Tag Archives: basketball

Preview: 2011-12 Panini Gold Standard Basketball

  By Sports Card Blog | May 27, 2012 - 7:26 pm |
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One of my favorite basketball products from last year returns for it’s sophomore season, and season 2 won’t be disappointing. From solid gold cards, to gold pieces, and some fantastic autographs and memorabilia cards…well you’ll just have to see for yourself.

Each 10-card box of this product will all gold themed once again. It will feature one 2011-12 Draft Class Redemption Autograph, two additional autographs, and two memorabilia cards. Yes, I know Panini is doing redemptions for the rookies, however, isn’t that better than no rookies at all?

Besides the solid gold cards and the gold embedded cards, Panini will feature cards with autographs from the NBA’s 50 Greatest Players known as Greatest Graphs, Hall of Famers in the Marks of the Hall autograph subset, 14k Memorabilia Prime insert featuring a nice piece of memorabilia from one of the 14,000 point scorers in NBA history, and other great goodies like the Bullion Brand Logos featuring some HUGE swatches from the jersey tags on the player’s jerseys.

As I said, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed by this the second time around.

This product is set to release in July and will probably retail around $200, the same price as last year. Check out a couple links on Panini’s blog for more information and photos!

For a comparison, check out our review of 2010-11 Panini Gold Standard basketball.

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Review: 2011-12 Panini NBA Hoops Basketball

  By Sports Card Blog | March 22, 2012 - 11:59 pm | ,
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NBA Hoops is back after years in hiatus. One of basketball collectors favorite sets of all time is re-imagined and back in 2012, with all the modern additions you would find in today’s trading card products. At a very cheap price and a couple of autographs per box, the product looks like a winner for both set collectors and hit collectors.

With buybacks of rookies autographed from players like David Robinson, the hits can be very nice for a lower end product. Also, with the insertion of rare and hard to find inserts and SP’ed cards, the value seems to be higher.

So Panini sent us over a box to review. Want to see what’s inside and our thoughts? Your waiting has ended.

Design:

As I’ve said time and time again throughout various low end Panini products, they know how to design low end product. This one is no different. A great design utilizing the design of “the paint” on the basketball floor, most every picture features an action photograph of your favorite players in action. Basketball collectors have been looking for great action photos like these, and Panini doesn’t disappoint. Another great aspect of this product is the insert designs that Panini had collectors vote on which one they preferred. A great promotion for this product that I hope to see again.

Checklist:

Don’t get me wrong here, the checklist is really solid. You pretty much have your starters and main reserves for each team in the league. You have a number of legends of the game as well. But the one reason I took off practically an entire star is the lack of rookies. There are no rookies in this product. I understand the lockout and the issues there. The lack of photography and time to get those rookies made. But there are cards of players in their new uniforms and that is where I have trouble believing that rookies couldn’t get made. Maybe they didn’t want to make only a partial number of rookies from this year? I don’t know, but the lack of rookies really cripples the checklist in this product. I’d also mention the multiple cards of the same player, but that was probably because of the lack of rookies.

Value:

At $2 a pack for a hobby product you are getting some pretty good value here. With 2 autographs per box, you definitely get what you really want as a collector, and that’s ink. But this is also a great product, and better yet, affordable product for set collectors. The base set is a decent size for collectors and with the price tag where it is, it appeals to all different types of basketball card collectors. That’s a good thing. The inserted buybacks of original rookies is great, the fact that they are also autographed is awesome. Panini does a great job with low end products and this is no different.

Overall:

Overall, this is a fine product by Panini. Again, low end collectors and Panini are a great match up with their creation of lower end products. The design is solid and a great remake of a classic Hoops brand. The base set and inserts all look great, plus who’s to complain when the collectors voted on an insert design? The checklist is good, but the lack of rookies really cripples this product from being a slam dunk. The value is of course there, $2 a pack for hobby or $1 a pack for retail. A couple autographs in a hobby box too for the hit collectors. This product gets both kids and adults appeal which is great for the hobby.

As always, a big thank you goes out to Panini for providing this box to review. You can visit them at their official website, blog, or Twitter.

Now, for the cards.

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Review: 2011-12 Panini Preferred Basketball

  By Sports Card Blog | March 21, 2012 - 12:01 am | ,
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2011-12 Panini Preferred basketball is the first high end offering from Panini during this shortened NBA season. It features four cards per pack/box with 3 autographs and one booklet card. At $200 it’s quite a gamble, but the product is a nice mix of a bunch of products that Panini would have put out this season if it wasn’t for the NBA lockout.

It features some of it’s higher end cards from a couple products, including the collector favorite Silhouettes from Crown Royale. We got our box in for review and can show you what kind of amazing cards you can pull from this product, as we pulled a sweet patch autograph in which you will see below the review.

If you want to see some other possibilities in this product, check out our official preview of 2011-12 Panini Preferred basketball after checking out this product review. Until then, check out what we pulled and you can possibly win in future contests here!

Design:

Trying to rate the design on this product is interesting. You have a bunch of different designs that would of all been in separate products had Panini had a full season of products. So while there is no real underlying theme to this set, the cards they chose to pack out in this product are some of their best designs in the respective products they used. For instance, the Silhouettes patch autograph we pulled is absolutely beautiful and a beautiful patch with an on-card autograph. The booklet card looks great, but wish they included autographs in booklets in the product. Otherwise, I’d be impressed whether these were in separate products but it’s cool they are combined into one.

Checklist:

The one thing I always enjoy about Panini products is the mix of current players and NBA legends. The one thing I don’t like about this product is the lack of rookies. I buy the excuse of the lockout a little bit, but I’ve seen some cards produced of players in their new uniforms without an issue so the rookies could of been made. Other than that, I received a nice second year player autograph, a current budding star, and a Hall of Famer for my autographs as well as a great mix of retired players in my booklet.

Value:

I actually got great value out of my box and I really think a lot of boxes will provide some pretty decent value. The three autographs is great with the chance for low paralleled autographs and solid booklet combinations, despite there not being autographed booklets. The checklist helps too with the great number of veteran players and retired players whom collectors do like to search for. At $200 a box, it may be well worth the gamble considering what Panini is trying to do this season with their products. It’s definitely fun to open as well.

Overall:

I shouldn’t be surprised on how good this product can be considering the types of cards they are putting into it, but it’s a nice pleasant surprise to get a $200 product and get some pretty good value in it despite getting only 4 cards in the box. The design is solid and uses some of the best designs over a number of Panini products. The checklist is very good despite the lack of rookies, and the value looks like it could actually have some good value across the entire run at average. I’d have to see more of what others pulled, to see if this box was better than average, but while I didn’t get big names except for the redemption, I think I still just about came out even.

As always, I appreciate Panini sending out this product for review. You can find them on their official blog, Twitter, or website.

Now, for the haul. Not shown: Hakeem Olajuwon Autograph Redemption #/10

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Preview: 2011-12 Panini Past and Present Basketball

  By Sports Card Blog | March 14, 2012 - 11:10 pm |
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As I stated lats night, today we would feature the next Panini basketball product after Preferred…and that is Past and Present basketball.

If you’ve been waiting for a product that finally has some rookies in it, this one is it. Although they come in redemption form, you will get your fix of rookies in this product. Not only will they feature rookies from 2011-12, 2012-13 will be included as well. While I don’t have complete details on it yet, rest assured I will keep you rookie collectors updated.

But besides the rookie redemptions, this product will be an interesting mix of both vintage and modern day card designs. With new card designs and technology being used in insert sets like Breakout, Changing Times, Fireworks, Raining 3s, you will see some of the new technology at work.

There will also be 2 different vintage style designs as well in this product, which makes me believe that Panini’s original plans for this season included a vintage designed product as well as this new technology. However, the lockout played a role in mashing them together, kind of like Preferred.

On May 9th, 2012, you will find this product in stores. At 20 packs per box and 3 autographs with 1 memorabilia card, the hit collectors will be excited with the 3 autographs. (Myself included) You will also find a large number of inserts as well as you do with most sports card products nowadays, as well as some short prints.

For now, you can check out the official Panini Peek here.

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Preview: 2011-12 Panini NBA Hoops Basketball

  By Sports Card Blog | January 22, 2012 - 4:09 pm |
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While it’s the second product to come out for the NBA season from the folks at Panini, it is surely going to be the most widely opened product of the short season. 2011-12 Panini NBA Hoops basketball is being brought back from the dead and will feature everything you loved about the set in the past, mixed with everything you love about cards today, and a few surprises.

The set is there. 279 cards to fill out the base set that features a ton of players on each roster. Have a hard time finding cards of your player in most sets? Hoops will probably have it. For instance, I’ll be looking for some Nicolas Batum. There will also be a special “Champions” base card to round out the set that is kind of a chase card, making the full set a fun challenge to complete.

Something you love about today? There is a 179 card autograph subset also in this set surely to make you go crazy looking for autographs. While each hobby box will feature two autographs, you may get lucky and pull one from some of the top players in the game. You may find a Kobe Bryant, Blake Griffin, Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, or Dirk Nowitski autograph lurking in your box. You may also find some original buyback autographs of autographs on card from the 1989-90 NBA Hoops original set.

Did I mention yet that the price for this product is about $2 per pack in hobby form? Yeah, we’re liking that here. Get ready on March 3rd, 2012, for your NBA Hoops revival.

Make sure you visit Panini’s blog for the official preview and stay tuned for more information about this product there.

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