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Delivery Time! Giving 1991 Donruss Some Lovin'

Everyone's favorite denizen of the night, none other than Night Owl himself, recently sent me a box full of 1991 Donruss cards.  Now, you might be wondering what I ever did to Night Owl in order for him to stoop so low as to send me a box cards from the Fisher Price set (as he calls it).  Heck, many of you probably think a box full of early 90s Donruss cards to be worse than any bipping ever was (check the archives if you haven't heard of bipping).

Well, one man's trash is another man's treasure wanted cards.  I can't say that 1991 Donruss is the best set ever printed (it's certainly not) but it's a heckuva lot better than most people seem to think.  In fact, it celebrates the Reds' triumph over the Athletics in the 1990 World Series - so how can you not like it?

As I said, Night Owl sent me a huge box of cards to help me in my quest to finish off some of my "junk wax era" sets.  The 1991 Score set was my first attempt at such a thing (I still need three cards from that set) and now I'm inching closer to completing the 1991 Donruss set.  Other sets that I'd like to complete are the 1990 Topps, 1990 Fleer, and 1991 Fleer sets.  I might go after the 1992 Topps set as well at some point.  For now though, let's revel in the blue (and green) bordered beauties from the box of 1991 Donruss.

The 1991 Donruss set began with a Diamond Kings subset.

As a kid, I always thought the Diamond King cards were something special - probably part of my love for the set goes back to liking it a lot as a kid!  Of the six Diamond King cards that Night Owl sent my way, the Sandy Alomar card was my clear favorite.

The one down side to '91 Donruss is that the majority of the photos are fairly boring.  In fact, I could probably count the number of action shots in the box on one hand.

This Jose Lind card is one of the few cards that features more than one player - and while it's a nice enough photo it's easy to see why the 1991 Topps set (and '91 Upper Deck) were the leaders in photography at the time.

Ever look through a stack of cards and think "that's an unfortunate photo."  Me too.
Moving right along.

Night Owl also included a bunch of unmarked checklists.  That's good because now I can replace my original checklists which I definitely marked up as a kid.

Unfortunately, I have no idea why some names were highlighted while others were checked off.  Maybe I wasn't a very bright kid.

All of the above cards were from Series 1 (blue bordered).  Unfortunately, Donruss changed up the border color Series 2, shifting from the pleasant blue to a rather hideous green.  Even I can't give much love to the green bordered portion of the set - but I will say that the Reds players look like Christmas cards in the set - way too much green and red going on!

Despite my dislike of the green border, the best card that Night Owl sent me was part of the green bordered Series 2 - a 1990 World Series highlights card of Billy Hatcher!

Thanks for all the cards Night Owl - and to anyone else who has some 1991 Donruss lying around, I still am missing quite a few.   Feel free to make me an offer!

Comments

  1. My collection is much happier with fewer '91 Donruss in it. ... I'm sure you'll complete this set in no time.

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