1988 Donruss Baseball Forum

Before I start, although some may be worried another variant is coming on for these sets, it's not. How do you actually tell the difference between factory set and pack version, NOT based on where I got it from because when I first started collecting, I got a big box of 80's cards with a lot of late 80's early 90's donruss cards, and so I don't know where they were gotten from in the first place. I know on some the border is different but for the ones that aren't, is there a tell-tale sign that I can know for spotting what is factory and what is pack?

The front design will be reversed on most of the cards. I believe DK is excluded, but not entirely sure. Look on the Forums for this set and there's a couple of descriptions in some of them.

If the front border matches check the career highlights text on the back at the bottom. The spacing is different so you'll have lines that start with different words and some time more or less lines total

About half of the cards have the black frame on opposite sides between the factory and packed out version.  Probably 95% of the cards have the text spacing differences on the back.

Thanks! That helps immensely as going through my cards to add to the database, it gets hard trying to scope out all of donruss' mini details. At least in their later sets they made it easier to see.