Panini Donruss fills an interesting role in the hobby.  Topps has an exclusive contract with Major League Baseball to produce fully licensed trading cards, but that hasn’t stopped Panini from putting out a quality alternative.  There doesn’t seem to be much middle ground as people either really like it or really hate it.  I definitely fall in to the like it category.

Once I got used to the lack of team names and logos, I see the

 

product for what it is.   This year is a departure from the recent Donruss releases.  You still have many of the fan favorites in Diamond Kings and Rated Rookies, but they’re not SPs anymore.  Another big change is with short print variations.  These are almost as common as regular base,

Once again, Donruss pays tribute to a classic set from the 80s, with a subset featuring players on cards with a design similar to that of 1984 Donruss.

Overall, it’s a fun set, and without the excessive SPs from recent years, it may even be reasonable to collect.

A hobby box advertises 24 packs of 8 cards, and an average of three hits.   This box contained:

25 Base Diamond King
17 Base Rated Rookies
59 Base
3 Multi Player Vertical
3 Multi PLayer Horizontal
21 Base 1984 style
2 Base Blank Back
1 Diamond King Career Stat Line
1 Base Career Stat Line
1 Base Gold Press Proof
51 Base VAR SP
1 Base VAR SP Blank Back
1 American Pride
1 Dominator Blue
1 Foundations Red
1 Long Ball Leaders
1 Promising Pros Materials Pedro Severino
1 Diamond Collection Dinelson Lamet
1 Significant Signatures Wade Boggs