Group Break Highlights from 2023 Donruss (Hobby Box #1)

I've got a ton of cards to still sort through thanks to my group break this past Tuesday (we ripped two boxes each of 2023 Topps Series 2, Topps Heritage, and Donruss).  I've already shown off the highlights from the first box of Series 2 and Heritage, so let's give Donruss a little love now!

2023 Donruss:  Box #1

No box toppers in Donruss so it's straight to the base cards first.  Honestly, unlike Topps Series 2 and Heritage, I'd argue that the base set is actually much less the focus with Donruss.  Instead, I imagine most collectors will be chasing the many, many parallels plus perhaps some of the other shiny inserts - and having boxes with three promised hits (relics or autographs) doesn't hurt either. 

That said, as a set collector at heart I have to start with the base cards!  In this year's edition of Donruss, there are basically four sections to the base set:  Diamond Kings, Rated Prospects, the "regular" base cards, and finally, Retro 1990.  This year's Donruss set is also sort of unique in that it consists of almost exclusively prospects that hadn't been in the big leagues and retired greats (this is because Panini lost their MLBPA license to go along with losing their MLB license).  Don't expect any team logos!  That all said, I think the base set looks alright:

I like the Diamond King design, even if it doesn't remind me of Donruss sets of yore at all.  The Rated Prospects basically take the place of the old Rated Rookie (complete with a similar logo), but the Retro 1990 cards are probably best left behind with the 1990 design...that's not a design I need to see over and over!  

Speaking of the 1990 Retro subset, within that subset Donruss put out ten Reverse Negative gimmicks.  Here's what they look like courtesy of the two Duke Snider cards we pulled in the box:

I guess the actually 1990 Donruss set had some errors like that so that's what Panini is riffing off of.  I've certainly seen worse gimmicks put out by card companies *cough* sparkles Topps *cough*.

While the base set is certainly fine this year, the real star of the box is all of the parallels and hits you'll find.  For starters, every box contains a Blue Foil parallel.  

The blue foils are not serially-numbered but they are nice and shiny!

Speaking of shiny, there's a lot of shiny stuff in Donruss this year!  Another shiny parallel set is the Career Stat Line set.  Our box had two:

The Gavin Williams (Guardians) is #/149 while the Rafael Furcal (Dodgers) is #/69.  I'll admit, it's still kind of cool anytime you can get a serially numbered card that is numbered out of less than 100.  That's a nice hit for the Dodgers team slot in the break.

There are also Red Foil parallels that are numbered out of 2023.  Our box contained a whopping 11 of them including another Rafael Furcal parallel.

The next most common parallel was what I believe are called Independence Day parallels (basically a bunch of blue stars on the border).  Our box had four but I only scanned three of them since that's what fit nicely on my scanner bed.

Hard to complain about getting that Griffey, Jr. here!  

Finally, to close out the plethora of parallels here are the other (rarer) parallels from our box:

The Montgomery is #/25 (Voltage parallel), the Perez is #/50 (America parallel), the Ford is #/100 (One Hundred parallel), the Griffey, Jr. is #/46 (Presidential), and the Wood is not numbered but it's from the Liberty parallel set.  More low numbered goodies here with the big winner being another nice Ken Griffey, Jr. parallel!

The box also held a bunch of super shiny inserts:

The Chipper is #/25, the Maddux is #/999, the Mussina is #/999, the Ripken is #/349, the Walker is #/999, and the Ichiro is #/249.  Once again, a bunch of awesome looking cards - and some great names to go with them!  

Finally, the three promised hits of the box.  We ended up with one relic - a nice looking Jeff Bagwell (complete with pin stripe).  

Kind of weird seeing the 1990 Donruss design with relic bits but hey, that's modern cards for you.  We also pulled two autographs:

The Colson Montgomery is #/50 while the Pages is #/99.  I don't remember the last box I ripped where I pulled two autographs numbered less than 100 each!

Overall, while the lack of any true baseball license is undoubtedly going to turn off many collectors, I have to admit that ripping the box was a lot of fun!  It felt like each pack had something neat in it and looking back at the overall haul from the box, I have to say I'm impressed.  I also think this box added a lot of value to a number of team stacks in the group break which is a nice things as a group break host!