Box Review: 2008 Donruss Threads (Hobby)

Today, I have a special treat to show off thanks to my recent Breaker's Club group break which ended last week.  (A quick plug for my group break Facebook page for more information on my group breaks).  Anyhow, one of the boxes that we broke for the Breaker's Club was a hobby box of 20089 Donruss Threads.  This was a box that I was definitely looking forward to despite not knowing what all to expect.  Now that the break is over, let's see how our box performed!

The 2008 Donruss Threads box contains 24 packs with 5 cards per pack.  Baseballcardpedia states that each box should contain two autographs plus an additional two hits that could be autographs or relics.  The other interesting thing about this particular set is that it is made up exclusively of prospects and retired greats (Donruss didn't have a MLB or MLBPA license at the time of the set's release and therefore there are no team logos nor are there any current players of the time).

The base card design reminds me of Upper Deck Sweet Spot with the baseball stitching in the corners.  Unlike Sweet Spot, there is no embossment on the Threads cards but I think the overall design is a nice enough look.  The set contains 183 cards in total but only the first 100 are what most of us would consider true base cards (the remaining 87 cards make up the autograph rookies subset and the rookie class subset).

Our box produced a total of 98 out of the 100 base cards with 10 duplicates.  We were missing cards #10 (Johnny Pesky) and 93 (Juan Ramirez) from the main base set.  Obviously, I would have much preferred to have gotten two fewer duplicates and instead land the last two cards for the base set!

Cards #101 - 150 are part of the Autographed Rookies subset.  In that group, we pulled one card - a sticker auto of Tyler Henson of the Orioles.  

That Henson auto is #535/999 on the card's back.  

The final subset of the set is the Rookie Class letter signature portion consisting of cards #151 - 187.  We pulled two* of those in our box.  

The redemption is for #169.  Aaron Shafer (of the Cubs) and should be numbered out of 250.  The James Darnell goes to the Padres slot and is numbered 032/280 on the card's back.  Obviously, pulling a redemption that expired in 2010 was a bummer but overall I do like the Rookie Class letter signature cards (even if the autographs have been known to fade/bleed over time).

We aren't done with the hits from our box quite yet but before we get there let's look at the inserts from the box.  

The non-serially numbered inserts were definitely a hodgepodge of stuff - clearly Donruss didn't have an overall vision here and rather just made cards of people that they were "allowed" to include.  Interestingly enough, the three Court Kings cards are actually part of the 58-card Diamond Kings insert set.  There happens to be three basketball players in that set and we pulled all three (the basketball players got the "Court Kings" title instead of "Diamond Kings").  I have no idea why Donruss included three basketball guys in what was otherwise a baseball focused insert set but perhaps it was decisions like that that led to Donruss' demise over the years!

We also found a pair of serially-numbered inserts - both going to the Giants team slot!

The Willie Mays Americana card is #134/500 while the Generations card of Mays & McCovey is #098/100.  The Generations card is actually the much rarer Century-Proof parallel (the regular Generation insert cards are not serially numbered at all)!

Next, a couple of base parallels starting with this nice Proof Green parallel of Red Schoendienst for the Cardinals.

The Schoendienst is numbered 035/250, though Donruss missed the chance to use green foil on the card back stamping.  

Our other base card parallel from the box was actually an autograph!

From what I can tell, the Signatures is a partial parallel of the base set (and for which there are two versions, Gold and Platinum).  The Platinums are all numbered out of 25 or fewer while the Gold signatures are numbered out of 999 or less.  Our autograph of David Bromberg is part of the Gold Signature parallel set and is numbered 441/999 on the card's back.

If you are keeping track, that's now four autographs from the box (three actual autographs plus the expired redemption autograph).   While that's all that a box is supposed to contain in terms of hits, our box had one more surprise in store for us:

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about!  That's a Diamond Kings Material dual relic of none other than the great Nolan Ryan.  With two bits of orange cloth and a serial number of 02/50 on the card back, this is the hit of the box if you ask me!

Overall, I give the 2008 Donruss Threads (hobby) box the following rating:

Set Design:  B-

Collation:  B-

Opening Thrill:  A

Overall:  A-

Base card collation was a slight problem but otherwise this was a super fun box to open up!  With four "real" hits (plus a redemption) including a gorgeous dual relic of Nolan Ryan, I can't complain at all about the contents of our box.  I liked many of the inserts as well - and there's enough here to pretty much interest most types of collectors (except perhaps those who only like to collect current players with their team logos showing, lol).  

I'd definitely be interested in busting another box of this stuff if the opportunity ever presents itself.  In looking at the checklist, I saw that there are a few Barry Larkin cards in this set that I'm still missing as well...so maybe next time?!