Donruss

I'm not quite sure what to make of the Donruss "Team Heroes" set that has recently hit the market. It's an enigma. It mixes current players with old-timers, and does so in the interest of presenting "up to 30 cards per team. " The base set is made up of 540 cards, so you didn't have to be a math major to figure out that not too many teams are going to have 30 player cards. The idea is interesting, and in busting a box of them, I knew, for sure, the New York Yankees would have their 30 cards.

The 1993 Donruss baseball cards already have hit the area. This year, Donruss will not be issuing a factory set. This means that you either will have to buy packs or boxes and put the set together yourself or buy a set that a dealer put together. In any case, it looks like the end to some of the factory sets. Donruss actually started this earlier. It had only packs of rookies in 1992. Before 1992, rookies only were available as factory sets. Upper Deck basketball is just starting to make it into our area for the 1992-1993 season.

Here it is early in the year and there are probably close to a dozen 2003 baseball card sets already on the market. It's hard to keep track of them all, but if you are a card collector the many sets help pass the cold gray days of winter. My vote for the best looking basic set of the new year, so far, goes to Donruss 2003. I love the look of it, the photo choices - posed action or action where their features are visible - and the fact that there are no short prints in the basic 400 card offering.

Donruss is back in the baseball-card hobby this month following a two-year hiatus. Its 20th anniversary edition is full of all the staples, while at the same time promising an abundance of modern collecting amenities. The 2001 edition gives Donruss' loyal legion of collectors the unique opportunity to take care of unfinished business by filling in the holes from 1999 and 2000. The 220-card 2001 base set is bolstered by two 100-card "extra" sets distributed through unique, one-card Retro-Active packs within each five-card pack of hobby (1999)

Chalk up another remarkable feat for Michael Phelps: somehow making swimming trading cards popular. An autographed 2004 trading card of the record-shattering Olympian was trading for as much as $500 yesterday, just 2 weeks after industry experts say the collectible could be easily had for $25. The market value could rise to $750 to $1,000 if Phelps breaks Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals at a single Olympics this weekend, said Tracy...

I got a box of Donruss baseball Originals 2002 the other day and I'm still not sure what to make of it. The concept, of course, is retro and Donruss has reached back to the '80s - 1982, 1984, 1986 and 1988 - to produce this set. Now that would really be good news if those sets were hobby icons, but, as I recall it, no one got very excited about them then and the designs will never be ones that anyone will long for. The originals remain plentiful: $40...

We have become jaded as collectors. Each season sees manufacturers produce countless brands of baseball cards, and we can pick and choose. But just 20 years ago, this wasn't the case. Up to that point, Topps had owned the market. So collectors waited with great anticipation in the spring of 1981 for the unveiling of card sets from Fleer and Donruss. Fleer was making history, thanks to a landmark federal antitrust suit, and Donruss was smart enough to get in on the action. Since then, Donruss came and went and came back again.

In 1982, just one year after Donruss entered the baseball card category, a subset called "Diamond Kings" was introduced, bringing back the concept of art trading cards - last seen in the marketplace in 1953. The artist was Philadelphia's own Dick Perez. Over the years, the Diamond King legacy has provided many coveted paintings of contemporary baseball players and, this year, the 20th-anniversary edition of the cards are a stand-alone, 150-card set. Five nationally known artists were commissioned to do the paintings: Frank Scicchitano, of New York, Mark Turnes and Don Adair, of Texas, Mark Chickinelli, of Nebraska and Ron Adair, of Colorado.

The 1993 National Baseball Card Convention is only one month away. This year's convention will be July 22 to 25 in Chicago. There are many good card shows all over the country, but the national show is the one show attended by all the card companies, as well as most of the country's leading card dealers. If you are looking for something in particular, chances are you will find it at this show. If you can't find it, you most likely will find a dealer who can find the item for you. The next two convention sites will be decided at this year's national convention.

Upper Deck's Sweet Spot baseball card offering has been one that has pushed the envelope for collectors, and the current issue will be no exception. The company issued the cards twice last year, once as a regular issue, once as "classic signatures. " The prize that everyone seeks in each box is a card that contains the "sweet spot" of a baseball signed by a star player. That's the good news. The bad news is that they are packed, on average, one in every other box. With odds like that you have to think before shelling out $120 or so to buy a box containing 12 packs with four cards per pack.

Chalk up another remarkable feat for Michael Phelps: somehow making swimming trading cards popular. An autographed 2004 trading card of the record-shattering Olympian was trading for as much as $500 yesterday, just 2 weeks after industry experts say the collectible could be easily had for $25. The market value could rise to $750 to $1,000 if Phelps breaks Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals at a single Olympics this weekend, said Tracy...

In the heyday of the sports-card collecting boom, Fleer was at the top of the game. But as most card collectors will tell you, the hobby is not what it once was. And despite a long and storied history, the Mount Laurel-based Fleer Cos. could not survive the hobby's decline and its more demanding collectors. Tomorrow in a Morristown, N.J., law office, Fleer's most valuable asset - its well-known name - is to go up for bids to help pay a fraction of its $35 million in debt. With rivals Donruss and Topps, Fleer thrived along with the sports-card collecting hobby during the mid-1980s and early 1990s.

Mark Simoneau's childhood treasure is stored in his parents' basement in Kansas. Collecting baseball cards began for the Eagles linebacker like it did for any young boy. But some of the hundreds of cards he has acquired set his collection apart. From receiving a gift of a Mickey Mantle all-star card to wisely hanging onto Barry Bonds' rookie card to finding a steal with a $5 purchase of a Roberto Clemente, Simoneau knows a good Donruss or Fleer when he sees one. While Simoneau, a 6-foot, 245-pound block of muscle, no longer adds to his collection, it is one he does not plan to sell.

Baseball cards and bad poses are like Jessica Simpson and blank stares. One always follows the other. Every year, there seem to be baseball cards with pitchers or hitters in curious poses. You know the ones: the pitcher who looks ready to throw a pitch but oddly holds the ball above his mitt, as if it's completely normal to let hitters see what pitch is about to be thrown. Or the hitter who is swinging his bat and smiling broadly at the same time. "You have to have a pensive look on your face," Phillies outfielder Doug Glanville said when asked for the key to the successful baseball card pose.

Donruss Champions baseball hit the counters recently with a set of 300 basic cards that focuses on the achievements of 250 veterans and legends, plus 50 rookies. To be honest, I'm not sure what to make of it. The Holo-Foil base set will be a real pain to complete because each of the 300 cards is limited to just 25. I got one in my whole box of 24 eight-card packs. It was Tampa Bay catching prospect Pete LaForest (16/25). Among the legends sprinkled into the set are the same old old-timers: Ozzie Smith, Billy Williams, Dale Murphy, Stan Musial, Tony Gwynn, Roberto Clemente, Nolan Ryan, Robin Yount (didn't anyone else ever play for Milwaukee?

We're having a funny baseball card season. Upper Deck wants to look like Topps, Topps wants to look like old-fashioned cigarette cards, Fleer wants to be both Topps and an old-fashioned cigarette card. Can you say identity crisis? At least no one wants to look like those awful high-tech, high-end cards of the mid-to-late '90s. The latest example is the 2003 Upper Deck Vintage that comes across as a dead ringer for the 1965 Topps cards - including the pennant in the lower left corner.

I'm not quite sure what to make of the Donruss "Team Heroes" set that has recently hit the market. It's an enigma. It mixes current players with old-timers, and does so in the interest of presenting "up to 30 cards per team. " The base set is made up of 540 cards, so you didn't have to be a math major to figure out that not too many teams are going to have 30 player cards. The idea is interesting, and in busting a box of them, I knew, for sure, the New York Yankees would have their 30 cards.

Here it is early in the year and there are probably close to a dozen 2003 baseball card sets already on the market. It's hard to keep track of them all, but if you are a card collector the many sets help pass the cold gray days of winter. My vote for the best looking basic set of the new year, so far, goes to Donruss 2003. I love the look of it, the photo choices - posed action or action where their features are visible - and the fact that there are no short prints in the basic 400 card offering.

Upper Deck's Sweet Spot baseball card offering has been one that has pushed the envelope for collectors, and the current issue will be no exception. The company issued the cards twice last year, once as a regular issue, once as "classic signatures. " The prize that everyone seeks in each box is a card that contains the "sweet spot" of a baseball signed by a star player. That's the good news. The bad news is that they are packed, on average, one in every other box. With odds like that you have to think before shelling out $120 or so to buy a box containing 12 packs with four cards per pack.

I got a box of Donruss baseball Originals 2002 the other day and I'm still not sure what to make of it. The concept, of course, is retro and Donruss has reached back to the '80s - 1982, 1984, 1986 and 1988 - to produce this set. Now that would really be good news if those sets were hobby icons, but, as I recall it, no one got very excited about them then and the designs will never be ones that anyone will long for. The originals remain plentiful: $40...