Variation Crazy

I woke up this morning with baseball cards immediately on my mind. Usually, I don't think too much about getting new cards ever since I've been trying to spend less money on cards. I used to wake up nearly every Saturday wanting to open new cards. And 9 times out of 10 that would happen. After all, it's hard to shake a baseball card craze as soon as the thought of getting new cards enters your mind.

I originally planned on buying a rack pack of 2018 Bowman and some loose packs of 2018 Panini Diamond Kings. I figured I could take a small sample of each set which I thought would be very interesting considering how different they are from one another. Therefore, I walked into Target with $10 plus money for sales tax. I didn't want to break the bank, especially since I went to a big card show a couple weeks ago.

When I got to the card aisle, I surprisingly saw no rack packs of either product. I actually did see 3 blasters of 2018 Bowman which was quite shocking since I thought the Bowman craze would wipe out any chance of getting a blaster. However, I was determined to stick to my $10, so I grabbed a hanger box of 2018 Panini Donruss and hoped for the best.

Here's the base design for those of you who haven't seen it. It's nothing too impressive, but it is an improvement over the sets they've dragged out in previous years. In fact, it's probably the best design they've come up with since the debut of the product in 2014. I also appreciate the inclusion of retired players in the set. It's something different for such a simple set, and it really does help set Panini Donruss apart from Topps Flagship.

I'm thoroughly convinced that Eric Thames could never play again and still be included in both Topps and Panini products. The tear that he went on around this time last year cemented his legacy as a baseball card icon.

Panini Donruss also does combo cards just like Topps Flagship does, but I think the player choices from Donruss are far more creative. Yeah, showing the same 2 Astros players (Altuve and Correa) that we've seen non-stop for months now isn't too fun, but I'll take a combo card of Gary Sheffield and Barry Larkin over the combo cards Topps does nowadays any day of the week.

Another big part of the 2018 Panini Donruss set is the 1984 design cards. Panini has been re-creating the original Donruss sets in the Panini Donruss sets since 2015 and has gone in order with 1 set a year ever since. This year, the cards are no longer an insert set but are numbered in the base set, making this year's base set larger than previous years.

1984 Donruss is not a set I'm super familiar with, but I like the way that Panini re-made the simple 80's set. The yellow waves on the cards likely inspired the base card waves as well while the '84 was changed to '18 for the 2018 set. Most of the set consists of modern players...

However, a few old-school players snuck in the set. I can only assume they chose players who played in 1984 to make the set, though I can't be sure since the only retired player's card I pulled was George Brett.

And if you know anything about the 2018 Donruss set, you know it's extremely variation heavy. The set is loaded with certain variations that include nickname variations, award winner cards, and a whole lot more crazy stuff. It was pretty easy to tell since all the variations were in the middle of the pack. But for those of you who don't know if the card is a variation or not, you should be able to tell on the backs. A white baseball means no variation while a black baseball means the card is a variation.

Here's a look at a base card directly next to a variation card. The variation for the card on the right is that the name is "JBJ" instead of Jackie Bradley Jr. However, the image is also different, so there could possibly be another variation on this card and I don't realize it.

This Jose Altuve card could also be a dual-variation card due to 2 things about this card being different than that of a base card. Instead of Jose Altuve, the name says "Tuve." And instead of saying Houston, for the team name, it says 2017 MVP. (I assume they can't say AL).

In addition to 55 cards, one hanger box of 2018 Panini Donruss also guarantees 5 green parallel cards which I believe are retail exclusive.

Oh boy! Not only did I pull a base Stanton and a 1984 design Judge cards, but I also pulled green parallels of both those cards as well. As you can assume, that did not make this Red Sox fan very happy. I don't like Judge too much, and I'm trying to cleanse my house of any cards of Stanton on the Yankees. Therefore, on to Sportlots, these 2 cards shall go.

2 of the other green parallels, Josh Donaldson and Josh Bell, will likely be listed on Sportlots as well. Unless someone wants to trade for them, or the Yankees cards I pulled as well. I don't collect cards of Donaldson or Bell, though I really should start collecting Josh Donaldson especially since he's likely going to be on a new team next year. I just never seem to pull cards of the 2015 AL MVP.

The Joe Morgan card in the 1984 design is the one green parallel I pulled that I intend to keep. The card looks pretty incredible, even without the logos. And the green isn't too distracting from the rest of the card. Definitely a good job by Panini.

I wasn't expecting a whole lot with a $10 purchase of a base heavy set, but I was certainly seeking anything I could get. And I did end up pulling a special card which ended up being of Diamondbacks slugger Paul Goldschmidt.

I'm pretty sure that these Elite Series insert card is a green parallel. The only reason I'm not sure if it's green or not is that I haven't seen any Elite Series cards that are numbered to 25 like this Paul Goldschmidt card is. It's kind of hard to see, but the card is numbered 21/25, which is very good for a $10 rack pack. I must be lucky with Goldschmidt cards, because I only have around 25 cards of Goldschmidt, and 4 of them are numbered. I'm also very impressed with how well this card scanned since usually, my printer doesn't scan shiny cards too well.

I must say that 2018 Panini Donruss exceeded my expectations on what the set would be like considering they had no logos. Panini knew that without licensing, they had to step it up. And even though the set is far from my favorite, and I don't think I'll be buying much more of it, I must say Panini did a nice job overall.