Question-Need your guidance

[returnofaskywalker]

I’m looking to get back into collecting basketball cards. The last time I collected was 1997-2001. I collected Upper Deck & Topps. Now I see those companies aren’t available but the only one that is Panini. When I collected UD & Topps I was familiar & collected sets such as MVP, Stadium Club, Finest, Series 1 & 2, etc. Which all seemed like basic sets. I was interested in conducting some research & maybe pre ordering. I went to the Panini web site, but I couldn’t find any info on basic sets they would be selling for this coming basketball season 2018-2019. Some questions I have are how many cards would be in the set, insert sets, possible autos, GU, etc. In the past I used becket as a resource but in the area I’m at I don’t have access to one. I also looked on eBay but didn’t see any pre orders for Panini 2018-2019 season.

Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated. Can you please point me in a direction? I’m not even sure if I was at the right area on the Panini web site.

You can message me back here or email me at [email protected]

Thank you.

[pwaldo]

I don't really know where you would find sell sheets for Panini products but about the best basic set they make is Prizm. Basically a ripoff of Topps Chrome but the rookies from it are highly sought after and command big money on the secondary market for the parallels. Everything else that is lower end is usually junk from them and the other stuff is way too expensive IMO.

[Fido]

Panini landed an exclusive NBA card manufacturing license at the start of the 2009-10 season. So the Topps and Upper Deck stuff basically went away. There are some familiar names like Hoops and Donruss that Panini now produces but there are tons of new things--some of which are either very high-end or that vary in popularity.

I haven't seen much on the 2018-19 sets yet--but you could look at a list of the 2017-18 releases to see what you might expect in 2018-19 (assuming the sets stay largely the same). There is another site which gives a brief review of the sets as they come out but I don't know if it is cool to post the link here. I'll send the link in a PM because I don't want to create waves with anyone.

But like was mentioned above, I like the Panini Prizm and Donruss Optic sets--they have plenty of parallels if you like chasing those. If you like more of the traditional base/insert kind of sets Donruss or Hoops should be pretty familiar. There was some flashy colorful sets like Court Kings, Ascension, and Revolution that I liked--but prices are higher the fancier the cards get. I haven't done much with the "premium" sets because of the cost--I'm just not in a position to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on cards--but others may be able to speak to the higher end sets.