The 1990 Donruss baseball card set is notable for having several error cards produced during the printing process. As with any mass-produced trading card set from that era, a few mistakes were likely to slip through quality control. The 1990 Donruss issues seemed to occur at a higher rate than usual. Some speculate that Donruss may have had printer or equipment issues in 1990 that led to a imperfections cropping up more frequently on that year’s cards. While annoying for collectors at the time trying to complete their sets, the errors have now taken on great significance and heightened collectability for those chasing oddball variants in the hobby. Let’s take a deeper look at some of the more notable mistakes and anomalies found in the 1990 Donruss cards.
Perhaps the most commonly encountered error is known as the “photo swap.” Dozens of cards had a player’s photo incorrectly placed on the wrong career statistics and bio information. For example, the Mark McGwire card had Jose Canseco’s photo on it, while Canseco had McGwire’s stats. Other swaps included Eddie Murray and Tommy John, Bob Welch and Mike Witt, and Tim Raines and Tom Brunansky. While jarring for young collectors just looking at the cards, photo swaps became highly sought after by error card aficionados. Prices for confirmed swaps in top-graded condition regularly sell for hundreds of dollars today on auction sites.
In addition to photo mix-ups, there were also several instances of missing text under the photos. Cards like Dave Stewart, Sandy Alomar Jr., and David West had empty white space where the career highlights were meant to be printed. This seems to point to an issue with one of the printing plates not being properly aligned during production. Off-centered cards were another annoyance, although far more common in vintage sets than a true error. A dozen or so 1990 Donruss had such severe centering problems or cut placement that the photos or stats were partially cut off, rendering key information missing.
Perhaps the most visually striking screw-up was the Walt Weiss card, which had the photo and stats transposed, making it appear as if Weiss was a left-handed hitting catcher rather than a righty-hitting shortstop. While confusing on the surface, collectors valued this error immensely given how bizarrely out of place all the information was arranged. Other quirks involved missing accents on names like José Rijo and Boris Guerrero. Whether this implicates a faulty font file being used or simple human error leaving out the additional characters is unclear. But it nonetheless created an variations that stands out.
One subset of particularly odd deviations from the norm were the many 1990 Donruss Olympic Team cards that contained mistakes. For example, Dave Pavlas’s name was misspelled Pavlice on his card from the 1984 Olympic baseball squad. The 1992 Olympic Dream Team roster card listed Christian Laettner twice instead of one spot each for him and Shawn Bradley. Cards from the 1976 and 1984 U.S. women’s basketball teams had photos swapped between players as well. While Olympic related errors like these may seem inconsequential when mixed in among the regular baseball cards, these anomalies have become highly sought after novelty pieces by Olympic memorabilia and mistake card collectors.
Scanning and coating issues were another source of variability. Dust or dirt specs found their way onto dozens of cards during the mass printing process. A small number were printed with an uneven coat of gloss that led the image to fade or come out blurry in sections. These coating flaws are usually more common in the booklet cards that make up the border of a trading card sheet before being cut. That adds to the rarity when flaws end up inside the borders of a single card. There were also at least four known examples of 1990 Donruss cards being entirely blank white—a failure of the printing plate to transfer any image whatsoever. Unsurprisingly, these blank cards have become among the most valuable errors from the entire set.
While not technically mistakes, variations that occurred in the production line have accumulated their own niche in the collecting culture as well. A select number of cards had either no border at all or an elaborated hashed pattern around the border where most were a simple single line. Dating stamp variations, including different inks or the placement being off-center, are also noted. With dozens of printers and plate changes over the course of manufacturing millions upon millions of cardboard rectangles, it’s no shock that natural variations took place. And it’s those oddballs that excite the most obsessive of collectors.
Whether due to printer issues, rushed production timelines, or simply the inevitable dustups that occur when cranking out cards on an industrial scale, it’s clear the 1990 Donruss baseball set had more than its fair share of little mistakes and imperfections compared to other years. While frustrating 30 years ago trying to find that elusive star to complete a set, those errors have transformed into fascinating collectables in their own right with tremendous appeal to error card aficionados. Prices remain strong for even the more common flaws in high grade, indicating the enduring interest and appetite for 1990 Donruss variations continues undiminished even decades later. The mistakes may have slipped by back then, but collectors today are able to deeply appreciate all the charming peculiarities they provide.
