1981: Topps, Donruss or Fleer?

[Rich Klein]

I agree with the Donruss gum as my favorite of the three 1981 gums

I thought the Fleer set, errors and all, were the best designed and produced set of the 3 majors with mostly crisp photography and easy to read backs.

But long term, it appears Topps has won the battle for 1981 supremecy

Rich

[tulsaboy]

Did Keith Olberman take some of the photos for the Fleer set? Something in my memory says that he got paid to take photos for one of the sets, Fleer or Donruss. It might be a brain fart, though. (That's increasingly happening!)
If so, it's a neat aside for a really significant moment in baseball card history.
kevin

[Kevin]

Summer of 81, I turned 8 on May 25. The Isles had just won their 2nd Cup. I was at Game 5 vs Minnesota. Life was great. My dad was a sales rep on Long Island. German pharmaceutical company. He called on doctors but also pharmacies. He had a pharmacist in Bellmore he did business with. His name was Si. One day, dad brought home all these boxes of Fleer and Donruss. I opened them up, but decided I was going to save one vendor box each. For the future. Maybe I'd be rich.

I think the future was a rainy day within a year of the day my dad brought those babies home. I should see if I can complete a set when I retire. There were more than enough cards...

[nolemmings]

I was a huge fan of the Fleer set, mostly for its innovations. I always kept my cards sorted by team, so having them numerically sequenced by team was incredibly helpful, and it was a nice added touch to have them basically in order of finish from the 1980 season. Also and importantly, the stock was clean and easy to read-- not that usual boring Topps gray.

Donruss was less available but I despised it anyway. The stock was too thin and the cards were often damaged. It wasn't just dinged corners but many had little edge notches and some packs had cards creased or wrinkled-- the inner cards not just the top or bottom. And forget collation. Oftentimes you got multiples of the same guy in one pack, and a box was brutally full of dupes. Contrast that to Fleer-- once in either 1986 or '87 I started the season by buying a box of Fleer that had 540 different cards with zero dupes. Oh, and the players of color often looked almost ruby red in their face tones--a problem Donruss would have at some level for years. The only redeeming quality of Donruss was the gum.

Topps was meh, same old same old, albeit slightly better than the ugly 1980s that came before and the even uglier 1982's that followed.

[nolemmings]

I was a huge fan of the Fleer set, mostly for its innovations. I always kept my cards sorted by team, so having them numerically sequenced by team was incredibly helpful, and it was a nice added touch to have them basically in order of finish from the 1980 season. Also and importantly, the stock was clean and easy to read on white-- not that usual boring Topps gray.

Donruss was less available but I despised it anyway. The stock was too thin and the cards were often damaged. It wasn't just dinged corners but many had little edge notches and some packs had cards creased or wrinkled-- the inner cards not just the top or bottom. And forget collation. Oftentimes you got multiples of the same guy in one pack, and a box was brutally full of dupes. Contrast that to Fleer-- once in either 1986 or '87 I started the season by buying a box of Fleer that had 540 different cards with zero dupes. Oh, and the players of color often looked almost ruby red in their face tones--a problem Donruss would have at some level for years. The only redeeming quality of Donruss was the gum.

Topps was meh, same old same old, albeit slightly better than the ugly 1980s that came before and the even uglier 1982's that followed.

[ASF123]

Originally Posted by tulsaboy

Did Keith Olberman take some of the photos for the Fleer set? Something in my memory says that he got paid to take photos for one of the sets, Fleer or Donruss. It might be a brain fart, though. (That's increasingly happening!)
If so, it's a neat aside for a really significant moment in baseball card history.
kevin

Olberman was Donruss.

[Troy Kirk]

You could find all three sets in San Diego that year. It seemed like Fleer was mainly at 7-11 stores, they seemed to all have those cards. Topps was at the usual places, Donruss was a little harder to find, but they were around.

It was easy to complete the Fleer set, two boxes would usually do it as there were no duplicates in a box. Topps was pretty easy to complete also, though took a bit more packs. Donruss was almost impossible to complete from packs, crazy collation.

Of the three, I liked Donruss the best for all the colors and fun cards like Yogi Berra and extra cards of some of the stars like Pete Rose. I also liked the challenge of trying to get a complete set, as there was no real challenge with the others.

When all the variations in Fleer and Donruss became known, there was a frenzy to get all of those at the time. A friend told me there were Fleer Nettles cards at a particular 7-11 near him, so I drove over there and bought 3 boxes, got 3 or 4 Nettles I think along with other variations.

It was a fun year for cards, for the first time in my life there were others besides Topps, nice to get some different perspectives on baseball cards other than the usual Topps.

[GasHouseGang]

Back in the day, I pooled my money with another collector and we bought a bunch of error boxes of 1981 Fleer. I don't think I ever saw many of the Fleer cards locally, but we could get Topps cards locally, and the other sets through SCD, but I really liked the Fleer the best. We thought we were going to get rich on the error cards, but that didn't really work out.

[tulsaboy]

Originally Posted by ASF123

Olberman was Donruss.

Thanks! So I was right on the year, wrong on the company. I'm gonna claim 50% correct, and head for the house.
Thanks for the correction.
kevin

[JustinD]

I remember my small town convenience store “the quik stop” had no topps I can remember that year. I could only get fleer and donruss cards in my little farm town, I had to go into the city to toys r us for Topps.

The distributor must have gave them a good deal as I remember them having all the fleer and donruss non sports and fleer candies as well. Topps worked its way back into the store a year or two later.

[Zach Wheat]

Topps was always king for me.

[UKCardGuy]

All me and my friends could talk in Dallas in 1981 was the error cards. I remember buying a lot of 1981 Fleer packs to get the Graig/Craig Nettles error card.

I think that the 81 Fleer is the best looking cards that year. I really liked the look of the Donruss too but their cardstock was just sooooo thin.