Review: 2007 Elite Extra Edition

Long-time collectors have fond memories of Donruss' long history of baseball cards. For the past few years, the company has only been able to produce NFL football cards, but 2007 Donruss Elite Extra Edition is out to change that. Combining 2007 baseball draft picks with legends from numerous college sports, Extra Edition is the Donruss set many thought they'd never see.

Hobby boxes of 2007 Donruss Elite Extra Edition contain 20 five-card packs. On average, each box should produce four autographs or memorabilia cards.

While the focus of Elite Extra Edition is baseball draft picks - especially the top 20 picks from 2007 - the base set actually covers a lot more ground. Included among the 92 commons are plenty of other athletes who made their names in other sports, as well as coaches. The cards celebrate collegiate careers, so Dominique Wilkins, for example, is pictured during his days at the University of Georgia.

If Extra Edition's stripe-heavy foil cards look familiar, there's a good reason. Donruss used the base card design from 2007 Donruss Elite Football in this product as well. It does tie the sets together under the Elite name, but in a season that saw the company come up with quite a few fresh looks, this wasn't one of the best examples.

Along with 92 commons, the base set also includes 50 autographed rookies numbered to 999 or less. While these will not be rookie cards by the strict definition (they're not licensed by Major League Baseball, for starters), they are early signed cards from top draftees and should prove to be popular regardless.

Donruss brings its Status and Aspirations die-cut parallels over from Elite Football and they actually make nice use of the stripe pattern. Aspirations are blue and numbered to no more than 100, while Status cards are red and limited to 50 at most.

A random hobby box I opened to review had excellent collation, producing 85 of the 92 commons with just two duplicates. I also pulled one each of the two parallels, plus a single autographed draft pick.

Extra Edition also borrows some of the popular autograph and memorabilia programs from its football cousin. Most notable among these are the Turn of the Century Rookies Signatures, which are autographed parallels to all 142 base cards limited to no more than 500 copies. Along with baseball picks, the subjects feature famous coaches like Steve Spurrier and female athletes like Summer Sanders and Brandi Chastain.

For memorabilia collectors, there's Throwback Threads to serve up game-worn swatches - it's just that in this product the cards often don't flashback very far. Regular cards are numbered to 500 or less, with lower numbered prime and autographed versions.

Another autographed insert takes a concept from Leaf Rookies & Stars Football and puts it to good use with the college theme of this set. Collegiate Patches take signatures from various personalities - from top pick David Price to coach Tom Osborne to filmmaker Ron Howard - and put them on embroidered patch cards with the logos of their alma maters. They are numbered to 250 at most, and much less in some cases.

As was the case with the About.com review box for Donruss Gridiron Gear Football earlier this year, the sample box for Extra Edition was a hot box that contained extra hits. All told, I found four Turn of the Century Rookies Signatures, autographed Inspirations and Status parallels, two Throwback Threads and one Throwback Threads Prime. It's important to remember that most boxes won't be so loaded, but it is nice to know there are some out there that are.

Regular insert cards are relatively few but play up the collegiate theme. School Colors cards focus on the college days of the pictured players, while College Ties pair up two athletes or personalities who attended the same school. Both have autographed parallels, with College Ties also receiving game-worn versions as well.

I found a single College Ties card and three School Colors cards (the best of which was No. 1 overall pick David Price) in my sample box. All were numbered to 1500 and printed on thicker stock.

The buzz surrounding Donruss' return to baseball cards was loud, and despite the lack of an MLB license, Extra Edition works because it includes so many of this year's top draft picks - and with autographs and memorabilia cards to boot. Many collectors who enjoy long-range speculation with products like Bowman and Bowman Chrome should find this right up their alley, and early sales have been brisk.

Donruss also did a nice job with the mixed bag that is the rest of the set, acquiring a few basketball draft picks and an interesting list of former stars and coaches to prop up the college theme. It's not as focused as lots of other products out there (and would have looked nicer on something other than the 2007 Elite design), but that's compensated by the inclusion of elements that help it appeal to more than just baseball collectors.

Elite Extra Edition is an ambitious return to the diamond for Donruss, and if it catches on it could pave the way for more products in this vein in seasons to come.