What is the origin of Barry Bonds Open.Day ERR?

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by RiceBondsMntna2Young

Interesting details, Mark, thanks. Do you remember how you first heard about the error? Was it Beckett, another dealer, a vendor, a customer, or somewhere/one else? Was it common knowledge by the time you found out about it or still very "inside baseball" within the hobby at that time?

I was a full time card dealer from the early 1980s through about 1991 (when I started working with/for Brent Lee... and then the 1994 strike killed my business dead and made virtually worthless my remaining inventory.) Carson Ritchey was my partner from 1981-1988 and he was very well connected in southern California, and I was personal friends with the Barnings who published Baseball Hobby News. Any news of a scarcity travelled like lightning. But I don't recall because it wasn't huge news at the time - just something to be aware of.

Originally Posted by RiceBondsMntna2Young

Your recollection was that he was highly touted out the gate? I was only a 7yo back then but I don't remember Bonds having even top 10 buzz. I was in the SF Bay Area so that certainly had some effect but he wasn't even on the radar and his dad used to be a star on the SF Giants.

Each year from 1985-1990 I made an initial order with Topps, usually 300 vending cases, and then I pre-sold cards beginning in November, with the understanding cards would be shipped in April or May after being sorted. We didn't know for sure which rookies would be in the set so sometimes we had to issue refunds. I recall setting the pre-buy price on Bonds somewhere between 40 and 75 cents. Bo Jackson was 1.50, Joyner and Canseco 2.00 each, McGwire 15 cents (that was the bargain as it turned out, though not a true rookie card) and so on. Point is, Bonds was a well above average prospect in November, 1986.

Originally Posted by RiceBondsMntna2Young

This seems a lot more plausible to me than any intent by Donruss to make an error, which was a theory you floated earlier. Wouldn't it be something if the two most valuable error cards of the 80s turned out to be a case of a printing defect in the case of NNOF and a card that was really a Johnny Ray error masquerading as a Bonds error in the case of Opening Day.

Yes I was wrong to say it was likely intentional. Until this conversation started I had always thought of the error as a Bonds card and couldn't explain how they could put 2 Bonds cards - the correct one and the error - in the same set. I figured they just tossed the second, error, one in there as a bonus. Now I believe it was likely an honest mistake and it was there in place of a correct Ray card. Why I only found one though, from 40 factory sealed set cases, still seems odd.