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1997-98 Donruss Preferred

Packs per Box: 24
Cards per Pack: 5
Cards per Box: 120
Bronze Set Completion: 70.0% (70 of 100)
Complete Set Completion: 40.0% (80 of 200)
Notable RCs: Marian Hossa
Duplicates: 32

The exact contents of the pack scanned in and used to find insert odds:

1. Darren Puppa, Bronze #110
2. Chris Chelios, Bronze National Treasures, #171
3. Peter Forsberg, Bronze National Treasures, #173
4. Chris Phillips, Bronze Checklist, #197
5. Ron Hextall, Bronze #96

First Pack Comments: Not a whole lot of excitment here.
First Pack Rating: 1.5 / 10

Total: 18
Regular Silver (random) -- 8: Alexei Yashin, Mike Grier, Pat LaFontaine, Jose Theodore, Chris Pronger, Alexei Morozov, Marian Hossa RC, Paul Kariya NT
Regular Gold (random) -- 1: Jarome Iginla
Regular Platinum (random) -- 1: Joe Sakic

Cut to the Chase Parallel (random) -- 5: Paul Coffey Bronze, Trevor Kidd Bronze, Jeff Hackett Bronze, Marian Hossa Silver, Jason Arnott Gold
Color Guard (#'d to 1500) -- 2: Martin Brodeur (1155/1500), Ron Hextall (276/1500)
Line of the Times (#'d to 2500) -- 1: Jaromir Jagr (1431/2500)
Precious Metals (#'d to 100) -- 0

Box Rating: 10 / 10

Product Rating: 7.5 / 10

Donruss Preferred is one of those "old-school" releases from the late 90's before GU caught on as the big theme. Manufacturers were desperate to attract collectors and so Donruss Preferred did it with packs being distributed in tins. I remember seeing a few "stray" tins for sale when I first went to a hobby shop and thinking they were the neatest thing ever. Hey, c'mon, those tins are a lot cooler than the silly foil wrapping you just throw away!

Of course, what really has Donruss Preferred in the spotlight these days is that they managed to create rather limited rookie cards of Marian Hossa and Olli Jokinen. So with both the nostalgia and a sweet Hossa RC as the incentives, I went ahead and dug this release out of the past.

The base set is a fractured one. This means that you have your normal cards (Bronze), a set of SP'd base cards (Silver), a set of SSP'd base cards (Gold), and a set of SSSP's (Platinum) all wrapped up into the 200 card "base set". This does hurt the break a lot, since most of the star players are at least at the Silver level, most of the regular cards you're pulling are Trevor Kidd, Jeff Hackett, Juha Lind, Todd Harvey etc. Limtiedness has it's flaws: that Gretzky "base card" may be worth $100, but in exchange you have to sit through 24 packs of Darren Puppa!

Another thing that hurts the break is the shear amount of packaging. Donruss really had no choice, you have to deliver cards in decent condition and if they are in a tin the only way to keep them safe to package like mad. Still, it gets a little tiresome dealing with all the foam and plastic.

Now, as far as my box went, it blew my expectations away. I was thinking a Hossa RC would be awesome. After the Alexei Yashin tricked me early on, I was stunned to find not only the Hossa RC, but also the Hossa Cut to the Chase in the very next pack! With those two cards did I really need anything else?

The Brodeur Color Guard was a nice touch, as was the Iginla Gold and Sakic Platinum. The Sakic and Iginla may not have the book on their side, but they are two players I enjoy watching a lot. I was kinda depressed about the Arnott Gold Parallel, but it's still not a horrible card by any stretch of the imagination.

As far as recommending Donruss Preferred, it all depends. The cards are nice and the tins are amusing, but in the end it's probably going to come down to whether you can hit the rookies. Hossa, Jokinen, and Prospal have some nice RCs in here. Of course at 50 Silvers in the set and Silvers at 1:3 .... and to make things worse Prospal is a Gold! It will probably take one of these rookies or a Precious Metals to make you feel like you really got your value from the box though.

To illustrate, if you take away the Hossa's and replace them with common Silvers ... or even a star Silver like Ray Bourque, and I think the box would have gotten a 7/10 max. As it is, it was a Precious Metals away from getting a 24/10!

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