Inside the Pack: 2021 Donruss Baseball Retail Hanger Pack Review
Panini’s Donruss baseball line released in March, and as has been the case for the last 13 months, I bought some retail to test it out. Rather than blaster boxes, I went with 3 hanger boxes, each of which contains 50 cards. Hangers contain 6 exclusive orange holo parallels and at least 2 inserts.
Donruss cards, like all Panini baseball products, don’t contain team logos due to MLB’s exclusive contract with Topps. That doesn’t mean that Donruss is lacking in substance, however. The 264 card base set is made up of several subsets: 30 Diamond Kings, 32 Rated Rookies, and 52 1987 retro cards along with the base veterans.
Donruss also has a large array of variations. Though they aren’t all that rare, many cards have photo variations, player nickname variations, or team city name variations. Unlike Topps, which has a unique code on the back of these, there’s no easy way to find the Donruss variations other than looking for them. One neat thing about Donruss variations is that there are parallel cards of the variations. For example, I pulled this orange holo parallel of the Mike Trout photo variation.
I was pretty impressed overall with my hanger packs. In one pack, I got an Aaron Judge jersey relic card. In another, I pulled an auto of Jordan Yamamoto, who used to pitch for my Marlins before being waived and claimed by the Mets this past offseason. The 18 orange holos I got had a neat assortment as well; in addition to the Trout, I got a retro 1987 Ken Griffey Jr. and a Whit Merrifield Diamond Kings.
Parallels, both numbered and unnumbered, abound in the product. In fact, the list of possible parallels is so long that it takes up the entire back of the hanger box. I pulled a red stripe Francisco Lindor numbered to 2021 as my only numbered parallel. I got Independence Day versions of Renato Nunez and Trevor Story, and a Statue of Liberty border of Lucas Giolito, which was another dual parallel in that it showed his nickname of Big Foot instead of his actual name.
If you can handle the lack of team names and logos, Donruss is a fun product at a good price point. Blaster and hobby boxes offer greater potential for hits, but the hits might be the least fun part of Donruss. I was happy with the hanger packs I opened for $12 each and felt they provided good value and a good amount of enjoyment.
