Case break tentatively early this week (Tues/Wed)!

I don’t have a lot of time, so for now here is a listing of the hits, I’ll provide some commentary tonight or tomorrow. I have a unexpected case break to attend tonight! Here is the case hit box topper autograph.

Jersey cards;

Willie Parker
Ronnie Brown
Tony Gonzalez
Julius Peppers
Jason Taylor
Torry Holt
Maurice Jones Drew
Deuce McAllister
Jamal Lewis
Antonio Gates
Drew Brees
Marques Colston
DeAngelo Williams
Shawne Merriman
Champ Bailey
Donovan McNabb
Adam Vinatieri
Jay Cutler
Frank Gore
Joseph Addai
Larry Johnson
T.J. Houshmandzadeh
Alex Smith
David Garrard
Matt Hasselbeck
Ronald Curry
Santonio Holmes
Vince Young

The Willie Parker looked cool.

Autos;

Andre Gurode (redemption)
Nate Davis /100
Andre Smith /100
Albert Haynesworth
D’Qwell Jackson
Quentin Jammer
AJ Hawk
Jerod Mayo
Greg Camarillo
Jerricho Cotchery

Then these 4 nice ones

As I said, I’ll post more in depth about the case tonight or tomorrow. I also have a few buy backs I’m going to need help identifying!

While I’ve never hesitated to mention I know nothing about basketball, or basketball cards, Panini’s 2009/10 Court Kings has amazing potential. In previous posts I bickered at Panini for not having a higher end product for basketball collectors, and this seems to be their answer. While it isn’t a 500$ Exquisite like product, it is probably best to avoid that format.

Court Kings will be more like a Limited packout, with 4 hits per pack, 1 pack per box. Each pack should contain at least 1 autograph. There will also be 5×7 boxtoppers, 2 of which in each 15 box case will be autographed. There will also be a nice chase element, 120 redemptions for a 16×20 signed Kobe Bryant lithograph.

Now, the real reason I am excited about this product? It reminds me of Chronology. Which remains the only basketball product I have opened. Unfortunately this product will contain stickers, although not for all players. While stickers do suck, from the preview pictures alone, it seems like much more time was spent on design then previous releases.

For more information and pictures you can click here.

While I am a big fan of buying singles, wax busting is a sad destructive addiction, and its time to shoot up. Tomorrow I should be receiving a case of 2009 Philadelphia football that I will be splitting. I’ll be posting the results of the break here late Tuesday or mid day Wednesday.

While I’m not a big fan of breaking boxes, as the cost is usually too stupid, I was able to get a solid price for this case. I plan on putting together the base and SP set so I’m sure I’ll be looking to do some trading afterwards. Since I’ve stopped buying really any high end products, I’ve felt much more comfortable with my purchases, even larger ones such as this. I find there is much more value in a set product right now verse a 1 pack 10 second thrill.

Update: Case will be busted Wednesday, shipping delay

Normally I post a product release schedule each month, and have not done so this month. The reason being is, the companies never keep their schedule, so there isn’t much point. Instead, the section where those posts went, is turning into a page for my Jonathan Papelbon PC cards. I’ll still post my mail as it comes in, but this page in particular which can be found by using the tab in the top right hand corner, will always have up to date pictures of my Papelbon collection. I also will be keeping track of my personal want list here.

Want List:

2007 Upper Deck Black Green Lustrous Autos

2009 Ultimate Autos

2009 Topps Unique MLB Logo Auto

Still need any A&G autos

If you have a Papelbon you think I might want, leave a comment or email me at Jeff@Newcardsmell.com I’m just looking for autographs, patches, buttons, and laundry tags at the moment. The only rookie/prospect cards I’d be interested in are his 2003 Bowman Chrome refractors.

I finally got the last card in to finish this little mini set. When I saw these being pulled out of 2009 Ultimate I knew I wanted the quad, triple, and dual versions for my collection. I also wanted them in three colors for every single patch, which made this take a little longer then it could have.

The cards look great, my only complaint being Upper Deck’s use of such a soft paper material for the cards themselves. They seem to all have some minor dings due to it. It is essentially the same card stock used in SP Authentic patch autographs for those more familiar with those cards. I’m sure being soft makes them easier to manufacture but it does make the cards a bit more condition prone I find.

Anyway, in what seems to be a growing trend lately, my mini set cost me less then the price of a single Ultimate box. I think I’m slowly turning into one of those super collectors.

Well that got decided much quicker then I imagined. Essentially Upper Deck lost, with the known details of the agreement listed below.

– Upper Deck will pay MLB Properties more than $2.4 million (the entire amount in dispute) for Upper Deck’s 2009 debts.

– Upper Deck will pay MLB Properties a substantial sum of money for the unlicensed cards it sold in 2010.  The specific sum of that payment is confidential.

– Upper Deck has agreed not to issue any additional releases of infringing cards.  Last year it issued 15 baseball card releases and there are currently only three infringing releases that are in distribution in 2010.

– Upper Deck agreed it will not make any new sets of cards using MLB logos, uniforms, trade dress, or Club color combinations.

– Upper Deck also agreed it will not airbrush, alter or block MLB marks in future products.

– Upper Deck must receive approval from MLB for the use of baseball jerseys, pants, jackets, caps, helmets or catcher’s equipment in future products featuring players.

Details taken from the Beckett Blog.

My only real reaction so far is, Upper Deck got what they deserved. You can argue collectors are getting screwed, lack of competition, yadda yadda. It doesn’t change the fact Upper Deck breaks the law, a lot. Now they are finally paying the piper between MLB and Konami. Competition aside, I don’t want Upper Deck being portrayed as having anything to do with this hobby, they represent the multitude of shady dealers and online sellers than the values of honest fun collecting.

If those do Upper Deck in, I say good riddance. If you wanted to produce things for collectors, don’t break the law. Really, it is that simple.

We are nearing the 1 year mark of Panini buying out Donruss, so I thought I’d give my view/opinion on how that first year went for each of their sport lines in hope of seeing improvement/change/innovation whatever word you want to use.

Football

Unfortunately a lot of Panini’s football releases seemed like the same cards with minor changes. The excessive use of foil in nearly ever release on top of sticker autographs in every release made things mix together, not letting each product stand out on their own. Obviously not every release from every company will ever stand out on its own, there is only so many designs, concepts, gimmicks that can be thought of at any time, however, it appeared most of the football releases lacked any creativity or solid design concepts.

National Treasures was a clear step back from the previous renditions. While the amount of hits per box increased the price has decreased, which some might see as a positive. But, the price is decreasing from lack of demand. The cards seem a far cry from the 2008 designs which were extremely popular at a much higher price point. To be fair the 2008 draft class was infinitely more exciting to chase after, but that doesn’t mean the design has to go from high end to something that looks like it was pulled out of Threads.

There are of course exceptions, not every product was bad. The Limited die cut patch autograph set has been very well received, which to me, is a indicator that people want to see cards that seem creative. Also, the on card autographs for contenders were a great idea, but poor implementation. Too many autographs were rendered illegible by the background, or smearing ink. I’m sure/hope Panini learns from that mistake and comes back with a better designed on card contenders set next year.

Baseball

There unfortunately isn’t much to discuss involving baseball with Panini due to licensing, but they still released Elite Edition which is a very strong prospecting product. While it will never compete with Bowman for collectibility, it delivers a much higher bang for the buck, guaranteeing at least 5 more autographs for nearly the same box price. It also went the route of contenders, featuring the big names as on card autographs. It is also one of a few products that still features die cut cards as a way of signifying a parallel. Given how the product is formatted and its design, I think it is as strong as it has ever been.

Basketball

I feel a bit uncomfortable trying to break down Panini’s basketball lines because I’m not a basketball collector, so keep that in mind as you read this, this is a very uninformed opinion. I get the same feeling over their basketball lines as I do their football, a lot of things that feel the same. I also feel that they are missing out by not filling the high price point for basketball, now that Exquisite and Black are no longer on the market. A National Treasures basketball edition doesn’t seem like too ridiculous of an idea, yet the highest priced basketball product Panini has produced is still only retailing for 110$.

While I completely sympathize with economic times, there will always be different tiers of collectors and I hope they do not forget about the high end collectors and box breakers. Panini did score huge with signing Kobe Bryant to a exclusive, as I’ve seen people busting their products just for the chance to pull his autograph, all of which are on card no matter which product it is. This was a very well thought idea and it is paying off in publicity they have received using Kobe at different events, such as this years All Star game.

Customer Service

I was going to keep this to their products but I felt this needed mentioning. While I have had a lot of bad things to say about their products over the past year on this blog, one thing I have never had a problem with is their customer service. They have, by far, the best and easiest to use online customer service site. They also tend to mail out things a bit faster then the other companies from my experience.

Final thoughts

Overall I think for being their first year, Panini did OK, not bad, not great. There are a lot of ways they can improve that have been pointed out incessantly by other bloggers, and hopefully Panini listens to some of those points. While some bloggers are straight up biased in their dislike, there are still many good points that Panini can learn from to increase their already strong brands.