1988 Donruss Baseball Forum

What is the difference between these two cards? My old eyes aren't seeing any discrepancies between the pack and factory versions.

https://www.tcdb.com/ViewCard.cfm/sid/119/cid/44071/1988-Donruss-71-Bert-Blyleven

https://www.tcdb.com/ViewCard.cfm/sid/119/cid/11872812/1988-Donruss-71-Bert-Blyleven

Look at the first line of the Contract Status.

Dan, is that the same for all the Factory set versions?  I was struggling to see the difference also.  Thank you for pointing that out.

Ah, thanks. I didn't see that small variance at all. Crazy Donruss....

Hi Dan - it's been a while! Hope you're well.

Anyway, there are several things that COULD be different between the packed-out cards and the factory set cards. Each card is unique in that any one or all of these could be a difference:

1 - Blue/Black border on front - The easiest to spot and usually people stop there
2 - The Career Highlights section - the font used on the card backs is very slightly different. One was slightly smaller than the other, and it makes for the lines of text to eventually shift (where the first word of the last line differs) or in a couple cases, the last letter of the last line lines up differently with the second to last line.
3 - The Contract Status section - in the case of the Blyleven card (and a couple others), the only spot to tell the difference is in there, as the font differes and the end of one line/start of the next differes (or like the Career Highlights, the last letter of the last line aligns differently with the line above it).

There have also been instances in the Diamond King cards where people thought they had a "new VAR", only to find out it was the Leaf version (look for French on the back).

What about 164 Tony Gwynn? Using the above guidelines I'm struggling to see the difference between the A and B version. Maybe I'm just having trouble seeing it. It could be obvious to others. 

I really hope this doesn't turn into a card-by-card hand-holding.

#164 - Tony Gwynn

Packed-out - Career Highlights first line ends with "player"
Factory set - Career Highlights first line ends with "in"

Packed-out - last line's last letter ends under "i" in "triples"
Factory set - last line's last letter ends under "d" in "and"

Obviously, since the first line ends with different words, second line starts with different words. And these were exactly what I said to look for in my previous post.

I might have started this with my question about it LOL.

TwinKiller, but griffey423 explained it in your thread (which is why I didn't answer there, he gave a plenty good answer). If that advice had been followed, both of these would not have had to be explained.

Damn. Such a subtle change. I looked at the sections on that card a dozen times and did not notice that (unless maybe I thought I was clicking on different cards and was actually clicking on duplicates in my collection).