Quote:
Originally Posted by RiceBondsMntna2Young
@Mark17 Do you remember what year you busted 600? Did you bust to create inventory or because you were chasing the error? Do you remember how long after the set was released that it became the set with a lottery ticket inside?
I want to track down a few more folks who pulled the error themselves to corroborate this experience. It could've been a fluke. @dariushou's recollection suggests maybe it was.
I'm also curious about @HasselhoffsCheeseburger's question: are #162 and #163 found in different "stacks?"
Thanks for that. I'd like to try and track down the first issue in which the card was noted in the price guide, as well as when when it was first mentioned in an article. Does anyone happen to have the entire run of 1987-1989 back issues handy?
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It was in 1987 or 1988 I believe. My memory of it isn't the greatest because it was just another case break of what, as I recall, was a fairly unpopular set at the time. I'm pretty sure I got them very cheap. Unlike the 1987 Topps set, which was my main product (I must've broken over 500 vending cases of that stuff in 1987, not to mention all the 1987 "miswraps" and cut cases I broke in 1988,) the Opening Day set didn't include a lot of the popular rookies. I believe there were 15 factory sets per case, so 40 cases, and they were in some kind of plastic display box. Does that sound right? Anyway I knew about the variation and was keeping my eyes open for it. Like I said, the normal Barry Bonds card was also in that set, and it was in its normal sequence. Reading other peoples' posts, though, I can't say whether the correct Johnny Ray card was also present, since that would've been a common to me, and not worth sorting out. Maybe the error I found was there in place of the normal Ray card, making it an honest error.
So... either that card was randomly tossed in a set here and there to salt the mine, so to speak, or, perhaps more likely, it was actually a Johnny Ray error - and we in the hobby have always called it a Barry Bonds error because, well, Bonds is, and was, much more valuable (and a rookie card.)
In other words, Donruss didn't get the picture wrong - they got the player's name wrong.
As far as why/how an error/variation of a common guy can help sales, I recall the "C"raig Nettles 1981 Fleer going for $8.00 back then, and Fleer had a Littlefield error that went for some dough the next year. Relative scarcity was the key to creating an error card frenzy, and the Ray/Bonds OD card is definitely scarce.