Collect call: 2009-10 Panini Donruss Elite Basketball

Posted Nov 25, 2009 by Bob D'Angelo

Updated Nov 25, 2009 at 07:40 PM

Open carefully. Open carefully. Open carefully.

The 2009-10 Donruss Elite Basketball set, released by Panini today, has a nice look to it, but oh, those black borders. No matter how carefully you open a pack (and I open them very carefully), there is always a chance for dinged or frayed corners. I saw several in a recent hobby box I opened.

With a suggested retail price of $6 per pack, it is prudent to open these packs carefully. So, collector beware.
A hobby box contains 20 packs, with five cards to a pack. The set has a simple breakdown — 120 commons, 40 retired players and 40 autographed rookie cards numbered to 499 or less.

The hobby box I sampled today yielded 78 commons and two retired players (Xavier McDaniel and Paul Westphal, both numbered to 499). There was one autographed rookie card (Suns forward Earl Clark) and a rookie redemption card of Marcus Thornton.

This particular hobby box was above average in terms of insert cards. For example, a typical hobby box would have one of the 20 Clutch Performers inserts; this box yielded two. The same scenario played out with the Prime Targets, Elite Series, Teamwork combos and In the Zone inserts; while one is the norm, this box had two of each.
The game-used cards came from the In the Zone subset — jersey cards of Tim Duncan and Yao Ming, both numbered to 299.

Numbered cards included a pair of Passing the Torch parallels — a gold parallel numbered to 100 and a red one numbered to 249. There also was a gold Elite Series cards of Chris Paul (numbered to 100) and a red one of Al Jefferson (numbered to 249).

Red and gold was prevalent in the two die-cut cards, with a red card of Tyrus Thomas (numbered to 76) and a gold one of Gerald Henderson (numbered to 24).

Overall, a nice looking set, but remember to open those packs carefully.