2004 Diamond Kings Framed Silver

This card is a 2-ply card. The gray border is actually a frame applied to the base card. There have been other cards published with frames like this but the 2004 and 2005 Donruss Diamond King sets took it to another level.

I really like the 2004 set. I bought a box of these on eBay, paying, what is for me, an enormous price (I paid almost $90 for the 60-card box). But I really do love the cards. The base card Soriano is also shown below. The cards have a linen-type finish and have an old-timey look. The color smudge behind the player looks a lot like what Topps is doing now with their Allen & Ginter cards.

I just got this framed card in the mail. Besides it being a cool card, the other reason I decided to feature it is because, for me, it is a very frustrating set.

I think that collecting the base set would probably not be too difficult. But, in general, I'm not a set collector.
For me, I'd be happy to have a good collection of the base cards and also have at least one of each of the insert cards from the set. But for this set, such a goal is probably impossible. This set has 105 different insert cards. This isn't the worst set in this regard. As soon as I get it, I'll be posting a card from the 2005 Prime Patches set, which as over 200 inserts.

In the Diamond Kings set, most of the inserts are a variation on the base card and feature the same players as the base set. Here I've shown the base Soriano card and the framed silver card. The silver refers to the flavor of foil on the card. This same card is available as: Sepia, Bronze, Bronze Sepia, Platinum, Platinum Sepia, Silver, Silver Sepia, Framed Bronze, Framed Bronze Sepia, Framed Gold, Framed Gold Sepia, Framed Platinum Black, Framed Platinum Black Sepia, Framed Platinum White, Framed Platinum White Sepia, Framed Platinum Gray, Framed Platinum Gray Sepia, Framed Silver and Framed Silver Sepia. For those counting that's 20 Soriano cards with the same picture on them. Then there are 20 cards with the same picture and one or two relics. These follow basically the same pattern of frames and foil variations. Then there are another 20 cards, with the same variations but with an autograph. And most of these cards are serial numbered to anywhere from 1 to 150. Well, you get the picture. I could spend the rest of my life trying to collect all the inserts from this set.