It's the Donruss 1988 Team Collection book. Inside there are three pages of Cubs cards from the 1988 set.
As you can see from the scans, the cards are nine to a page. The weird thing is that there are no perforations to separate the cards. It's just one full sheet of cardboard. I think that I will leave these in the book and not try to cut each card out.
Now here is an even stranger thing. If you notice the upper right hand corner of the book cover, it says, "Updated for '88 Trades." Eight of the twenty-seven cards featured updated Cubs cards of players who were on other teams in Donruss' base set. That isn't too unusual.
The odd thing is the way Donruss numbered the cards. They didn't use the same number from the base set and add a T to it like Topps did in 1974 and 1976. And they didn't use a separate traded numbering system like Topps did with their traded sets. Instead, Donruss didn't use a number at all! Look in the upper left hand corner of the card and check out what they did:
Instead of numbers, the eight updated cards were designated as "New." How bizarre is that?? So in the title of the post, when I said I got some new cards, I really got some "New" cards!
Chances are that very few of you have ever seen these new cards, so here are the eight updated, "NEW" cards:
I wonder if Donruss made an "update book" for all the teams. and if so, would you count these cards towards your card total?
ReplyDeleteA quick search of ebay turned up five of these: Mets, Yankees, A's, Cubs, and Red Sox.
ReplyDeleteFlashbacks! Nightmares of Al Nipper! Calvin Schiraldi! Aaah!
ReplyDeleteAngel Salazar? Heh. I remember there was big ol' hype in 1984 (my senior year of HS) that Salazar was going to be a hot SS for the Expos. He hit .302 in AAA and could 'pick it'.
Carter and Raines had monster years in 1984, and they were 11th in runs scored? Why? Because Salazar's OPS+ was 9. If he hit one less double he would have been under the Mendoza line in OBP and SLG! That's a special kind of suck.
Of course, he had to become a Cub at one juncture!
Why do I root for them again?
I've got a couple of these books and I have been thinking about having the NEW cards professionally cut from one of them for pretty much the last 22 years now. I've never actually gotten around to hiring someone to do it, but I did research a few places that do this type of work a few years back. I definitely include these in my master list of Cubs cards. Maybe I'll get around to actually getting them into 'card' form in 2011. Thanks for the article!
ReplyDeleteDon't trust yourself with a pair of scissors?? Have you ever seen any of these slabbed?
ReplyDelete