1992 was a monumental year for error and variation cards being produced in Donruss’s baseball card sets. With the excitement of a new decade and the growth of collecting as both a hobby and lucrative business, quality control took somewhat of a backseat during card production. This led to some unbelievable mistakes and variations that are highly sought after by collectors to this day.
One of the biggest errors of the 1992 Donruss set involved Ozzie Smith cards. Specifically, snapshot photos being incorrectly printed on cards that were intended to have action shots. This error saw Ozzie Smith snapshot images appearing on over a dozen of his regular issue cards in the set, rather than the intended action photo. While snapshot photos were utilized for certain inserts like ‘Next Stars’ in the subset, they were never meant to be used as the main image on base cards.
Even more interestingly, the same Ozzie Smith snapshot ended up being erroneously placed on cards depicting other players entirely. At least three known Jack McDowell cards exist with Ozzie’s snapshot on them instead of Jack. Rare Kirk Gibson and Oddibe McDowell cards carrying this error have also been reported. With such sloppy mistakes being made repeatedly with the same image, it’s clear Donruss’s printing plates were not always being changed out properly between cards during production.
Another hugely valuable error involved Switch-hitters being depicted batting left-handed on their cards, despite the fact they always batted right-handed in real life. Specifically, Eddie Murray, Lenny Dykstra, and Darren Daulton cards were erroneously printed this way. While the text and stats on the back correctly identified them as right-handed hitters, the front image misled collectors. Finding these ‘backwards batting’ switched cards in mint condition is an incredible feat, with PSA 10 Eddie Murray and Lenny Dykstra examples selling for over $10,000 each in recent auction.
Perhaps the most visually stunning error cards from 1992 Donruss revolve around pitchers being depicted as fielders, and vice versa. Rickey Henderson, Kevin McReynolds, and Matt Williams cards exist showing them holding a baseball and posing as if they were about to pitch, when they never played that position. Meanwhile, pitching aces Tom Glavine and David Cone appear on their cards dressed as everyday position players with gloves on. Holding error specimens of star slugger Rickey Henderson as a ‘pitcher’ or Cy Young winner Tom Glavine as an ‘outfielder’ is a true collector’s dream come true.
Alongside photographic errors, issues were also present with uniform variety and colours being inaccurately depicted. Most notably, Bret Saberhagen and Jeff Reardon’s Kansas City Royals uniforms on their cards do not match the classic blue and white tops actually worn by the team in 1992. Instead, they show the players wearing different shades of powder blue never seen on the field. Additional inconsistencies have been spotted with logos, fonts, nameplates and uniform piping not conforming to what was used during that MLB season.
For the Robin Yount and Omar Vizquel rookie cards, a manufacturing mistake saw completely different photos than intended end up being used. Robin Yount has a photo of him batting left-handed when he was a righty, while Omar Vizquel’s card depicts him with a batting helmet on despite being an infielder who never batted. Pulling either of these true photo swap error rookies in top-grade is about as exciting as it gets for baseball card collectors.
Beyond photographic and uniform mix-ups, variations also occurred through inconsistent use of the common ‘foil’ stamping seen on many high-value Donruss cards of the era. Errors exist where the ‘foil’ treatment was either incorrectly left off certain valuable cards, or haphazardly applied to base commons. Errors also popped up with missing signatures, statistics, orteam logos on occassion.
While detrimental to quality control, the abundance and variety of mistakes present in the 1992 Donruss baseball issue have made it tremendously popular withtoday’s investors and enthusiasts. Finding examples of the above referenced errors in pristine preserved condition can reap incredible financial rewards at auction. Even flawed lesser-grade errors hold value due to their historical significance within the hobby. Over 30 years later, 1992 Donruss errors and variations remain some of the most iconic and coveted printing mistakes in the entire sports card industry. Their accidental creation contributed markedly to the growth of error card collecting as an important sector of the pastime.
