Discussion about Panini

[Kadamscards]

JEf--I agree 100 percent on what you said.. I loved Bowman 48 cuz it was cool looking regardless of the auto's, those were a hug plus, but I would've bought them anyway

I was just thinking how awful panini is!!! because of what BBALLheaven said---I am not a fan of Panini this far. They have failed in 90% of their products to design nice cards and they also have completely overproduced Tags, Logomen, Kobe Autos, and Autos of guys like Jennings, Tyreke, Blake, and Curry. I really hope UD and Topps can get their contracts back

they overproduce every GU card so they're basically worhtless and same with the serial numbered cards..
Do not buy panini from target. NOT WORTH IT!!
Maybe I'll change my mind when I buy a hobby box. ALso, I am talking about the lower end cards. I can not comment on the higher end cards, but didn't they make a lot of 1/1, and 5/5, 10/10??? MEaning the same card slightly different and called it a 1/1, or differnet versions of the same card?? maybe with Abosulte memorabilia..

[Kadamscards]

I don't think Panini is bad at all. And my opinion, I like the sticker autos just as much as on-card. Why?... So the players signing don't ruin the card by handling it improperly. There is a greater chance of getting the card graded a 10 from it. Or the you can have the player mishandle, wear the edges, slide the card across a surface and leave tiny scratches, etc., etc. And, remember, no matter what you are lucky enough to have an autograph of a role-model, celeb, or whatever title you give them. Just my .02

Jordanfan.. Did you see the video here recently at the Panin factory with the cards being made and packaged??? IF not watch it. I am not really worried about a player handling a card after seeing the treatment the company makig them gives the cards.

[gladdyontherise]

I think Panini has done okay so far, but they're going in the wrong direction with some products. I strongly dislike the Threads RC autos, and I think they have ruined Contenders by making it "Contenders Patches." No one wants manufactured patch RC autos.

The biggest problem with busting Panini products is the inability to hit something huge. In NT, you could hit something huge and the product was an overwhelming success. There's a chance at some pretty big cards in Timeless Treasures, and that product was alright. I don't think most people are interested in boxes where if you hit the #1 RC auto in the product or a Kobe auto, you barely make more than the box price (see Threads, Limited, Rookies & Stars, Contenders, Crown Royale, Court Kings, etc. etc. etc.). It's like slot machines or scratch off tickets. Everyone on Earth knows it's a bad investment, but you could turn $1 into thousands. Same principle here. No one wants to invest $100 when there's only a realistic chance at a $120 return (John Wall 1/1 Patch AU aside).

Excellent post, I agree 100% with this, I havent bought one full hobby box of Panini for this exact reason, I realize you dont always make money back and I dont get upset if I dont, but i'm not gonna be stupid with my money, I wont drop $100 on a box where I know unless i pull an incredibly rare card, or Wall/Kobe that i'll make my money back.

I like Panini but i'll buy the cards on the secondary market for the most part, because a box of Panini Basketball is to high of a risk.

Also, I wish they stopped making 1,000,000 different parallels of everything, but thats up for another discussion

[Zeppelin1985]

My thoughts of Panini.....aka pa-crap-crap..

I didn't bust any 09'10 Threads but I really wanted to bust something so I went to my LCS on Christmas to buy something. They had the new 10'11 Threads, 10'11 Limited, 09'10 Season Update & 10'11 R+S. I busted 1 box of 09'10 R+S and pulled 2 really low #'ed hits but I'm NOT A FAN of the autograph team logo patches so thats definitely out. I busted 1 09'10 season update and thought it was ok, I pulled 2 average dual autos in the box (and I'm a sucker for multi-player auto. cards). I don't know why I didn't just try another Update box, it was really cheap too. I didn't feel like trying another 10'11 Limited after my first box, which was really good (pulled a Kobe auto BUT redemption & a Wall same-day signatures). This leaves me with 10'11 Threads....I don't know WHY I chose to buy that box. I must've forgot what I knew in 09'10 when Threads was released.

Here is how I did in Threads:

I told my friend after the break I would pay max. $24 for the 4 hits in my box, mind you I paid $85 for this box of Threads. If Pa-crap-crap were to come to my door step and offered me a "hot box" of 10'11 Threads to buy, I would slam the door in their faces. I'm not mad that I OBVIOUSLY lost $$ on this box break. I'm mad because....
1.) The quality of the cards is soooooo CHEAP and feels so cheap. I NEVER remember holding upper deck or topps cards in my hand during a live box break and just feel like I'm holding utter GARBAGE in my hands.
2.) Am I the only one or does everyone else notice that Pa-crap-crap card's tend to bend? The Nash "prime" patch I pulled is totally warped. If I put it on a flat surface you can obviously see the top and the bottom of the card are raised up in the air and not flat like it should be. This goes for saying with their base cards as well.
3.) The Nash "prime" patch was #'ed out of 50?!?! I thought all prime patches were /25. Instead of decreasing the numbering, they up it? Yeah, that makes it valuable, right pa-crap-crap? You get to make 25 more Nash "prime" patches, right? Greedy ™™™™™™™s.
4.) The design of Threads is H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E, I will certainly...never, E-V-E-R buy a Pa-crap-crap Threads box a-gain! I HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU ALL TO DO THE SAME!


The only product I like of Pa-crap-craps is Prestige because they have base auto rookie cards, I may not like the design but WHAT CAN I DO? It is what it is. But the 09'10 Prestige "Old School" Autograph insert set was designed very nicely!, I give them credit for that. I collected all but 2 autographs in that set (which I'm still trying to obtain the remaining two!).
I also liked 09'10 Playoff Contenders because the base auto rc's were on-card. I heard they've totally change the design for this year? WHY!?!?!??! I don't want a fake manufactured patch, I'd rather have an on-card autograph that is rookie year!!!!!!!!!!!

The card business is like the state of the music industry with all these gimmicks and manufactured fake garbage. Jesus....I'm utterly disgusted. Give me Janis Joplin or Eric Clapton...I don't know what this Soulja Boy, Lady Gaga & Justin Beaver crap is!?!?!

Death to Pa-crap-crap. I really think all basketball card collectors should hold a day without buying a new release of a Pa-crap-crap product. We need to show them where it hurts, in their pockets, which is EXACTLY WHERE THEY'RE HURTING US.

....who's with me?



EDIT: Also, the care of cards Pa-crap-crap has with their cards is unexcusable. Why are at least 1 of my hits in EVERY Pa-crap-crap box I've ever purchased damaged right after I pull it? You're selling me something that is already coming damaged to me, thanks! I don't understand their perspective of "insert cards & parallel cards", did any of their front office people actually COLLECT sports cards or collect ANYTHING for that matter? They make a certain number of inserts & parallels for each box, are you kidding me? If Upper Deck had done that with say all the Skybox Autographics, well then, everybody at the time would've been buying boxes to get their guaranteed hits BUT NO. Upper Deck actually put stated pack odds of pulling an autographics card on their basketball pack wrappers.

Pa-crap-crap's dire lack of information on the back of their basketball cards disgusts me. They can't even put on rookie cards what pick the player was drafted, they've cut it down to rounds which there are only 2 rounds in basketball drafts, that surely helps, thank you for that small bit of information but if you just put what pick the player was drafted I'm sure us basketball fans can figure out which round he was drafted!

[bballcardheaven]

Also another reason why I don't like Panini is their lack of quality control. We saw so many upside-down tags in TT last year of players like Kobe and Tim Duncan. It absolutely ruined the appeal of the set to me.

Panini is also ruining any appeal of tag cards for me. I don't want to see a tag cut up into 9 pieces, I want to see full tags on cards. UD and Topps never seemed to have that problem but again they knew what they were doing. Panini just keeps overproducing EVERYTHING... jerseys, patches, tags, logomen, and autos can all be found at a much cheaper price than when UD and Topps made cards. In every set Panini has to have 4 GU/Autos or whatever. UD and Topps actually made sets where the autos had a meaning and not every product even had GU/Patches.

[Jef]

While I understand why they do not go this route, Panini has a chance to bring cards back to their glory days.

No need for 30 different products. Imagine if there was just one Panini set. Can you imagine the hype around THE John Wall rookie instead of one of 30 different versions?

Because Panini has to pay the bills, multiple sets and price points are neccessary. If it were up to me (ha), their releases would be the following:

a) retail-driven economy product (similar to Collector's Choice). make Prestige this product and release it before the season

b) main Panini set. like a standard Topps or Fleer set.

c) higher end set, similar to either Absolute Memorabilia in terms of price point per pack/box

d) ultra high end National Treasures

there it is - 4 products. 4 RCs of each player, and a lot of time to put real effort, planning, and value into each product. this would satisfy the major price points and product niches, but would also avoid saturating the market with 6,000 Luol Deng jersey "hits."

panini releases so much garbage every year that even they seem to know it. there are few inserts of any quality, so "value" is manufactured with seriel numbering. "well the card looks like trash, but let's make it a 1/1! people will eat it up!"

makes me miss the days of buying a pack and seeing 1:240 odds for an insert that was actually cool to look at and cool to have. demand wasn't created by scarcity that collectors craved, but by CARDS that people wanted to have in their collections.

[bob9826]

I've liked alot of Panini products but havent bought the boxes, i would pick up packs or a blaster
I agree they should reduce the amount of paralles and have the hits not so numbered as high. The sticker autos look horrible to me in my eyes.
One this i do want them to do is make Score a basketball brand and have it at $1 a pack with the chance of autos since i liked Score Football alot with 7 cards a pack and 1 rookie it would be a fun product for lowend collectors like me

[Jef]

Also another reason why I don't like Panini is their lack of quality control. We saw so many upside-down tags in TT last year of players like Kobe and Tim Duncan. It absolutely ruined the appeal of the set to me.

i agree. this is one of the grade-A, absolute problems. how many should-have-been-awesome National Treasures cards were pulled where the autograph went off the sticker? i remember seeing multiple logoman patches with this problem.

how quality control is as poor as it is on especially ultra scarce cards is beyond me, and that goes for all manufacturers. whoever let the Strasburg superfractor, for example, into a pack with terrible centering should have been fired, and that sort of thing seems to happen on a consistent basis. i understand the massive pitfalls associated with making several 1/1 versions to "get it right," but still - no excuse.

[Jef]

My thoughts of Panini.....aka pa-crap-crap..

i watched your video and have to say that the Threads product represents everything wrong with Panini.

and it sucks, b/c the Threads jerseys are actually a cool concept. i would like a product with base cards like that. the Threads jersey autos are probably the best-looking Panini autos IMO.

the set is ruined, however, by a heavily diluted checklist and by horrible insert sets that looks like 90s subsets. i dont mind a parallel or two of the base set, but do inserts really need parallels? just stunningly awful.

Threads would be awesome if it was just base, base holofoil parallels (say 2 per box), die cut jerseys (one per pack), and die cut jersey autos (2 per box). keep it simple stupid.

[DjBallerStyle07]

Pannani actually has the potential to be something great, but it seems like whoever markets Pannani is more worried about quanity, over quality. There jersey cards-patches & autos seem cool, but not alot going on, kinda like they dont care about what it looks like. Then again, iam a lil bit old school. Grew up on Fleer-Topps & Upper Deck, every box had quality! But each person has their opinion...this is just mine