5 Most Fun and Overlooked 1980s Baseball Error Cards
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The 1980s were the golden age for the baseball card boom, but they also gave rise to the sometimes significant, sometimes valuable world of error cards. From reversed negatives to obscenities on bats, it all went down in the '80s and people started paying top dollar for cards that happened to contain errors.
But all error cards aren't created equal, and it seems a good time to turn back the clock to baseball's junk wax rise to highlight five particularly fun error cards that might be worth a nod either to remember wax packs past or as an investment nod to the future.
1985 Topps Gary Pettis
Anybody with a sibling might know the feeling of being mistaken for a family member. But most don't end up on their big brother's baseball cards. And then there's Lynn Pettis, the then-14 year old brother of Angels outfielder Gary. Somehow, a Topps photographer was duped into putting Lynn on Gary's card.
Topps was apparently so nonplussed that they never bothered to fix the error, so Pettis remains a bargain, easily available raw for around $2. The Tiffany version might be a fun option, with a PSA 9 recently selling for $16.
1985 Donruss "Tom Seaver"
As Pettis shows above, the wrong-guy error card is an age-old trick. But few were as obviously wrong as Donruss's 1985 Tom Seaver card. Seaver, closing out a Hall of Fame career, was one of the notorious right-handed pitchers of his time, and perhaps all-time.
Which does nothing to explain why Donruss tabbed lefty Floyd Bannister as Seaver. Seaver not only was right-handed but also wore number 41 throughout his two-decade big league career. Bannister, obviously from the photo, wore number 24. Donruss did red-facedly put a card of Seaver out in place of the error, and the two together make a fun and affordable card keepsake.
If the raw version isn't exciting enough, last year an autographed version (by Seaver, of the Bannister version) sold for $110.
1989 Score Paul Gibson
Poor Paul Gibson. His brief career as an unremarkable Detroit Tigers pitcher doesn't give him a ton of cards, and one that would otherwise be one of the best-- a nice action shot of Gibson preparing to deal some heat in Tiger Stadium-- is marred not by Gibson, but by what's going on behind him.
A Tigers infielder, apparently a second baseman based on position is, well, making some in-game adjustments. It looks to be utility man Luis Salazar who brought mild infamy on himself. Score fixed the error by whiting over Salazar's hand and thus hiding his adjustment. But the error, here in a PSA 8, retains some legitimate value, with this version selling for $25. What a nutty card.
1987 Donruss Opening Day "Barry Bonds"
Barry Bonds hit 762 major league home runs. Johnny Ray hit 53. But when Donruss released a rookie card of the future home run king in its fairly rare 1987 Opening Day say, it's Ray and now Bonds who they put on card 163. This one got corrected pretty quickly and the corrected Bonds card is still quite collectible.
But the Ray error? Wow. The card above, not quite pristine, recently sold for almost $2,000. A PSA 10 sold last month for almost $16,000. It's a deep pockets error card, and a legitimate head-scratcher.
1989-90 Pacific (Senior League) Jim Nettles
There's a lot to talk about here. First, yes, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. This card came out months after the infamous 1989 Fleer Billy Ripken error, in which Ripken brandished a bat with a four-letter expletive very obviously written on the knob. Chaos and big values ensued.
So when Pacific chronicled the ill-fated Senior League (think baseball with older players), Jim Nettles ended up drawing some rare attention for the league. The card above is the corrected version, but Nettles's bat knob originally contained a seven letter expletive beginning with an a.
Both the error and the corrected version retain some value, but a nice version of each can be had for well under $100. At least Pacific didn't pull a Fleer and have 18 different variations of correction with its error.
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Joe is a journalist and writer who covers college and professional sports. He has written or co-written over a dozen sports books, including several regional best sellers. His last book, A Fine Team Man, is about Jackie Robinson and the lives he changed. Joe has been a guest on MLB Network, the Paul Finebaum show and numerous other television and radio shows. He has been inside MLB dugouts, covered bowl games and conference tournaments with Saturday Down South and still loves telling the stories of sports past and present.