The Gold Standard has arrived by Panini. This product is one of those single pack products that tries to bring the boom with every hit. Not only are there great possibilities for autographs in this product, you can pull cards either with a piece of gold embedded into them or pull a card made entirely of gold itself. This product redefines value in terms of adding actual gold to cards. I think it’s a cool idea, which is why I was excited to receive a box in the mail to review for you guys.

2011 Panini Gold Standard basketball is one pack with 12 cards per pack. The first thing I noticed was how amazing the packaging is. If I could give a rating for design of packaging, that would be 5 stars. It looks like a gold bar. Nothing denotes a product based on gold then having gold bar packaging! Let’s get to the goods from what I pulled.

Base:

Inserts:

Autographs/Memorabilia:

Design:

Some of you may like the design and others will hate it. I love it and think it looks great. I think you may only hate it if you haven’t held the cards live in your hands as they look great in person. The inserts look just as good as the base and I enjoyed all the gold themed inserts. The Gold Record is solid but I love the gold insert with the team ring up top in the corner and the year the player won the title. Finally, I actually like the use of sticker autographs in this product. I like how they used a gold background to give it that gold look and may even look best that way. The only thing I don’t like is the manufactured patches in this high end of a product. Meh.

Checklist:

The checklist is solid all around. You can pull anyone from some of the top rookies to Kobe Bryant and even some great Hall of Famers like I did. David Robinson! There are always a few duds mixed in there but I think overall you have a better chance at pulling something decent then you do not pulling something decent. Rookies, veterans, hall of famers, very good retired players…overall there is something for everyone in this product in all the insert sets. No complaints here as there are a ton of different hits for each player.

Value:

In my opinion, there are a couple of things that really hurt the value of this product. One being manufactured patches. Why would you put manufactured patches like that in a high end product like this? Sure they are gold threaded, but it’s just not the place to be putting those types of cards. Again, take the autograph off the cloth and I would like them a lot more and find more value in them. Secondly, plain game used cards. I received two plain game used cards. I believe in a product that is priced this high you have to guarantee at least one patch. Patches are the standard nowadays when it comes to higher priced products so this just needs to be guaranteed here. I don’t mind one regular swatch, but make one a patch.

Overall:

Some of you are going to completely hate me for my overall grade and some are going to agree with me. That’s only the nature of the beast with this product. If my camera wouldn’t have died taking photographs at the 3 on 3 Portland Trailblazers Street Jam, I would of showed you some of the reactions from people around the area whom I showed the cards to. Most were very impressed and some of the kids who were watching from a distance while I was taping were impressed too. I told them to meet up with me tomorrow and I’d give them some cards. I’m a nice guy. But am I being too nice with my review here? I really don’t think so. Despite the couple of things I didn’t like, I really found this to be a great and fun product to break.

As for the contest to win some cards here, I am going to combine it with my next review and have a super big contest for a bunch of cards. Stay tuned for how to win that!

This video was live from the 1977 NBA Champion Portland Trailblazers court assembled outside the “glass palace” known as the Memorial Coliseum in Portland, Oregon. Have fun.