2005 Donruss Diamond Kings HOF Heroes #66

Year: 2005

Manufacture: Donruss

Set: Diamond Kings

Card Number: HH-66

Card Type: Insert

Insert Set: HOF Heroes

Been awhile, as now seems to be my MO.  Anyways figured I finish writing up a few of the cards I had in my draft folder.  Rollie is featured in the 2005 Donruss Diamond Kings HOF Heroes insert set.  Like a lot of the stars in this insert he has two cards.  This card with a color photo and card number HH-91 with a sepia finish.  And like almost every set put out by Donruss in this time frame this insert set has a ton of parallels, from framed color parallels to relic and autograph parallels.  There was definetaly a lot to hunt in this set with a great checklist or stars, retired players, and HOFers.

2005 Donruss Diamond Kings HOF Heroes Green Framed parallel

Year: 2005

Manufacturer: Donruss

Set: Diamond Kings

Card Number: HH-91

Card Type: Insert Parallel

Insert Set: HOF Heroes

Parallel Set: Green Framed

Card Attributes: Serial Numbered

Serial Number: 21/50

If I had a hankering to try and track down all of Rollies' parallels from this set it would be a lifetime goal.  There are just so many parallels to chase, color wise and relic and autograph wise. Plus Rollie has two cards in the set, double parallels!!

Hard for me to pass up a cheap low numbered card though.  Here we have the green framed and green foil version of Rollies HH-91 (the black and white or sepia or whatever portrait version, HH-66 features the color portrait).

2004 Donruss World Series MVP

Yikes. Can't believe it's been so long since I got a post up here.  I'll blame the complete lack of Rollie in this years issues.  Rollie has had zero, ZERO, cards featuring his likeness made this year.  I'm not sure if it's the card companies just overlooking him or perhaps Rollie has had something to do with it, but regardless Rollie hasn't been on my mind, so the blog really hasn't been on my mind.  But that doesn't mean I don't have cards to share.  So let's get this fall started off right.

Going back a decade, we have the 2004 Donruss World Series set. Rollie had a card in the MVP insert. Here we have the base insert numbered to 1000.  There are also relic, autograph, and relic autograph versions of this card too. You can tell that this card was designed with the variations in mind with room for the relic and auto.  The design itself is kind of meh, but the low print run is nice.

2005 Donruss Greats

The mid 2000's were kind of a collecting hole for me. I was out in the field most of the year working some job or another so I missed a lot of the sport card issues that year.  I'm a big fan of the trend of the sports card companies putting out retired player sets.  Donruss Greats was another one of those sets that featured, well, Greats.  Of course Rollie has a base card.  There are at least a few parallels for him in the set, as well as, an autographed version of this card which I have in my collection and will be featured in the future.

2005 Donruss Signature Series

Another set by Donruss in 2005 that featured HOFers and active players and had a crap load of parallels. Besides different color and proof parallels there are a bunch of relic, autograph and relic autograph parallels to chase. Working at Donruss in the early to mid-2000's must have been hell for the checklist guys.

While the overall appearance of the card is nice, it's obvious that the card was designed with the relic and autograph parallels in mind. Why else would Rollie be so off center of the card?

Back in 2005 a hobby box had 4 packs and 5 cards per pack with 7 autos and one relic per box on average. That's also not counting parallel base cards. I have no idea how many parallels you got per pack, but if you think 8 of your cards are hits and I'm sure a few of the 12 other cards in the box were parallels of some sort, that doesn't leave a lot of room for base cards. So putting a set together would have been tough, but since base cards tend to be the least desired cards out of the product like this, that scarcity doesn't really translate to worth. That being said I think I got this card for about 75 cents in my COMC Black Friday shopping spree. And a quarter of that was COMC handling.