Box break - 1991 Donruss Series 1 and 2 Baseball

THE PRODUCT: 5 boxes of 1991 Donruss Series 1 and 2 Baseball

While I broke five boxes for this post, I only show two here.  One (yellow) is Series 1, and the other (green) is Series 2.

1991 Donruss Series 1 and 2 baseball boxes

Each box contains 36 packs.  Each pack contains 15 cards and a 3-piece puzzle card.

1991 Donruss Series 1 and 2 baseball packs

THE BIG HITS: serial-numbered Elite inserts

In 1991 Donruss inserted one of the landmark sets of sport cards, the Elite cards.  With a total of 10 cards, eight were numbered to 10,000.  One, a "legends" card, was numbered to 7,500.  The last was autographed and limited to 5,000.  While these kinds of print runs seem preposterous today, it was considered small in 1991.  Because these cards were printed in ridiculous amounts, the Elite cards are still a tough pull.

THE CONTENTS

Even with five boxes, I didn't sniff a single Elite card.  The base cards are typical early 90s junk.  The Series 1 cards have blue borders, and Series 2 cards have green borders.

89 - Nolan Ryan

648 - Rickey Henderson

There are some subsets mixed in with the base cards.  The most famous subset is the Donruss Diamond Kings.  I can't stand these things.  Every player seems to have a mustache.  Aside from the Elite insert set, the Bonus Cards are the only other subset.  These cards are season highlights.  Series 1 has 10 Bonus Cards, and Series 2 has 12.

16 - Diamond Kings Edgar Martinez
Bonus Cards - 1 - Langston and Witt

CONCLUSION

Boxes of 1991 Donruss can be found in the $5 range on eBay.  You get what you pay for.

How many 1991 Score Mantle autographs are there?

A little over a week ago I posted a break of three boxes of 1991 Score 2 in an attempt to get a Mickey Mantle autograph.  Of course, it was all for naught.  It's a needle in a haystack kind of search.  According to Beckett and the Score pack wrappers themselves, there are 2,500 autographs in the entire series, and the series is woefully overly printed.

The Mantle autographs are supposedly spread over seven different insert cards.  That seems a bit weird since 2,500 isn't evenly divisible by 7.  I did some poking around on eBay and found two surprising lots.

One is an autographed copy of the Speed and Grace Mantle card.  It has a serial number of 0007 out of 2,500.

1991 Score Mantle Autograph - 5 - Speed and Grace #0007/2500

The other interesting card is an autographed copy of the Twilight Mantle card.  It also has a serial number of 0007 out of 2,500.

1991 Score Mantle Autograph - 7 - Twilight #0007/2500

That's two cards with the same serial number.  Mantle didn't sign just 2,500 cards.  He signed 2,500 of each of the seven insert cards.  That's 17,500 autographs.  With a little more poking around on the web, I found an old thread on the Blowout Cards forum.  In this thread, one poster also came to the conclusion that there are 17,500 autographs (give or take).

That's a lot of autographs.  I mean, with that many autographs out there, it should be easy to pull one from a box.  The odds, however, still stand at 1:30,000.  Now that's overproduction.

Box break - 1991 Score 2 Baseball

THE PRODUCT: 3 boxes of 1991 Score Series 2 Baseball

These three boxes show different players on the front - John Olerud, Kevin Mitchell, and Barry Larkin.  I don't know how many other box varieties exist.

1991 Score Series 2 baseball boxes

Each box contains 36 packs.  Each pack contains 16 cards plus 1 Magic Motion trivia card.

1991 Score Series 2 baseball pack

THE BIG HITS: serial-numbered Mickey Mantle autographs

In Series 2 boxes in 1991 Score inserted a special Mickey Mantle tribute set of seven cards.  A grand total of 38,500 cards were produced.  Mantle autographed 2,500 samples of the seven cards.  According to the pack wrappers, the odds of pulling a Mantle insert are "no less than 1 in 2,000."  The odds for pulling an autographed cards are "no less than 1 in 30,000."  Even with three boxes of 1991 Score 2, the odds are way against me for pulling something decent.

THE CONTENTS

As expected, this boxes had lots of base cards but no inserts, let alone autographed inserts.  The first box afforded 365 different cards of the 452 needed for Series 2.  That's 81% of the complete set.  I also picked up 31 different trivia cards toward the full set of 56 (55%). Once all the dust had settled I was short 5 base cards (447 of out 452) and lacking 4 of the trivia cards (52 out of 56).  (Note that Beckett says that there are 72 trivia cards, but that's just for Series 1.  The Series 2 trivia cards are complete at 56.)

Despite the fact these boxes only contain base cards, this is one wild and crazy set.  All the base cards have one of four different background colors - blue, teal, white, and black.  The blue and teal cards are all just vanilla player cards.  A couple are shown below.

550 - Orel Hershiser

554 - Fred Lynn

The white cards are exclusively a complete mess of subsets.

669 - Eric Davis
671 - Chipper Jones
685 - Doc Gooden

690 - Jose Canseco
702 - Dave Stewart
768 - Gary Disarcina

The black cards are largely simple player cards, but they also include a number of special tribute-type cards.

773 - Bo Jackson
788 - Curt Schilling
795 - Reds' October

815 - Ryne Sandberg
841 - The Griffeys
858 - Ken Griffey Jr.

The series ends with a handful of Dream Team cards.  These have a black-and-white or sepia appearance.  Most are nice shots, but the Rickey Henderson card is a bit creepy.  Are these baseball cards or a product of Playgirl?

890 - Rickey Henderson

CONCLUSION

I can't be surprised at striking out on this break, but there are plenty more 1991 Score 2 boxes on eBay.