1987 Donruss - Factory Set vs Wax Packs

[Jwhit22206]

Hello all,

Tried searching the forums high-and-low for this answer ... how can you tell which cards from the 1987 Donruss came from wax packs and which ones were purchased in a factory set? I found one site on Google that stated the ones from wax packs have backs that face left when flipped over (and vice versa for the factory sets). Another site says that the factory sets have matching back-bottoms and front-lefts. And, just one more for good measure ... the last site says that the copyrights on the wax packs read "1987," while the factory sets read "1986."

A few questions:

1) How does one determine which way the card faces (there printed landscape orientated)

2) Why would the factory sets be copyrighted with an earlier date than the cards that come from wax/rack packs? Aren't the factory sets printed later?

3) Which ones are typically of greater value? When growing up, my father would say the ones you collected from the wax/rack packs.

Sorry for all the questions ... I've been going through the cards of my past and am definitely stumped. I appreciate all the help I can get.

Thanks,
Justin

[pwaldo]

3) Which ones are typically of greater value? When growing up, my father would say the ones you collected from the wax/rack packs.

Sorry for all the questions ... I've been going through the cards of my past and am definitely stumped. I appreciate all the help I can get.

Thanks,
Justin

No need to be sorry about the questions. That is the whole point of this forum for us to learn.

As for which has the greater value. I only learned about this variation from another long time veteran collector early this year after he had just discovered it. So I doubt many people even know about this with 1987 Donruss. And I'd even argue that we still aren't sure that we even know the source or if there aren't even more variations yet since it appears nobody paid attention to the backs of 1987. So until that gets sorted out and somebody basically alerts the majority of collectors about it this will remain a niche market.