If you weren’t around to witness the first few years of their existence, you may never realize the full impact that 1984 Donruss baseball cards had on the hobby.
Sitting here three-plus decades later, they may seem like just another issue fading from view under the dust of time, but this set is so much more.
It’s the set that announced Donruss would be a major player in the card market and not just a cheap curiosity.
It’s the set that made us believe improvements in card quality were possible, that we deserved better cards.
It’s the set that showed us supply and demand works, even for brand new cards.
And it’s the set that kickstarted the rookie card craze for real after a few years of heavy flirtation.
(Check out our full series of posts on the history of Donruss baseball cards.)
Now, after all these years, much of the sheen has faded from 1984 Donruss as thousands of newer issues continue to crowd our collecting memories, and as the set’s marquee players slip further from the limelight.
But enough of us old-timers know the hobby wouldn’t exist as it does today without the influence of this set to keep it from collapsing into oblivion, at least for another generation or so.
Hopefully, our hobby children can carry on that message when the moment comes.
For the time being, there are still plenty of desirable pasteboards in this milestone issue, with the ten here being the most valuable 1984 Donruss baseball cards.
Card rankings and values are based on prices for PSA 9 copies as listed in the PSA Sports Market Report Price Guide, but you probably don’t need any help at all to know who sits at the top of this particular mountain …
1984 Donruss Don Mattingly (#248)
I’ve written about this card before, but for this list, suffice it to say that the 1984 Donruss Don Mattingly did for modern cards what the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle did for older cards, and for the hobby at large.
It all started with the frantic batting title race with Yankees teammate Dave Winfield in 1984 and exploded to new proportions in 1985 when Mattingly became maybe the best hitter in the game (at least by the standards of the day).
Add in the relative scarcity of the 1984 Donruss set, and it was the precise confluence we needed for the rookie card craze take hold and set us up for the hobby boom proper.
It’s no hyperbole to say that, without the Donnie Baseball rookie card, there would have been no 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr., maybe no Upper Deck at all, no Brien Taylor phenomenon in the early 1990s, no rookie card speculation, no boom and bust.
So, OK, maybe all or most of that would have happened in one way or another, but the hobby would be drastically different today had the perfect storm of the 1984 Donruss Don Mattingly rookie card never come to pass.
Today, this hobby staple is a $120 item in PSA 9 condition.
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1984 Donruss Joe Carter Rated Rookie (#41)
Joe Carter, then with the Chicago Cubs, was part of the initial class of Donruss Rated Rookies to be so noted on card fronts. (Donruss had designated some guys as “1983 Donruss Rated Rookie”s on card backs the year before — see Keith Creel for an example.)
Over the next couple of decades, Carter would become an RBI machine for the Indians and Blue Jays, and he’d smack one of the most famous home runs in baseball history.
No one who saw his bottom-of-the-ninth blast off Mitch Williams in Game 6 of the 1993 World Series will ever forget it!
Though Carter has thus far fallen short of the Hall of Fame, his Donruss Rookie Card remains a $20 buy in PSA 9.
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1984 Donruss Daryl Strawberry Rookie Card (#68)
Not surprisingly, this Strawberry rookie card came out of the gates in 1984 as the most popular card in the whole set.
Rolling to the 1983 National League Rookie of the Year Award and piling up big home run numbers along the way tend to help a guy’s card values, after all.
Once it became clear that Donruss was different that year (read, “limited”), this Straw was at the top of the entire new-card food chain.
Although Strawberry stumbled personally and professionally over the years, he still put up a solid career that taunts us to this day with thoughts about what might have been.
The combination of all those factors is enough to keep this card in the $15 range today.
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1984 Donruss Cal Ripken (#106)
Ripken was already an established superstar as 1984 dawned, having won the American League Rookie of the Year Award in 1982 and the AL MVP in 1983.
He was also the starting shortstop for the World Series champion Baltimore Orioles, and he was in the beginning stages of a little something that would become The Streak.
The future looked bright, in other words.
And bright it was, with more than 3000 hits, a date with Lou Gehrig, and easy Cooperstown election all ahead of young Cal at this point.
This HOF cardboard generally sells for $10 or so in PSA 9 condition.
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