Saturday, April 1, 2023

Comparing the Main Brands - 1981

 Last week I finished up with my Saturday feature of Cubs sets from the 1960s.  Before the '60s, I did all the sets from the '70s.  I'm going to do the '80s a bit differently.

As we enter the junk wax era I decided that I didn't want to do all my sets like I did with the '60s and '70s.  There are just too many, and so many have just one or two cards.

Instead, I'm going to go year by year and show the cards from the major sets of that year.  I'll be showing the cards of each player side by side so that you can see what each brand did.  You'll also be able to see which players were in each of the sets and which were excluded by some.

The 1981 season will kick this off as that was the year that the Topps monopoly was busted and Fleer and Donruss joined in.

Year - 1981

Main Brands -  Topps, Donruss, and Fleer

Number of Players Included Among All the Sets: 31

Players Included in Every Set: 17

































4 comments:

  1. I would like to do this with all the '81 teams but it'd take awhile. ... I would've included the Donruss cards of Martin, Sutter and Johnson since they're wearing Cubs uniforms. ... No Donruss card of Krukow and Tyson is fascinating.

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  2. I debated about what to do with the three Donruss cards you mentioned. I just couldn’t add a card with a different team name on it, so I stuck with the pure Cubs cards.

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  3. I'm surprised how good a lot of the photos on the Donruss Cubs are. I think of that set as having pretty questionable photography, but they seem to have mostly done right by the Cubs.

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  4. I remember doing this in 1981 for all the team (Pen and Paper - not the way you have it laid out). This is so cool looking - I wish I had a poster of it.

    The Donruss set had the least amount of players it might explain Krukow and Tyson. Though Riley over Krukow is interesting.

    I loved how Donruss had the different team name for the traded/changed team players.

    I think the look of Donruss 81 is just better than Fleer and Topps - when you compare card after card - The Donruss card is the best looking card for every player on the team.

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