Panini Holding Less Value?

[cgb_orl]

I agree with a lot being said here. Panini has made a little to much $90-$130 products (Threads, R&S, Classics, Crown Royale, Prestige, Timeless, Absolute, Elite etc).

But i think one of the problems is also that products live and die by a good rookie class. In todays sports card collecting in general it is mostly about the rookie autos. Star/HOF/Superstar autos have just become a secondary.
With the exception of LeBron, Jordan an Durant (for basketball). And that is where Panini's problem kicks in, they only have one of those three (Durant). We wouldnt be having this discussion if you could pull Jordan or LeBron autos from Panini products.

But as much as it is Panini's fault, i also feel Upper Deck is much to blame for this. "If we cant win, they cant win". Best value can only be had from the best player in basketball, Michael Jordan. There hasnt been a NBA licenced Jordan card in 3 years (not even base)!! It has become a prestige battle between card companies, and us collectors are stuck in the middle!

I really think Panini is trying to get better, last year signing Durant as an exclusive. This year adding Chris Paul. They already have a great line-up of players with Bird, Magic, Pippen, Russell, Oscar, Dr.J, Stockton, David Robinson, Kobe, Shaq, Durant, Blake, Wall, Mourning, Rodman, Rose, Jabbar, Olajuwon etc.
But they also have really tried hard to get players that havent signed much stuff like Nowitzki, Oakley, Worthy, Mitch Richmond, Pat Riley, Kukoc, Mutombo, McHale heck even Phil Jackson coach autos!

I think the Panini autograph line-up is outstanding (only a few missing players that have not or will not sign anyway: Barkley, Miller, Ewing, K.Malone).

But with no chance of getting a Heat uni Lebron auto or Bulls uni Jordan auto, a lot of people have lost interest in card collecting and breaking boxes in particular.
I just hope that one day we will be able to get some new Jordan Bulls stuff and LeBron Heat stuff, that would revitalize basketball card collecting.

Very well put. I too would like to see lower priced products but I think we set a watermark already. It's hard to forget that we had no problems paying for Triple Threads, UD Black, SP Sig, Letterman, Premier, Chronology, SP Game Used and so forth. Just a few products that are in the price ranges we see today. Some of which have the same features that we complain about today (stickers, manu patches, windows, high risk, etc). To add we started to base market value on how much the box costs so low end would stay on the shelves because there was no demand for it. But there was a chance to hit a Jordan/Lebron to make it worth it. So a lot of this was our inability to "stop buying" way back then.

The other thing I noticed from your post is that there are a lot of big names that Panini has to pay. I wonder if having those names determines product price or even how many products that are released?