1981 DONRUSS BOX OPENING- THE WORST BOX EVER! (Throwback Thursday) 

Don't worry if your card is destroyed by the gum, there will be 3 more of it in the pack so you are good.

Meanwhile there’s a 50-year-old guy still emotionally scarred by the summer of 1981 when he was trying to build a set and there were no Royals or Yankees to be found.

MLB expansion has made great strides in 38 years, considering there were only 5 teams in 1981😂😂

"The best box ever!" Signed, John Wathan's Mother

This was the best box ever. I haven’t laughed so hard watching baseball cards being opened ever.

Basically, this was the Pine Tar Box. A bunch of drama surrounding the Yankees and Royals and George Brett in the middle of a very sticky situation. Take care of yourself and your family.

This may have ruined your thursday, but it completely made my Saturday night!! I never laughed so hard in my life!! This has added at least 5yrs to my life. I profusely thank you from the bottom of my heart!!! My wife had to check up on me 4 times to make sure I could still breathe!!!!

This reminded me of European Vacation when they got stuck in the roundabout...."hey kids, Big Ben, Parliament.....look kids Big Ben, Parliament" Hey kids John Watham, Bill Caudill......look kids, John Watham, Bill Caudill.......

Might be the worst box ever but I couldn’t stop laughing while watching this video, sorry lol :(

Whenever I'm feeling down, I like to go back to this video...especially after 22:00 just to see the reaction to all the John Wathan cards....always makes me laugh and puts a smile on my face! Good job Jabs..always a pleasure to watch your vids!

I could just imagine being on the Oprah show... "YOU GET A JOHN WATHAN! AND YOU GET A JOHN WATHAN, AND YOU GET A JOHN WATHAN!"

432 John Wathan cards in one box? That's impressive. A full set of these must have cost a fortune to put together, even at 30 cents a pack, probably would take about 6 million packs to complete the set

Does this mean the 81 all-star game was bill Caudill vs the royals and Yankees?

So the folks at Don Russ knew they messed up at the most a week after this release...no way they could even imagine that 38 years later they would be ruining our Thursday!!! What a bummer...

‘At least we might get a George Brett.’ Love your eternal optimism! 😂

This was actually a amazing Video, I demand a John Wathan card count!

I’ve watched this about 30 times and I still laugh extremely hard at the pack that starts at 22:39

By any chance was there any Royals or Yankees in there?

I can't believe the packs are ALL literally the same players!!! I felt sorry for Robert S (that's my middle initial) until the Reggie Jackson's and the Brett's showed up. You could actually play poker with these. "I've got 4 of a kind of Pete LaCock, what do you have?" "Well I've got 4 George Brett's, I win." LOL. And if you have 5 different Royals for your hand, i guess you could call that a Royal Flush :)

When these came out the early runs were TERRIBLE.I bought 8 packs and got nothing but Mets,White Sox,and Expos.

81 Donruss was notorious for finding duplicates in packs, as well as duplicate packs.

36 packs and only 36 different cards.

For everyone who commented that the box was searched, no one would be stupid enough to put the same cards in each pack after searching the packs. It was obviously a factory error when they were putting the packs together. As some have mentioned in the comments, this product was rushed to market in order to compete with Topps and Fleer and it's obvious that the quality control was not up to proper standards.

Bill cadill in every pack 😂😂😂

I would have been cracking up opening up these cards. Can’t believe he was upset. Lighten up!

Must have been a new guy on the printing press that day. This was hilarious and was worth watching.

I was laughing my ass of the entire time. Best box opening ever! LOL

Treating the Cubs card like a hit made me laugh harder than it should have.

I have to say this is one of the best box breaks I've ever seen!!!

Oh this video brings back memories of purchasing three wax boxes of 1981 Donruss and pulling almost a hundred Steve Stones! Donruss really didn’t know what they were doing back then. 1982 isn’t much better. Keep your wax box intact.

Wonder if John Wathan signs cards through the mail, if so send all of them to him, should only take about 8 months forhim to sign them all.

Back in 1981, that cherry flavored gum was the best gum by far! I remember that cherry flavor!

Just watched this again. So funny! Always makes my day.

Can't believe the number of people here saying that this was searched. This was authenticated by BBCE which are the most reputable dealers when it comes to vintage wax. While I would normally trust their opinion on loose wax, this box wasn't even loose when purchased by them. This was from a sealed case, which is as much of a guaranty as anything you could ever buy. Sometimes you just get bad boxes, especially back from the 80s when collation was not the best. Go back and look at the recent 1985 Topps break, while the collation wasnt as bad there were still numerous times that the same card came out 3-4 times. And those duplicates could have been anything including Big Mac rookies.

If you do a group break on this product again, I'll take the Royals and Yanks.

Burn those cards along with the mantle hat.

That was hilarious to watch. I honestly wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it.

Thumbs down for the cards, thumbs up for the video!

Also just think there’s a box out there that has like 300 Rickey Hendersons in it

There’s no way that box was legitimately unsearched

This video was hilarious. I LOL'd the entire time!!

That was rough! I might see that John Wathan card in my sleep tonight

Wow. Always heard donruss was notorious for this in their early products. The real challenge is finding something that could get graded a PSA 10 in that box. Impossible. Anyways,great video Jabs.

That box may have been trash, but I laughed heartily watching this break. Oh, look, George Brett...

I'm sorry for all involved, but I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe. Crazy.

Imagine getting a box of 86-87 Fleer like that, with Jordan, Barkley, Malone, Ewing, etc.

I don’t think Beckett was publishing back in 1981. The earliest published monthly price guides I’ve seen are CCP and maybe Tuff Stuff.

⚠️This should have been a warning ⚠️ This is your future speaking, and your going to get ripped off on a $2,000.00 box of 79 Topps. Authenticated (searched) by BBCE.

This was hilarious and painful at the same time. I mean, if this were my box, you definitely pulled enough Reggie Jackson’s, George Bretts, and Ron Guidry’s to find more than one PSA 10. And throw in some Jim Palmers for effect, the gum damage was bad for the top 3 cards, but after that . . . At least it was Reggie and Brett. Fun video to watch. It’s like watching a pro golfer hit it in the woods. I’ve had a couple bad boxes like this so it’s good to know I’m not alone.

The gum looks better then what’s in the box 😂

Second stack: "Let's hope that changes" (Opens pack, Royals on top)

This box has definitely been tampered with. I remember when I bought an unopened box I almost got a complete set back in 1981. There was never duplications in each pack.

Imagine if John wahman was worth money

John Wathan, the unofficial mascot of Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday is always fun!!!!!!!!

Win some, lose some! Still fun to watch and hear your commentary! Thanks for sharing.

81 was my biggest year collecting as a kid - bought a bunch of Topps, Fleer & Donruss

That is a record for the most Yankees and Royals ever in one box

I hope the same thing happens if you break a box of 84 Donruss. 3 Mattinglys per pack would be awesome.

Erik, this was NOT my favorite ever break but had to give it a thumbs up for the pain You put Yourself thru by opening the case & being a Dude for offering those poor souls who brought into the break a full refund😂! Respect Sir & hope You and the family are well😎👍

Did not give the box a thumbs up, but gave you Erik a thumbs up for being a stand up guy and offering to return people's money for something that was not your fault. A stand up guy.

I opened hundreds if not thousands of packs of these in 1981. I used all my lawn mowing money to buy cards during this time. The box you got.........you got ripped off. the packs were ALL searched and someone dint even take the time to mix up the cards.

That was horrendous!! My dad and I (well, my dad, I should say) bought 5 sets each of Topps, Donruss, and Fleer in '81. After watching this, I am so glad I never just opened packs of Donruss back then. Guess we made a good choice looking back now.

Glorious days for us Phillies fans - Glad you were right!

This was the funniest box break ever! Groundhog Day Break!!!

The amount of doubles and triples in these packs is comical

Did you get the Royals or Yankees team set?

hey man what years should i look for when i go yard saling tomorrow

Someone left the card sorting mechanic at the Donruss factory unattended that day lol.

I opened these back in 1981 and never saw anything like this, maybe it’s just some weird anomaly, I have seen error cards but possibly this is an error box? This Video should go Viral in the Card collecting world!

Even though the title says "WORST BOX EVER!" i watched the video. 25 minutes in, i'm BEGGING for a Rickey Henderson !!!! :O

I remember the horrible sorting from ‘81 donruss. Classic memory!

If only Bill Caudill were a Hall of Famer, you'd be living on a tropical beach

81 Donruss is notorious for being crap. Errors, mis-cuts, horribly off center and abysmal QC. BBCE is legit despite what some are saying here.

That box was hysterical. I am working on a John Wathan collection, do you know anyone that has a copy of his 1981 Fleer card?

Wow...just WOW. I opened up one of these boxes on my channel recently, and this break goes to show that I really lucked out. That is such a wide variation in quality control. BTW, I got my box from BBCE as well.

I bought 81 Donruss back in 1981 and never encountered what you encountered opening that box.

This is your best box opening as far as content not content in the box but in the comment section cause the jokes there are hilarious.

My son ate a piece of gum from a 88 Donruss pack yesterday! I told him it was 30+ years old so it won’t be good...teenagers!🤣 really a fun break! I like Reggie Jackson!

Any chance you can tally up a final count to see the percentage by team? It seems like way over 90% Yankees, Royals, A's

Donruss employee gets a pinkslip at lunch. Sneaks back into the factory. "I'll fix em!"

How could Topps have exclusivity on gum was there only 1 gum company? Just curious which gum tasted better Topps or Donruss?

12:25 You have to wonder if Jim Palmer only agreed to have one photo taken. Then when it came time to give him a second card the editor just said, "Okay, for his second card, just zoom in a little bit and give him a darker tan, no one will notice." Hoping people will be too occupied with trying to find their missing piece of gum from that other pack.. :)

Never heard of John Watham before today but I will always remember him for now on

Is it possible this box was searched? 1 pack with no gum, and all Royals and Yankees? I know it was from a sealed case, but I have serious doubts

This was Donruss all through the '80s. It got better each year, but it cost a fortune to build a set for every year. I really did like this set though.

First video where I've read ALL the comments. Interesting to see everyone's take on the box.

That is the strangest box of cards I have ever seen. I would have loved to get the box back when they were new.

John Wathen

Thank you. Brought back memories of every Saturday in 1981, after my basketball game at the community center, walking across the street to the local drug store and buying 3 packs of the new donruss. I dont remember them being that bad. Ha.

If I remember from my days of collecting, the collation was horrible. I bought a few boxes back in the 80's. I got like 6 Hendersons out of one box and got skunked on the next box. They were working out a lot of bugs at that time for sure.

Watching this box break was torture. Trapped in the John Wathan Zone.

I’m gonna be seeing John Wathan cards in my sleep tonight😂

Where did you get your that 1985 topps wax box from a couple of vids ago

Probably the week the Quality Control guy was on vacation!!! Hahaha

By lack of quality control a pack had no gum stains and that only saved the cards that lack the quality control of randomness.

Sad part is I’ve opened some 88 Donruss similar to this, but at least 88 Donruss has the excuse of being junk wax compared to its 81 predecessor.

Wow! That was not a good box. I was thinking about getting a box, but I don't think I want to take that chance now. Keep up the good work. Thanks for the video.

Donruss had that look (81-83) until 1984 where they totally changed the design. From there, each year had a different feel

We’re Royals fans, but that’s ridiculous.