Question about 1981 Donruss

[HittinLikeCarew]

I’ve been ripping a box of 81 Donruss (81 was the first year I collected and always loved the design). I’ve noticed a lot of cards have a rough cut. Were they cut w wire?
Thanks!

[philliesfan]

No idea what they were cut with but some of my cards seem to have been cut with a chainsaw.

[Rich Klein]

TCMA did a lot of work for this set and was IIRC the official distributor for this product. I'd ask young Mr. Aronstein to see what he knows

Rich

[JustinD]

I strongly believe wire cutting is a hobby myth.There is no evidence I have seen of any major manufacturer using a wire cutting method. I would readily assume that Donruss rough cuts were caused by use of the same cutting machines as O Pee Chee. The hand process used by workers was cut using a “splitter” which was a circular blade cutter. There are existing interviews with ex workers that verify that method.

A splitter had rotary discs (smallish rotating circular blades) that did the vertical cuts and I believe a single cutter drop blade for the horizontal. This is why most rough cuts are on the right-left and not top-bottom. These machines were very inefficient as they handled a single sheet at a time. When used properly and with new blades the cutter was quite good. However, when workers would attempt to meet printing deadlines the machine was often used to cut multiple sheets at once to process faster. When done in that way the blades dull faster and the bottom sheet or sheets of a stack would suffer from a rough cut. These printers would also not want to stop production to change blades until it was quite literally not cutting. There were antidotes from workers on o pee chee’s machines actually hand separating cards at times that didn’t cut completely.

Rough cuts were simply a quality control issue within the factory. Topps was stricter on maintaining the machines and why rough cuts are less common in most issues. I do not know if Donruss contracted a different processor for the 1981 issue as it was their first large scale release after so many years of just smaller non-sport runs or if they just had difficulty learning the mass production of the baseball and golf issues of the year. The end result was a set that had numerous quality issues with collation and production flaws (I still however admit to having great memories of that 1981 year and the introduction of the Donruss and Fleer competition).

Like OPC releases, Donruss and fleer both have cutting issues that I think add to the charm of the sets and do not seem to affect grading in most circumstances.

Just as a visual aid, here is a photo of a splitter operator at OPC. You can see the worker stacking the completed cards at the end of the cutter. These utilized a gripper to pull in the sheet which was pulled through the blades and stacked as shown here. This photo is interesting as it seems to show the horizontal cuts were first and the strips were fed through the vertical cutter and stacked for packaging.

[JustinD]

More photos of OPCs packaging process if anyone is interested. Apologies if off the Donruss subject but likely close to the similar process.

The first photo would be this same worker placing cut cards in a box to then move to the next packaging machine.

[HittinLikeCarew]

This is so interesting! Yeah I guess I assumed rough cuts were from wire. The other question I guess would surround if grading companies. Obviously given the recent Wilt, rough cuts are accepted. But at what point does that “end”?

[steve B]

Rough cuts can be from a few things, or combinations of them.
The grain of the cardstock.
The sort of cutter used.
How sharp that cutter is.

Even the humidity or lack of it in the plant, but to a lesser extent.

[Bigdaddy]

To me, the big mystery surrounding 1981 Donruss was the collation, or better yet, lack there of. You could easily pull two or three of the same card out of a single
wax pack.

1981 was a good year if you were a kid collecting baseball cards.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Bigdaddy

To me, the big mystery surrounding 1981 Donruss was the collation, or better yet, lack there of. You could easily pull two or three of the same card out of a single
wax pack.

1981 was a good year if you were a kid collecting baseball cards.

One batch the local dealer got had 11 of the same card in every pack.
After a handful of packs sold he returned the whole batch to Donruss for a different one.

[JustinD]

I think it’s easy to guess if you assume they used similar equipment and lackadaisical inexperienced operators that had not done a similar order. If they cut tall stacks of the same sheets and then took those strips to the splitter as shown. Then running those same position cards stacked one over another would result in multiple copies being stacked together.

An experienced operator would pull differing sheets or cut a small quantity and stack those strips as they cut to make a mixed stack. Just a guess, but seems very likely to me.