1988 Donruss Baseball Forum

Due to a member asking about a potential trade in order to acquire many of my Donruss dot or no dot VAR, I finally dug into my 1988 Donruss box of over 10,000 commons for trade (including over 1,000 Mike Deveraux RC - anyone need any?) and sorted these cards according to the VAR.  I did find several cards that were not yet listed on our site and added them to the checklist, all no dot VAR.  I also found one card where of the 16 cards I had for trade, none of them had the dot; in other words they were all of the No Dot VAR. The back image on the site does not appear to have a dot neither though the zoom lens is not active on that page and the image is blurry (before anyone jumps on the member crucifixion band wagon, the image was uploaded 8 years ago). I submitted an IR on this card questioning the existence of the dot and possibly having the image removed.  This has caused question of the actual VAR's existence. It can be seen here https://www.tcdb.com/ViewCard.cfm/sid/119/cid/44416/1988-Donruss-412-Greg-Gross?PageIndex=5.  If you do have this card and clearly see the dot on it, and you are able to scan and upload its back image, it would be highly beneficial to the site.

While going through my cards I did find a few others with the wrong image, all of the No Dot VAR, and submitted IR to have the images removed.  In all but one, I can confirm that the VAR exists as I did have it in my posession.  The one that I do not have is the #55 no dot VAR.  Therefore this card's existence may also be an issue as the image that was uploaded previously did have a dot visible under the zoom lens.  The image has been removed so anyone who has that card WITHOUT THE DOT and can upload a back image, it would be a great help if you did so. It can be done here https://www.tcdb.com/ViewCard.cfm/sid/119/cid/15610204?PageIndex=1.

I now have all my 1988-1992 Donruss sets sorted for the VAR we have listed in the last three years (still have the 1991 and 1992 Leaf sets to do). My For Trade list is up-to-date with these VAR. So if you are one who wants to complete the Master sets of these Donruss sets, I will be open to trade offers ONCE THE MEMBER WHO ASKED ME FIRST sends me his needs and I can move the trade proposal into the "Accepted" status thereby removing what he needs from my trade pile.  I can provide the update to this through this thread.

Eight years ago when that image was uploaded, there were no "dot, not dot" VARs.  

I know Chuck.  When the VAR were added, I think it was attempted to determine which VAR it was.  The image is very blurry so difficult to tell but I don't see a dot.  Dan has also reviewed the IR and also agrees. The other concern is that for all other cards if you have 15 of them, 14 or all 15 will have the dot.  This one was the complete opposite.  I am hoping someone can confirm its existence and upload a better scan (the scan cold use updating anyways by today's standards).

As luck would have it, I actually have a 'no dot' version of card 412. I'll upload it shortly, then look for the others that the checklist is missing.

Never mind, you're looking for the dot version!

There are still many cards that do not have a "no dot" VAR listed because no one has identified them as existing.  If you have a large amount of these, you may have some that aren't listed.  Though not 100% accurate, the no dot VAR tends to be printed on a brighter and flat light blue paper.  Most of the dot VAR have a cloudy darker blue back.  But again, not 100% accurate as the 412's I have are similar backs to the dot VAR.

I don't know if this specific question has been covered in the many 1988 Donruss forums. I didn't see it in any of them. For the DK cards 1-27, some are listed with two versions (a, b) and some with 3 versions (a,b,c) and then poor Mark Langston has only 1 version.  My question on the ones with 2 versions is why was the wording of the variation changed last month? The a. variation now says VAR: Factory set version; "© 1987 LEAF, INC." on back and the b. variation says  VAR: Pack version; "© 1987 LEAF, INC" on back   

This makes it seem to me that all cards with the DOT are factory cards and all cards without the DOT are pack cards. However, that's incorrect. I have 66 of these cards. I've never had a factory set, but I've opened tons of packs of this product. All but one of my 66 cards has the DOT. I know factory cards can sneak into a collection from time to time, but not that many!  I don't know exactly how all the DOT vs NO DOT variations occured, but I do know DOT variations can be found in packs because that's where my cards overwhelmingly came from.

I believe the Factory vs Pack is a reference to the front.  The black boxes in the border switch corners on cards where factory and pack are different. The Inc vs Inc. refers to the differences on the back.  So there are two sets of VARs existing in different combinations. But some combinations probably don't exist, or aren't verified by a member, which is why cards don't have 4 versions like 1990 does.  At least that's my understanding of it all.  Maybe Factory was used where Pack should have been, in Note2 of the Langston, and you caught a typo.  Thats my guess.

Whoever made those chages is going to get an earful from me. NO CHANGES SHOULD BE MADE ON THIS SET!

The notes had been set up to indicate where the card could be found. In some cases, the factory set version did not vary from the pack version. We WERE very careful to log this all the correct way. I apologize now on behalf of whoever messed this up. I'll see what O can do to get it repaired and then this set will be locked.

Notes have been restored and the set has been locked (as well as a few other sets). I hope all is clearer now.