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Review: 2010-11 Panini Totally Certified Basketball

  By Sports Card Blog | July 14, 2011 - 4:21 pm | ,
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Now, I don’t know what makes this “totally” certified compared to just regular certified, but this year’s product looks pretty good compared to years past. 2010-11 Panini Totally Certified basketball is back yet again with great improvements from last year as well as some new additions, mainly the reveal of Panini HRX video trading card technology. While these are extremely hard to pull, they are some of the best looking and include the first autographed video trading cards to hit the market.

While our box did not contain such awesomeness, we were able to see what really make 2010-11 Panini Totally Certified basketball stand out this year and that is the color, some on card autographs, and some nice looking game used pieces. Want to see what we got? The video provides some information, but when I started I thought the camera was runing, but it wasn’t. So I was halfway through when I noticed it, but reviewed the cards pulled. But look no further than below:

Base:

Parallels:

Game Used:

Autographs:

Design:

Actually, I really enjoy the design. I’m usually not huge on foil board type designs unless it is done really well, but I believe this is actually done really well. The starburst effect in the background looks great on the base cards, I just don’t understand the need for the abstract lines in the back. I see that the effect changes when the line is there, but couldn’t you do it without the abstract lines? The lower ones look out of place, but I wouldn’t mind just the triangle design. I’m not sure what they did with the finish on these cards but it feels pretty cool. It feels kind of grainy in the foil area but the player actually is raised up on the card and gives it a cool depth feeling.

Checklist:

While I can’t find a list of the veterans who actually signed in this product, the overall checklist is actually very solid. There are 35 different rookie autographs to pull including the top picks in the draft which is not an over kill like other sports. The base set is kind of big for being limited, but the 150 cards presents a challenge to set builders and player collectors if you want all the parallels. The Certified Potential autographs list is great and the names on the game used jerseys is very good. Don’t forget about the HRX video trading cards! Making them hard to pull was a great strategy and keeping them limited in the future is something I would recommend.

Value:

Honestly, I wasn’t sure whether to give this a 3 or a 4. As I say, I always round this to the nearest whole number, so we’ll just say it’s around 3.6. The hit per pack thing is great and it has it’s place in the hobby. But a box of this product is nearly $100 right now. I ended up with nearly 1/10th of the base set, 6 or 7 parallels, and 6 “hits”. I would like to see just a little more content in these packs. The hits can stay as they were solid, the insert per pack is good enough for me, but maybe add in another base card or two. It would take at least 10 boxes to build a full base set and that is being generous. The names on the hits are solid which is nice compared to other Panini products with sometimes too many retired players. Just add another base card or two and I’d be very happy.

Overall:

Overall 2010-11 Panini Totally Certified basketball gets 4s across the board from me. The design is very nice with a few odd things here and there but it really is something to see for yourself in your hands. The foil board looks great and the jerseys are done well. Just the autograph space on the rookie autographs looks a bit small but the nice big jersey piece is there too. Gotta take the bad with the good there. The checklist is solid overall and not killing you with retired players. The HRX makes it’s long awaited debut and even though I did not pull one, they look great. Finally, value wise I would like to see maybe another card or two added to the pack. Maybe it’s just me on that one and maybe I’m over reacting a bit. But it’s still not bad.

Now you get to see my ugly mug do a horrible job at opening it on video. It’s such a bad video, I forgot to press play or something when I started. So it’s a review of the half the box I had opened plus me opening the second half of the box, oops, sorry.

Now as for the contest part, I have in my hands the Brandon Roy Totally Blue insert numbered to 299. The winner of this contest will be the person closest to guessing the serial number without going over, Price is Right style. Please also include at least one thought on the product in which I reviewed. The winner will receive the Danny Granger jersey and the Dejuan Blair jersey. Good luck!

A big thanks again goes out to Panini America for providing this box for me to review.

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Preview: 2011 Panini Timeless Treasures Football

  By Sports Card Blog | July 12, 2011 - 3:00 am |
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Timeless Treasures is coming to football!

With Panini just posting more and more images and other great stuff about 2011 Timeless Treasures football I had to write the preview post for this product a little bit early. But first I need to show off this little graphic and get your opinion on something:

Okay, you see that little promo picture up there? You see those mini cards in that promo picture? I’m 99% sure they don’t have mini cards in this product. How cool would those mini cards actually look if they were actually inserted into the product? Sure we only see mini cards in baseball products but just imagine the black and white or sepia like mini with a design around the edges to make it look like the edges are rounded or there are creases in the card but in actuality it is as mint as can be. See those cards in that graphic? I want those cards to be real. If you think so too, please make sure you comment that you want to see those made. There is still time to get them in! My rant is done…

Okay, now let’s get into what is really in this product. This product  comes with 5 cards per pack and 1 pack per tin. I love the use of tins as boxes as it adds another cool collector’s item. Just had to mention that. There will be 3 autographed or memorabilia hits per tin with a guarantee of at least one of them being an autograph. Everything will numbered to 499 or less when it comes to hits. And of course, 2 base cards.

For such a small amount of cards per pack it has a huge base set at 225 cards to collect for just the base set consisting of 100 commons, 25 legends, and 100 rookies. Again, Panini is packing another product with a ton of rookies which is both good and bad at the same time.

But I’m sure you want to know what kind of hits you can pull from this. Again, Panini is returning the on-leather autographed embedded cards. I put these into the same realm as manufactured patches and I just don’t like them. I’ve heard about problems with bleeding from these cards over the course of time so that can’t be very good and I hope they at least fixed that issue. Along with those, you will be able to find some rookie, veteran, and retired shield autographs as well which is always a hot seller and a collector favorite.

You will also be able to find Hall of Famers Marshall Faulk and Deion Sanders on special Hall of Fame 2011 cards. Speaking of Hall of Famers, you’ll be able to find cut autographs of greats like Jim Thorpe and Red Grange in this product as well.

But I’m skipping to my favorite thing in this product which Panini has showcased recently. Game Date Souvenirs. This is something that collectors have been asking for awhile. Game day photography coupled with the actual game used jersey from that game and printing when it was used on that same card. Finally, we know when it was used, how it was used, and what awesome things happened during that game. Imagine pulling a jersey card from the game in which you attended your first game or a patch card with a ton of dirt when your favorite player made a game saving tackle. This is very cool and is something every company should be doing and Panini is leading the way with this product. I think it will definitely excite even those who aren’t huge into game used pieces just knowing more about the memorabilia itself. As I said, Panini recently showcased some of the jerseys they just got in for this product and you have to check them out before they cut them up. I’m seeing some gross, dirty, sweaty jerseys being put into these cards.

Overall, I think it looks like a great product, with or without my addition of wanting mini cards. But I still think they’d be awesome. If you want to see some more images from this product you need to visit Panini’s blog post about premiering 2011 Panini Timeless Treasures.

This product is set to release on September 7, 2011, for a retail price of…I don’t know. Let’s take an educated guess based off of last year’s basketball product and say a little less than $100? I’ll stick with that until I hear something different. But it’s probably pretty close.

How was the base card design, actually designed?

Take a look at the Legends subset from the official Panini blog.

Check out these sweet beat up looking inserts. Whether or not I had any input on the creation of these inserts is still up in the air and I’m waiting to find out.

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Who Really Won The Video Trading Card War

  By Sports Card Blog | July 11, 2011 - 7:20 pm |
2 Comments

First, sorry for the delay! I’ve been busy training and getting some certifications, permits, and such to help me get some sort of job. These will definitely benefit me which in turn benefits the blog. More money in my pocket means more boxes I can break! I think that’s a good trade off, don’t you think?

Anyway, happy Monday! And boy am I tired.

But what is awesome about today is we are finally able to see some of the results of what people are paying for video cards. And honestly, didn’t we all know from the beginning who would win this video card war? Upper Deck had the first video card on the market, the Evolution, but proceeded to fail to give these cards any sort of value besides them being kind of hard to pull, just regular case hits and easily searched by dealers or collectors. The first ones sold didn’t do too bad but right now you can have them for $30-$40 bucks a piece.

But just as I called it when Panini announced their HRX video trading cards I knew Panini would win this battle. Why? Better collectibility. Upper Deck was so caught up with trying to get video cards out on the market first they forgot the key ingredient to make these really want to be collected by collectors. What did Panini do that Upper Deck didn’t? Autographs and rarity.

Firstly, HRX cards are about 1 in every 6 cases of 2010-11 Panini Totally Certified basketball. Rarity is important and with 51 total video cards for each of 4 players, you will have a hard time finding these. With 11 of them being autographed including a 1/1 version, this adds a new layer of collectibility to those video trading cards.

Upper Deck could of had the upper hand if they waited just a little bit and got some autographs slapped on those cards. Instead, Panini’s HRX video cards are selling through the roof on the secondary market. The first Kobe Bryant autographed HRX video trading card sold for $1,000! Blake Griffin? Over $850! And that guy Kevin Durant? Just north of $500. Even the unsigned versions are getting decent money because of the rarity. I don’t think any of the Upper Deck Evolution video trading cards reached heights like those and I expect those numbers to stay higher than the Upper Deck Evolution video cards.

Panini HRX easily wins hands down in the first ever video trading cards, but I can assure you that Upper Deck will be back to the drawing board and will be adding autographs to these cards in the future. Which company will create the first autographed plus memorabilia card? What will they do to improve on the first generation of video trading cards? With secondary values achieved by the Panini HRX, I don’t think these will be going away anytime soon. Do you want to see what these cards look like? Panini announced a world premiere of revealing of the finished HRX video trading cards ready to be delivered to your door if you’re lucky enough to pull one so you definitely need to check that out!

I just noticed another blogger posted about this today as well so many sure you check out Card Geeks Blog and their thoughts on Upper Deck Evolution vs. the Panini HRX video trading cards. Let’s hope my plans for an article tomorrow aren’t the same as his! That would be awkward to have two days in a row.

Now tell me, which ones would you rather collect?

or

Want to see more autographed HRX cards?

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Contest Results Show #2

  By Sports Card Blog | July 10, 2011 - 3:04 pm |
2 Comments

Here we are for Sports Card Blog’s Contest Results Show #2! We are giving away some fabulous prizes this time around thanks to Panini America for allowing me to review their products and give away fabulous cards from the break. So make sure you thank Panini America for their generosity and tell them you want me to review more products. The more products sent to me for review purposes, the more cards I can give away randomly and fill up the Wheel O’ Awesome.

Applaud Now.

End Applause.

Okay, enough of the shenanigans. Everyone wants to know who won. Well I have done the amazing witchcraft of recording what I saw when I used the Random.org randomizer to determine who won. Hopefully, the camera did not steal my soul. Here are your results for this fine grouping of 3 awesome contests and it turned out to be 3 separate winners!

And for those unable to view the YouTubes, here is a winner list:

Luxury Suite prize pack: Dawgbones of Dawgbones, a Phillies Phan!

Donruss Elite prize pack: Adam Horner

Score prize pack: BA Benny of BA Benny’s Baseball Card Buffet

Both Dawgbones and Adam Horner have the opportunity to substitute their prize for a spin on the Wheel O’ Awesome with prizes such as autographed 8x10s (1 left), Fathead Tradeables, autographs, game used, inserts, or base lots. Personally I would take the prize pack as you’ll most likely be getting more but it’s up to them.

I will now allow the opportunity for the winners to accept their prize in the comments below and provide a speech for all to read. Otherwise, I’ll just email them on the email provided.

Big thanks to Dawgbones of Dawgbones, a Phillies Phan! (who actually won) for being the only blogger to pimp the contest and win a bonus entry. That bonus entry helped lead him to victory in the Luxury Suite prize pack!

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Quick Contest Pimp!

  By Sports Card Blog | July 9, 2011 - 12:40 pm |
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I have a busy day lined up for me since it’s really the last day I get to hang out with my fiancee before she leaves for Montana for 2 weeks to do some schooling. So all you get out of me on this Saturday is a contest pimp.

My own 3 separate contests are running until tonight! So get your comments in on my recent reviews. View all the details on my 3 contests here. Prizes are awesome and I thank Panini America for their support of this blog.

I’ll have two posts tomorrow. One announcing the winners and something actually useful. But most of you will want to know the results of the contests anyway because the cards are that awesome. Good luck to everyone!

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