An anonymous customer sent this in and we wanted to share with the hobby community:

For this break, we take a look back at 2014 Panini Golden Age Baseball. The last of a three-year run for the brand, the 2014 edition features a checklist that includes a wide variety of subjects from the sports world and other genres. Each box contains 24 packs with 6 cards per pack. You can also expect to find one autograph and one relic card, along with a number of inserts, per box.

To say that Golden Age’s checklist is diverse would be an understatement. In addition to stars from different eras of baseball, legendary athletes from other sports are also represented This proved to be the case with the autograph in our box as we pulled a signature of jockey Laffit Pincay Jr. One of the great things about Golden Age across all years is the on-card signatures. On this card in particular, the blue ink used for Pincay’s beautiful signature popped on the card and made for nice eye appeal. Some other top names you can look for autographs of are Ernie Banks, Frank Robinson and Jake LaMotta on the sports side. From the pop culture world, Dick Van Dyke and Tatum O’Neal are among those you can find in boxes. Besides the Heroes Signatures, there are also low-numbered cut autographs of Phil Cavarretta, Charles O. Finley, Curt Gowdy and Gil McDougald. Randomly inserted classic buyback autograph cards are possible too.

Golden Age’s pop culture checklist was represented with our relic hit as we pulled a a card of actress Claudette Colbert. For those who may not be familiar with her work, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1934. The relic swatch we pulled was very nice with multiple colors and material. Our only wish is that we knew specifically where the relic material was sourced from to help add to its provenance. However, the mystery is definitely part of the fun. Aside from Colbert, pop culture icons like Orson Welles and Charlton Heston also have relic cards. If sports memorabilia cards are more your thing, Baseball Hall of Famers like Frankie Frisch and Tommy Lasorda are possible relic card pulls.

Each box of Golden Age also offers one mini card per pack, with options going all the way down to 1/1 versions. While pulling 24 minis per box is nice, we do have to caution that there are several varieties of mini parallels in the product. As evidenced by the various backs in our picture, it can be a bit daunting to try and put all of them together if you’re a hardcore completist. We did pull a Smith’s Mello Mint mini, which isn’t a guaranteed card as it falls 1 in 48 packs on average. Either way, when you’re opening your packs, make sure to doubly check all of your mini card backs so you can properly see which version it is This also goes for the base card parallels. The white traditional parallels fall roughly one per box, but can be a challenge to spot compared to the other base cards. Other base card parallels include the First 50, which are numbered to 50, and Black 1/1 parallels.

Many of the inserts fall either one or two per box, and we mostly hit on those odds with ours. We did come away with an additional Newsmakers cards as we pulled both Joe Louis and the Wright brothers. While the insert cards have some good subjects, we do have to admit that they fall a little short compared to previous years of Golden Age in the coolness factor. One thing that doesn’t fall short though is the base checklist. With a nice color scheme and some good images, the cards aren’t boring. We also pulled 111/150 base cards with no doubles in our box, so a single box can put a nice dent in the overall set. Plus in the grand scheme of things, how many products offer cards of Josh Gibson, Rita Hayworth and the Baseball Hall of Fame in the same box?

All in all, 2014 Golden Age Baseball is an intriguing product with some nice potential upside. Compared with other products that offer two hits per box, it’s a more economical buy that won’t drain your collecting budget. It’s also a more cost-effective product to pull autographs or relics of certain subjects that will certainly cost you more elsewhere.

Boxes are available for $69.95 on the site, and you can click here to check out other Golden Age offerings we currently have: https://bit.ly/3CHMpFq