1995 Donruss

I would be tempted to rank this as one of the best looking sets Donruss ever made. It could be right up there with '83, '84, and '93. It's got the great looking picture-in-picture similar to '83 Topps, except with an outstanding home plate frame bordered in team colors. But I can't do it, and regular readers will know exactly why. 

The silver foil absolutely ruins these cards. Making it even worse, the debossing of the team and player names makes them virtually unreadable. It's not hard to imagine how much better these cards would look if the ribbon was dark blue, with the team and player names reversed out in orange. Or vice versa. Instead it's all to easy to see how they add nothing to a fantastic design. What a shame.

The 1995 Donruss Detroit Tigers:

45 Lou Whitaker

82 Travis Fryman

109 Cecil Fielder

137 Jose Lima

154 Mike Moore

172 Chris Gomez

219 Chad Kreuter

249 Danny Bautista

257 Kirk Gibson

274 Milt Cuyler

309 Junior Felix

312 John Doherty

339 Tim Belcher

362 Joe Boever

407 Tony Phillips

434 Bill Gullickson

465 David Wells

502 Alan Trammell

506 Juan Samuel

537 Mickey Tettleton

Donruss issued a parallel called Press Proof, that looked just like the regular cards, except they were gold foil instead of silver, and had the words PRESS PROOF written across the top of the card. They did not look any better.