Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Complete Set Review - 1983 Donruss Hall of Fame Heroes

A few months back I picked up a set that I have had my eye on for a couple of decades.  I think it is a very attractive set and features one of my favorite card topics - Baseball Hall of Famers.  In 1983, during their 3rd year of putting out baseball card sets, Donruss released a 44-card Hall of Fame Heroes set.  These are standard size cards on typical 1980s Donruss card stock.  Some research shows that the cards came in eight card packs with 3 Mickey Mantle puzzle pieces at a cost of 30 cents.  I don't recall seeing packs of these cards back in the 80s, only singles at card shows.

42 of the 44 cards in the set feature Dick Perez artwork, he of Diamond King fame.  One card depicts the completed Mantle puzzle and the final card is a checklist.   Here is the front of the Dizzy Dean card.  The cards feature portraits, half-body and full-body pictures, I tend to like the full-body pictures the best.


The card backs are red, white, and blue containing the card number and a short player biography.  After reading through all the card backs, I really like the style and content of the write ups.


Since it is only a 44-card set, I figured I would share the entire set, enjoy:


A great looking set that I am glad to finally have in my collection.

6 comments:

  1. I have a few of the singles. I think I need to get a couple of sets of these. I do have the completed Mantle puzzle, with tons of dupes.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've never seen this set before and all I can say is WOW ... it's a fantastic looking set!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Pretty stellar! Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I have that set. I should have featured it by now. What was I thinking?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Love this set. Busted a box back in 2012.

    In 1987, Leaf (sort of) created an update for this set and added three HOFers: Brooks Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, and Willie McCovey. It was part of a Special Olympics set they released. I posted some scans last summer if you're interested in checking them out:

    http://sanjosefuji.blogspot.com/2015/07/very-special-cards.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for sharing, I missed that post. I have the McCovey and recognized it was similar but hadn't had time to research. Will have to keep my eyes open for the Special Olympics set, it would be a nice compliment to this one.

      Delete