1984 Donruss
 

Bored with a little extra time these last two weeks I decided to binder up all my Fleer and Donruss sets from 1981-90...(stopped collecting back then in 90). Brought back a ton of great memories and look good on the shelf next to my Topps binders. It was a lot of fun work.

Anyhow...I was totally reminded of how special the 1984 Donruss set is. The design, the photography...LEAP YEARS ahead of anything done in the 80's. I was 14 when this set was released and was still very much TOPPS ONLY...but did get the complete sets each year. In 84, my grandpa got the 84 Donruss set for Christmas...and told me it was the last one they had at the shop, and everyone wanted it...told me how lucky he was. This was a man who had zero knowledge of cards, just had it on his list and made the hour drive for me. I was the envy of all my friends, there were no packs, and no one had any of the cards around...I had trade offers up the wazoo...:)

Fast forward to 1990, I had just bought my house and couldn't afford to furnish it...haha...and sold off a few cards to do that. I had a 55 Koufax, a 65 Namath...both were EX+ and I got excellent money for them. I also offered up my 84 Donruss set for sale...it was still rather hot. Sold that for $300, and then regretted that.

Last fast forward...I had long got rid of my childhood cards (except some stuff that meant something to me, and was seed when I got back in), and for the last few years I was asking my wife for random Donruss sets from that era for Christmas, it was cool to get a set like I used as a kid. Last year I asked for an 84 Donruss set...had no idea what they were going for and figured like the rest of that era, had gone cheap. Funny thing, my wife bought me one, and my mom did too as they accidentally crossed lists. I ended up with two! I asked how much they paid as I was curious, both said about $60 with shipping. I was thinking, dang, still held a little value!


After binding up one of the two sets, and being so impressed with the quality and all those memories...I went to see what they were going for. WHOA...3 to 4 times more than my wife & mom paid just last year? I was pretty surprised...

Anyone else have memories around this set? Does anyone have any information around just how limited this set was? Any details at all? Seems people are still interested and this set may just rise above all that junk wax....

1984 Donruss had the best Mattingly Rookie in my mind and also continued my favorite thing about early 80's Donruss as a kid...The San Diego Chicken. No idea why, but if I got a Chicken, it was a red letter day.

1984 donruss was always the hole in my 1980’s run as a kid. Too expensive. Then when I got back into collecting around 2012 it was one of the first things I bought (bought 2 sets at about 50-60 each). I absolutely agree the set design and card quality is wonderful. The Mattingly is an absolute iconic card, if you lived through the 1980’s you know.

Wow, 1984 Donruss....

I certainly remember those days. That set was hyped to be limited (after the seemingly endless supply of previous years Topps, Donruss and Fleer) and it turned out to be scarce as hen's teeth. My dad had an 'in' at a candy distributor and we ended up with a several wax boxes.

Most of those cards from the '80s are still at my dads, but I did pull out any '84 Donruss cards whenever I would come across them, thinking that I'd eventually build a set. Well, I ended up coming across a complete hand-collated set and put it in a binder a couple of years ago. It was a lot of fun and brought back many memories. What the heck is this stack of Doug Frobel cards worth now?? Will Mattingly or Strawberry have the better career? Is Sid Fernandez for real? Brad Komminsk is a beast. Would you trade a Chicken for an A/B? It's interesting to see which cards we put in hard cases and which ones we just put in the stack in the 800 ct boxes. We all knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that these cards would pay for our college education, or maybe a down payment on a house.

So lately I've been getting several of those cards autographed and putting in the binder. And I pulled the trigger on a Don Mattingly private signing a few months ago and got the holy grail signed. Sweet mother of pearl. I thought it probably should be preserved and mounted above the fireplace, but alas, that idea was vetoed by the wife and Donnie Baseball's autograph went back in the binder with the rest of his 'mates.

1984 Donruss - what good memories.

Thanks for the post Mr Harliduck, just flipped thru my stack of 84d. I always liked how they really fuzzed out the backgrounds.

These cards stick out to me:

George Brett
Ozzie Smith
Ryne Sandberg
Dave Concepcion (I think I stopped the longest on his this time)
Jody Davis

don't currently have a Chicken, but I remember him, and I remember going to see him at a Knoxville K-jays game back in probably early 80's - hilarious

I think I'll shop for an 84d Chicken !

Mattingly rookie in last night's PWCC auction:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1984-Donrus...53.m1438.l2649