A lot of bloggers know quite a bit about cards from the late 1980s. They were kids then and that's when they first started collecting cards. I didn't collect a lot of cards in the late 1980s. My collecting was very sporadic, and even when I did collect a bunch, in 1989, it was Topps and only Topps. So there is a lot I don't know from that time period. But I still get curious.
For example, my interest in 1989 Donruss had been non-existent. Only several months ago did I find out that there were several other Donruss sets in '89, like Rookies and Pop-Ups and Super DKs.
Plus there was the 12-card Grand Slammers set, a set that featured every player to hit a grand slam the previous year. I've received a couple Grand-Slammers in trades, because two Dodgers -- Mike Marshall and Franklin Stubbs -- hit grand slams in 1988.
So, the other day while desperately attempting to updating my team binders with all the Dodgers I have received recently, I came across the Mike Marshall Grand Slammer.
I had forgotten it was there. So that meant the other Mike Marshall Grand Slammer I was about to add was a duplicate. But wait ...
This Marshall has a different-colored border. (Yeah, yeah, I can hear all you late '80s experts now: "Of course it does).My first reaction was the reaction that everyone had during the 1980s when a card appeared to be different in some way -- it's an error card! How much is it worth? (I actually didn't think "how much is it worth? But we did in the '80s).
But then I went to my old price guide from the early '90s that lists sets like this, and there was the Grand Slammers set. In the description it says: "Each card in the set can be found with five different colored border combinations, but no color combination of borders appears to be scarcer than the other."
In other words, this was a rainbow set. Now, I thought rainbow sets began in the 1990s sometime, when I wasn't collecting. I never heard of collecting different-colored variations of a base card until I came across Baseball Heroes a couple years ago. And there are a whole bunch of sets out there now that try to sucker you into getting every different pretty color of a single card. I admit it's tempting, but I've never been able to justify spending the money it takes to chase stuff like that.
My question, I guess, is: "Did Donruss Grand Slammers spawn the rainbow trend?" Or was there some other earlier set out there?
Sorry if someone has addressed this before. I get busy and stuff.
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