General Forum

I am not sure who all has been working on the 2019 Donruss Baseball checklist, but this release has been more complicated this year as they have not made it as easy this year to distinguish between the base and VAR cards.  I have already gone through and have had IRs completed to make sure that all of the front images are in the correct place.  These should all be correct now.  I still have to go through the backs when I have time.

Something I noticed this morning is that there were cards that had the VAR and description listed on both the base card and the VAR.  I went through and deleted those notes from all the base cards.  Please make sure when working on this set, or any set for that matter, that you are only placing the VAR note on the actual card that is the variation.  I don't believe the base card should have that note.  

Actually, there is an IR in place right now asking why some have the 'a' and some don't. Remember, the 'a' card is not required, however it is not incorrect to have 'a' versions.

So, to those who are working on getting this set put together correctly, keep adding the VAR: <info> into Note2 for both 'a' and 'b' versions, and keep adding [a] and [b] to the extra fields in the card numbers.

And basically, Panini does their VARs a little differently (than say Topps), as they seem to be issued at the same rate as all the other cards. They are not SP VARs, therefore, each "card #62" is a VAR.

So does that mean the base card should also have a VAR in note1?  Or just that the base card should have info on the variation in Note2?

Variations are variations of a Card Number.  Two cards with the same card number but with differences are both variations of the card number.  Be it VARs or ERR & COR.

I guess I am confused then, because I haven’t really seen this in practice often.  For instance in 2019 flagship Topps, Acuna has a base card #1 and a VAR.  Seems like how I have always seen it on the Topps sets.  I understand the Donruss aren’t SPs this year like the Topps VARs, but wouldn’t that then still make the Acuna #1 Topps card a VAR and the actual variation a SP, VAR by this logic?

I guess I just don’t see why the base card would need a VAR tag. 

Base cards don't get a VAR designation by default. There are a handful exceptions, but it would not apply to this discussion. Base cards can get a Note2 that starts with BASE: instead of VAR:. This is used to help the reader determine what card he is looking at. Most base cards with a VAR do not use this, but it is an acceptable practice.

Years ago, Admin told me in a PM to use BASE for an ordinary card of which an SP VAR exists in a modern set.  In other words, a card that got a full print run, but other cards of that number also exist in SP numbers.  This use of BASE opens up the suffix field in the numbering so you can add an A, and make things easier for the entire membership.  This was when we started taking the A and B out of the regular number field, which made searching for a card by number difficult.   My hothead nickname stemmed from that debate.  I probably deserved it, but it led to the the separate field for letter suffixes. 

As the posters following me stated, use Base when there are SP VARs. In this case, they are not SP VARs, simply VARs. 2 cards, same number, same distribution. VARs. VAR in Note, VAR: [description] in Note2.