General Forum

I've been going through the 1990 Donruss. Along with the numerous error cards in the set. I'm finding bad cuts, wax I can scrape off with my fingernail, cards with little wax on them. Color changes on cards that are the same. Have I found the worst set ever made?

So I was wondering

1. What is the worst baseball card set ever made? I'm not asking if you don't like a style of a card set. But just wondering what you think was the worst quality cards made and why.

2. What is the baseball card set with the most error cards? There has to be a set holding the record for this one and if you know who takes 2ed & 3ed place. How many errors where there? In the boo-boo race? :)

'90 Donruss from my understanding is the tip of the iceberg...more to come, I'm sure.

My vote, though, goes to 1969 Globe Imports Playing Cards Gas Station Issue as they are itty-bitty and basically on cheap paper and they look (at least the five I own) as if they were color cards copied on an old black and white copier without grayscaling.

1. 81 Donruss - poor quality stock, bad cuts, collation was awful (I've seen 4-11 of the same card come out of a single pack)

2. 90 Donruss or 91 Topps - master sets of each are in the 4k card range, perhaps more

A couple of things popped into my head as I read the original posting. 1981 Donruss was one of them. Cards on think stock. Lots of off center cutting of the cards. Now for those that maybe are too young to know this centering was a common issue in the early 80's and farther back. It wasn't uncommon to get terribly miscut cards in your packs.

I also wonder about O-Pee-Chee cards from the early years. I have traded for some and on some of the cards you can tell were well cared for with nice corners I have seen a lot of them with what look like rough cut edges. I would be curious for those who have collected more of these if they can verify my thinking that they had a lot of rough cut edges.

It really is amazing how far the expectations have come for collectors. Miscuts and anything not close to 50/50 centering wouldn't be acceptable today. It probably also helps collector's understand why a gem mint 10 card from the early 80's or early can command such a high price. It was very difficult to pull a gem mint 10 straight out of the pack in my youth.

1990 Donruss. Everyone loves to hate it. 

OPC back in the day was terrible for cutting and centering. The 68-69 OPC hockey is the all time worst for centering and miscuts. Nice set otherwise.

Kari

No votes for 91 Fleer yet? Or how about 95 Fleer and it's love for the mid-90s modernization/coolness attempt? Just thoughts, not my vote

Early OPC essentially used piano wires for cutting.  I'm suspicious of any that aren't rough cut.

The 1990 Fleer set - as far as quality (or lack thereof) is mywinner (or loser).

They misspelled Ripken "Ripkin" - only one of the top 10 players at the time.

And if you have a stack of them, good luck finding 2 cards the same size.

2013 Panini Triple Play. Cheaply designed cartoon cards, and the only really good "hits" were the few HOF cards.