Another new and original by Panini has hit the basketball court in this final product for 2010-11 in the basketball arena. This one looks beautiful and is kind of a mix between Panini’s Donruss Elite brand and well known Black Box. This product has 8 cards per single pack box with 3 autographs and 3 game used memorabilia cards. Every card is numbered and you will see what we pulled below.

“Base”:

Game Used/Memorabilia:

Design:

I really love the design of this product. You won’t often find a full bleed black out background in trading cards anymore as everyone is obsessed with condition nowadays. Speaking of condition, yes, some of these cards do have a few condition issues that you can see because of the black background. Even the Artis Gilmore base card has some weird scratching on the front that really takes away from the card and I’m deciding whether to send it in to be fixed because it is numbered 4 of 5. Just be careful, because although the design is beautiful, it may cause some issues. I will get into the manufactured patch logoman cards in the value area.

Checklist:

The checklist is very cool. A very nice mix of veterans, rookies, hall of famers, and stars of the past. The only huge problem I have with the checklist is the way the product is collated. I’ve seen a few box breaks and there seems to be a weird mix to the collation with people getting multiple cards of the same player or teams, and that is something that should be fixed. For example, there are enough autographs and memorabilia cards in this product that I should not receive a Dan Majerle memorabilia card and an autograph card int he same pack. It just shouldn’t be happening.

Value:

I wasn’t sure whether this should be 3 or 4 stars. This product is $250 a pop. You get 8 cards. There are some collation issues, a little bit of damage issues, and then there is the manufactured patch logoman cards. I’m not sure this brings the value that some collectors want, but then again, I’ve seen some amazing cards come out of this product as well. It seems like it can’t make up it’s mind whether it wants to be a lower high end product or something like National Treasures. The manufactured logoman patches are scary. Logoman cards are supposed to be the cream of the crop when it comes to memorabilia. A fake logoman on a card like that is really a shame. That is probably the most disappointing part of an otherwise pretty good product.

Overall:

As I said, this product feels like it can’t decide whether it is supposed to be a lower high end, or National Treasures. I didn’t hit a rookie autograph, but the veteran, hall of fame, and former star autographs are pretty nice. The design is gorgeous, but with that comes some damage issues that may come along because of it. For that high priced of a product, I think there should be a guaranteed game used patch card as I feel like maybe there was a little too much plain jersey action. But overall, I really enjoyed the break and think it would be fun to open and fun to collect. This is definitely one of the hardest products to rate. I think I may have had too high hopes, but it didn’t disappoint too much.

Once again, a big thank you goes out to Panini America for sponsoring this review. Check out their official blog for tons of great product information.

Since I am running a huge promotional contest right now for the next month and a half, I will hold a contest for some of these at a later date.