Retro Review – 1986 Donruss

Today is really a special day for me.  I have stated before that I am a Donruss man.  I know, Panini is a little different now and they don’t have an MLB license and they do points in their sets and they produced the abomination that is ’90 Donruss.  I know all of that. But I am a Donruss man.  I’ve loved the product since I started collecting in late ’88 and I still buy it today.  I really like the ’17 design and just bought a box of it to break sometime in the near future.   I love that they have jumped into Football now and I love the new Optic product.  My first big rookie card was the ’89 Donruss Ken Griffey Jr.  The first big chase card I went after was Donruss Elite.  There’s a lot about Donruss that I love.  But one of my favorite things about Donruss is the 1986 card design.I don’t know why this design specifically jumps out at me other than it’s really retro and reminds me of the great 80’s.  Maybe it’s because of the “Max Headroom” feel it has to it.  Maybe it’s because it had the famous Jose Canseco rookie that I loved so much as a kid.  Maybe it’s because it’s always been one of the pricier Donruss boxes and not one I could just pick up at the local flea market for $5.  It’s a set that predates when I started collecting but I’ve always been drawn to it.  And even with all of that being said, until today, I had never opened one single pack of it.  I have a lot of singles that I’ve picked up from various places but you just don’t see ’86 Donruss packs laying around often and the box has always been a tad high for me to justify the expense.  The boxes today range from $35-$50 depending on the seller.  So I finally had enough of “wishing” I had an ’86 Donruss box to break.  I just broke down and bought one, chalking it up to a severe case of nostalgia-itis.  Then, after it came in, I sat on it…..for almost 3 weeks.  I looked at the box everyday and thought, “nah, I’ll do it tomorrow.”  I guess I just didn’t want it to be over so quickly.  Besides, I had been waiting a long long time to finally break one of these boxes.  But today, after all of that delay and anticipation, I did it.  I declared today ’86 Donruss Saturday!  The ’86 set has a checklist of 660 cards, which includes 26 painted Diamond Kings, as has been the standard for many years.  The wax box consists of 36 packs with 15 cards and 1 Hank Aaron puzzle card.  As with other 80’s-90’s Donruss sets, one of the features was a large puzzle that you could put together with 60 puzzle pieces.  1986 was strong with my hometown Braves’ Hank Aaron.  The set also produced some strong rookies, including Canseco, Fred McGriff, Andres Gallaraga, Cecil Fielder, Paul O’Neill and Darren Daulton.  It’s truly a set with the perfect blend of both young superstars and stars on their way out.  Young superstars include Ryne Sandberg, Tony Gwynn, Ozzie Smith, Roger Clemens, Darryl Strawberry and Dale Murphy.  Some of the older stars in the set are Don Sutton, Vida Blue, Rod Carew, Dave Winfield, George Brett and Mike Schmidt.  The checklist is really loaded with a wide variety.The box did not come without some drawbacks.  While I am a Donruss fanboy, I am also fair in both my praise and criticism.  The Diamond Kings checklist leaves a bit to be desired.  The best player I pulled in my box was Orel Hershiser.  The checklist includes such names as Rick Mahler, Mike Davis and Bill Doran.  Those may have been household names in ’86 but they didn’t have any staying power.  Also, while the cards were in overall great condition for a 30 year old box, the cut of the cards was somewhat weak.  More than any other boxes I’ve broke in the recent months, the length of these cards were very inconsistent.  When you stack these cards, the cut issue is rather obvious.  But, all in all, the condition of the cards and packs was much better than I anticipated.  I pulled what seems like 90% of the set together with my first box.  That figure may be off one way or the other but that’s my best guess after collating rather unscientifically.  I did pull McGriff, Gallaraga, Dykstra, Daulton and Fielder rookies, among many second year stars as well.  However, I fell short of my overall goal of pulling Canseco, McGriff and Gallaraga.  Unfortunately, I pulled neither Canseco or O’Neill.  Perhaps I’ll have better luck with my 2nd box (Dub Score Spoiler Alert).  I enjoyed many of the names and the trip back to my early baseball days.  Nolan Ryan popped up a couple of times.  The Twinkies duo of Viola and Hrbek continue to haunt me as they were ever present with others from that dastardly team like Gladden, Gaetti and Jack Morris.  My Braves were poorly represented with the only  notable player being Dale Murphy.  But the big names of the late 80’s were there and this was a very nice timeframe between their rookie years and their established years of 88-89.  Like I said, it really is a great mix of young and veteran stars.  1986 was also a very nice year in the history of jerseys.  The Braves were in the nice blues that I loved in the 80’s in most photos while the Astros had their classic orange and yellow combo.  The Expos were sporting their nicest uni (in my opinion) with the classic red, white and blue and the Pirates were rocking the old pillbox hats!  The set used a very good balance of action and posed shots as well.  As was classic 80’s, there was also a ton of porn stache’s, Jheri curl and mullets.  The set really has it all.  And the packs were classic wax with no bubblegum to powder up the cards.  No UV coating and no bubble gum powder helped these cards stay in pretty fine condition.  There wasn’t much of a nostalgic scent to the cards as there is with many of the 80’s Topps sets but I’ll sacrifice the scent for the lack of powder.The box was everything I had hoped and more.  The only negative was that I didn’t pull a Canseco.  But the fact that I pulled almost every other star made up for that. I’ve busted several ’89 boxes and haven’t pulled a Jr. and been much more dissapointed with the results.  I’ll go back to the well for a second box soon.  I’d like to complete the set and try once more to pull the Canseco.  Because of my background, this set is really cool even 30 years later.  It has a Michael Jackson video/Knight Rider/Saturday Morning Cartoon feel to it that will keep me coming back for more.  When you bust a mid to late 80’s box, you go into it knowing that, at best, you may pull some moderate value rookie ($5-$10) so it’s not about dollar value.  It’s about the value of taking a step back to some vivid moment in your childhood when you first saw the ’86 Ozzie Smith.  For me, that’s a huge part of what collecting is about.  At this point in my life, I’ve pulled 1 of 1’s, nice autographs, printing plates, etc.  That can  definitely be exciting.  But nothing gives me a sense of comfort and makes the stress of the real world fall away like a retro box of baseball cards from when I was a little squirt playing video games 24/7.  This box gave me that feeling 100%.  So to me, that is a very good return value.  The price is also fairly reasonable these days and the quality of the product holds up in my opinion.  I’ll have to go with a Dub Score of 5, even though this one was destined for one from the start.  The next box is going to be more difficult to grade high.  I’ve got an ’89 Topps box ready for breaking in my next retro review.  1989 was a great year but the set didn’t exactly light the world on fire.  Until then, Keep Collecting!

Dub Score – 5